2
the improvement which can be effected by employing the powers permitted by
law is afforded by the town of Asansol, where the reported birth-rate rose
from 6.02 per mille in 1915 to 21.89 per mille in 1916 owing to a number of
prosecutions being instituted for neglect to register vital occurrences. The
Sanitary Commissioner rightly observes that—
"Unless Municipal Commissioners show an active interest in the matter and take
proper steps to ensure correct registration, the vital statistics of Bengal towns will
continue defective."
During the year under review the Governor in Council impressed upon
municipal authorities the necessity for discharging their duties in this matter,
and instructions were issued to Commissioners and District Officers that
during their inspections they should examine the adequacy of the arrange-
ments made for registration.
5. Fever.—The total number of deaths reported from fever was 909,880
compared with 1,064,159 in the previous year, and was considerably below
the annual average of 986,443 returned for the five years 1911-1915. This
head of the statistics includes deaths from various febrile diseases or ailments
accompanied by a rise of temperature ; and it is impossible to discriminate
deaths due to fevers of malarial origin.
The decline in mortality is attributed by the Sanitary Commissioner
to heavy seasonal rainfall and to the effects of inundations in many places,
a view in which he is supported by a consensus of opinion among Civil
Surgeons. In Birbhum, which in 1915 returned the highest mortality from
fever, and in which malarial fever was said to have raged with unabated
fury since 1912. the disease is reported to have been conspicuous by its
absence as the result of unusually heavy rain and extensive inundation.
The decrease in mortality was more marked in rural than in urban
areas, but in the towns the fever death-rate (6.93 per mille) remains less
than a third of what it is in rural areas (20.97 per mille).
6. Anti-malarial measures.—The ordinary anti-malarial measures con-
ducted by Government and local bodies were continued throughout the year,
the only change being that the expenditure usually incurred by Govern-
ment in deputing itinerant Sub-Assistant Surgeons was devoted to the free
distribution of quinine through the District Boards in districts in which
malaria was rife. The distribution of quinine to school children in certain
areas in the Burdwan Division resulted in a considerable increase in the
percentage of attendance.
Towards the close of the year a beginning was made with three out of
four schemes designed by Dr. Bentley as experiments in anti-malarial opera-
tions. These schemes are to be carried out in areas with varying physical
conditions, so that it may be possible to predicate what measures are likely to
be successful for the prevention and mitigation of malaria in different parts of
the Presidency. Two of the experiments are to be made in the deltaic tracts,
viz., one in a rural area in the Burdwan district and the other in the town of
Jangipur in the Murshidabad district. The Sanitary Commissioner describes
these schemes as follows :—
'' In the Burdwan and Jangipur schemes the idea is to take in the silt-laden waters
of the Damodar and Bhagirathi rivers, respectively, during the floods so as to reduce what
is called areas of mosquito-breeding edges by converting a large number of small pools
into a big sheet of water, and at the same time to enrich the soil by allowing the silt to
deposit on agricultural land. By constructing a series of regulators and sluices, it is
arranged to control the flood water, so as to allow only a sufficient quantity that may
benefit the crops and not drown them ; and at the same time only the silt and not the sand
may be deposited on agricultural land—a special method technically known as 'Bonifi-
cazione.' By this method it is also contrived to flush out old insanitary tanks and ditches,
and in course of time to silt them up."
7. The basis of the third experiment is a system of subsoil drainage,
which has been successful in Panama and the Federated Malay States, but
has not been attempted in Bengal in connection with anti-malarial opera-
tions. This experiment is to be made at the Meenglass tea estate in the
submontane region in the district of Jalpaiguri. A fourth will be carried out
on a colliery situated at Singaram in the Burdwan district, in the rolling
upland country which covers a large area in West Bengal. In these latter tracts