Origin of kála-ázar, etc.

179

physical condition of the country in the district of Rungpore,
will not be inappropriate. He writes—

       "The bheels, the ever-reeking repositories of putrefying organic
matter, had not their contents diluted or overflown into rivers, as is
the case with other years; but the thick slime from the heat got
thicker and thicker, exhaling the offensive gases in a concentrated
form" (which put into the more precise, but less picturesque, language
of modern science, might be paraphrased: exhaling the malarial
organisms in an intensified form). "The soil, too, by scanty rain and
alternation of rain and sun, had its deposite of organic matter set
into putrefaction, which, if the rains were plentiful, would have been
washed off into large bodies of water before doing harm."

       To continue, in 1874, the rainfall was again very difficient
in the early part of the season, but a heavy fall took place in
September and October, which brought the total nearer to the
average than in the preceding or following years, and the
mortality from fevers was slightly less in the district of
Dinajpore. In Rungpore, however, the deaths from fever
were much greater than in 1873, the mortality in the selected
areas, which furnish the most correct figures, being
23.61 in 1874, as against 11.45 in 1873, which, allowing
for improvement in registration, still leaves a large margin
of actual increase. The fact that the seasonal incidence
of the disease extended over a much longer period than
usual, shows that it had attained to epidemic intensity
(this being, as I have shown in Section VI, characteristic
of the epidemic malaria of Assam), while the fact that
there was a marked decrease in the fever after the heavy
rain in September, illustrates still the further dependence of
the increased fever-rate on the previous low rainfall. The
following quotation will suffice to prove these two occur-
rences:

       "The fever, which had commenced in May 1873, earlier than in
former years, and increased in intensity to December, reducing the
people to the lowest state of vitality from repeated attacks, and
inducing a state of spleen and liver affections, and finally, desentery
and general dropsy during the sharp cold of December and January
1874, continued to prevail up to the rainy season of the year under

2 A 2