Resemblances between Assam and "Bardwan Fever".

187

I hope, however, to be able to show in the next section how
this problem, both in the case of the "Bardwan fever" and
"kála-ázar" which was insoluble in the, from the scientific
point of view, dark ages of a quarter of a century ago, can
now be easily explained by the light of mordern bacteriology,
although it will not be capable of complete demonstration
until the malarial organism can be cultivated outside the
body in laboratories. The evidence as to the communicability
of the Bardwan fever must be first given. It is unnecessary
here to discuss the many theories which were put forward to
account for this epidemic by purely local alterations of the
country affected, either by a hypothetical wave of "gradual
elevation of the fever tracts from east to west," or an
equally unproved" river elevation above the intervening land,"
while the various river and railway embankments to which
were attributed the outbreak, not only were totally inadequate
to affect the large areas involved in which they were but as
mole-hills, but they were crossed in all directions by the
advancing wave of fever without any relationship whatever
to their influence on the drainage of the tracts. It may
safely be said that such obstructions as did exist were far too
local to account for a tithe of the area affected, while the one
theory which approximately covers the area involved, namely,
that which attributes it to the successive elevation of the
rivers from Jessore in the east to those of Midnapur and
Beerbhoom in the west, is not only totally without any proof
that such a thing took place during the time of the epidemic,
but is entirely negatived by the sequence in which the
various areas were affected, bearing no accurate relationship
to the supposed cause.

      On the other hand, there is abundant evidence that the fever
travelled steadily along "lines of communication," subject,
however, to the controlling influence of another factor, namely,
a soil on which many malarial fevers naturally flourished.
This last all-important factor has been already illustrated, and
it has been shown that to this alone was due the cessation of

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