Distribution of the disease in relation to its spread.

141

between the Garo and Khasi Hills and the Brahmaputra
river, but now it was able to wander over a very much wider
area. It is all the more unfortunate that there are so few
details on record as to the order in which the different parts
of the district were invaded year by year; but from what I
have been able to find out in the course of my inquiries,
there is no doubt that the following is broadly the way in which
it has spread. The disease first appeared in some villages of
the Jagi outpost, near the Kamrup boundary, in 1889. In
1890, it had spread somewhat further westward, and at the
end of this year it also appeared in Nowgong town. In 1891,
it had reached Nakhola and Roha, and was more prevalent in
Nowgong town. In 1892, Nowgong town suffered severely,
and the villages and mauzas all around it were affected;
and by 1893, it had spread widely over the district, although it
is still noted to be attacking new villages. It was not until
1894 that it reached the Silghat, or north-eastern end of
the district. The general distribution of the disease was such
that the larger places were first attacked, that is, before many
of the smaller villages between them suffered, and these
were subsequently filled in as it were. This seems to always
be the way in which the affection spreads, but no general move
takes place from one part of the district to another until the
great majority of the villages of the first part are badly affected
by the epidemic, and then it will begin to creep insensibly
into the next part of the district, the same order of proceedings
being repeated.

         In the case of the villages along the Kulung river, which form,
for all practical purposes, one continuous straggling community
extending throughout the whole length of the district, and
which must accommodate a very considerable proportion of its
inhabitants, the disease seems to have spread along them in
a steady stream, dying out in the first-affected portions as it
passed on, and its march being occasionally rendered some-
what irregular by large places on the road or bank of the
river, such as Nokhola, Roha, Nowgong itself, and Pura-