DISEASES TRANSMITTED BY THE INDIAN SPECIES OF
           TICKS AND THE POSSIBILITY OF THEIR PREVEN-
               TION THROUGH BIOLOGICAL CONTROL*

                                                BY

     M. SHARIF, D.Sc. (PANJAB),PH.D. (CANTAB.), F.L.S. (LOND.)

                                        Entomologist

                        Haffkine Institute, Parel, Bombay

                    (Received for publication on 17th May, 1938)

                                    INTRODUCTION

COMPARED with what is known in other countries about tick-borne
diseases, very little appears to be on record in India. As to the amount of
loss due to tick-borne diseases in India there is no record. In a country, where
no importance is attached to the loss of human life through diseases trasmitted
by arthropods, one should not expect any consideration for cattle and other
domestic animals. This article is not intended to be an exclusively original
contribution, but it is put forward in the hope of enlisting further active in-
terest in these parasites and the diseases which they transmit in India. India
offers a rich field for investigators to study the various aspects of tick-
borne diseases which have hitherto remained unsolved, and which are unques-
tionably of vital importance to the stock-breeders.

The tick fauna of India as in other tropical and sub-tropical countries
is very rich and is represented by eleven genera and about seventy species.
They are found on all kinds of domestic and wild animals like mammals,
birds, snakes, lizards and tortoises, and they also attack man. Economically
nine species listed in Appendix A are of considerable importance. They
attack, the domestic animals in India in large numbers and thus they are the
chief live-stock pests. In addition there are twenty-six species listed in
Appendix B, which have been found on domestic animals but nobody knows
as to the importance of the rôle they play in the economy of domestic animals
in nature. Very little is known as to the life-history of even the commonest
species and the rôle they play in the spread of diseases in India.

The number of Indian species is larger than that which is recorded from
the United States of America, where about forty species have been listed so
far [Bishopp, 1935]. In the latter country the tick problem attracted
attention as early as the last decade of the nineteenth century ; with the
result that a large number of workers took interest in ticks, and with the
increase of the knowledge of them a progressively large number of tick-
borne diseases began to be known. Keeping in view, the ecological conditions

* Read at the Silver Jubilee Session of the Indian Science Congress Association at
Calcutta, 1938.

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