166

Report on Kála-ázar.

      In order to try and throw some light in these questions,
I visited the Garo Hills, and examined all the administrative
reports as far back as 1870, at which date they were com-
menced, with the result of obtaining much valuable informa-
tion which, together with a subsequent and complimentary
examination of the Bengal Sanitary Reports of the seventies,
has resulted in a complete solution of the origin of the epi-
demic.

      It was mentioned in the first section of this report that
three different statements as to the probable date at which
kála-ázar was first noticed in the Garo Hills, are to be found
in the earliest description of the disease, showing that this
point was not clearly made out at that time. A more definite
idea can, however, be derived from the fact that the Garos
themselves called the disease "Sirkari disease," or "Saheb's
disease," not because the Europeans suffered from it, for up
to that time they had entirely escaped, but because they said
the disease was unknown among them until after the Sahebs
took over their country. Now although Tura, the head-
quarters of the district, was occupied in 1867, the greater part
of the country was not taken over until after the expedition of
1871-72, so that the epidemic was apparently not known until
after this date. On the other hand, Colonel Maxwell, who
was in charge of the district in 1881—83, writes to me—

      "Elderly Garos have often told me their grandfathers died of the
disease, which, however, was not so virulent as it has lately become."

      Now it is obvious that, as the disease is only a very intense
form of malaria, the Garo people for generations past, indeed,
as long as the physical conformation of the country has been
in its present state, must have died of chronic malarial disease
indistinguishable, individually considered, from that subse-
quently called kála-ázar, but it does not follow that the disease
has been present in an epidemic and communicable form all
that time; in fact, Colonel Maxwell himself states that it was
not formerly of so virulent a type.

      That is the true explanation of the apparent discrepancies