Origin of kála-ázar, etc.

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later on when they became familiar with the epidemic which
was exterminating them, to such an extent that the Deputy
Commissioners of this district to this day complain that when
they visit such and such a village, they have to go over from
one to three square miles of ground in order to find all the
houses.

      Still more important is the fact that the place Bengal
Kutta, which appears to have been attacked at just about the
same time as Karaibari, is 50 miles distance from the last-
named place, a distance which would have taken at best four
or five years for the disease to spread over if it travelled at
the same rate as it subsequently did in other districts; so that
the disease must have broken out independently at these two
places. Moreover, Bengal Kutta is just about opposite to the
Jatrapurghát on the other side of the Brahmaputra river,
which is one of the main lines of traffic between Rungpore
and the foot of the Garo Hills, while the other main line is
between Chilmari in Rungpore and the Karaibari or Mohen-
draganj district. The full significance of these facts will be
seen later in this section.

      It is evident then that up to 1875 there had been no loss
of revenue due to the ravages of the epidemic malaria, first
called kála-ázar in the Garo Hills, but that subsequently to
that date it spread steadily through the district. Moreover,
it began in two different places, 50 miles apart, and both in
direct communication with the Rungpore district. This made
me think that kála-ázar might possibly be a continuation of the
epidemic of malarial fever of the sixties and seventies in Lower
Bengal, which is generally called the "Bardwan fever." I
found, moreover, that the first two medical officers who investi-
gated the outbreak, namely, Mr. McNaught and Dr. Dobson,
both state that the Garos always said that the disease came
across from Rungpore, and not out of the hills themselves. It
must be borne in mind that, except for the central range
which runs up to a height of 4,000 feet, the Garo Hills are
very low, and between them are patches of flat rice land, so

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