17
primitive castes, such as the Dublas and Varlis, tend to have the highest
Spleen Rate of all.
Had it been possible to have dealt with this factor of the standard of
living alone, and to demonstrate its influence by comparing the Spleen Rate,
say of considerable numbers of Christians with that of considerable numbers of
Dublas living under identical conditions, instructive figures could have been
obtained. But in Salsette it is another factor that mainly determines the amount
of Malaria in a given number of people of any class, namely, the physiographical
situation of their villages. Indian Christians in Salsette tend to live in villages
in non-malarious areas by the sea : Dublas and Varlis tend to live in hamlets in
malarious areas on the lower slopes of the hills. That when, as an exception,
Indian Christian cultivators live in a particularly malarious area, they suffer as
badly as anyone could, is shown by the case of the entirely Christian village of
Vikhroli, where the Spleen Hate was 95 per cent, and where the proportion of
very large spleens was particularly high.
On account of this impossibility of comparing different peoples living
under sufficiently identical conditions no attempt at classification by race,
religion or caste has been made, and this fact must simply be allowed for in
considering the value of the Spleen Ha te as it was taken.
As in other places in India, the tendency of urban areas to be remark-
ably free from Malaria is strongly manifested in Salsette. This tendency is apt
to be slightly exaggerated in a Spleen Census of mixed urban and rural areas,
from the fact that, without very special measures, such as house-to-house visita-
tion, one is almost wholly dependent for the Spleen Census in towns on the
examination of school-children, as the street children, among whom the percentage
of enlarged spleens might be expected to be higher, cannot be collected in the
ready way in which they usually are in villages. But, allowing for this, the
tendency is remarkably evident. Exceptionally great facilities for the propaga-
tion of the local carrier of Malaria, such as there are in the malarious wards of
Bombay Uity, appear to be necessary, otherwise a densely-populated urban area
is the last place where Malaria is to be found.
The table shows that out of 1001 children of the Bándra-Dánda
Peninsula, of whom by far the most were born and bred in Bándra bazaar, only
one was found on examination to have enlargement of the spleen. Making all
allowance for the accessibility of Bándra to the sea-breezes the figures are very
remarkable.
Still more significant, however, is the case of the Thána bazaar. The
Spleen Rate here, which was taken by the Civil Surgeon, Major Kukday, I. M. S.,
was only 3.7 per cent, in the midst of a tract of country the intense malariousness
of which may be seen by a single glance at the Spleen Map. Only the thick
of the bazaar of Thána is non-malarious : the suburbs, such as Navpada, are
severely malarious.
The one phenomenon that is brought out most prominently by the map
and its figures is the evident relation of Malaria to the range of hills shown on it.
In other parts of India also the tendency has been observed for malariousness
to increase as the hills are approached. Thus, in one investigation the percent-
age of children found to be infected with Malaria in the environs of Calcutta
was nil ; further and further north it was 12, 25, 40, 55, and at the foot of the
Himalayas 72. And not only in Salsette but anywhere in the Thána District one
finds it to be a fact well-known to the villagers, and capable of ready demon-
stration by the taking of a Spleen Census, that it is the dwellers on the slopes of
the hills, or near their bases, that suffer most severely from Malaria.
In this connection the mainland part of the map, on the east side, may
profitably first be studied. The remarkable feature of this part of the country,
where the Parsik range of hills towers above the creek, is the line of villages
along its sides that have been completely, or almost completely deserted on
account of Malaria. (Villages thus deserted are underlined in red on the
map.) In places down by the creek-side, such as Itáva and Iravli, the descend-
ants of the former inhabitants of those villages are still living. All the
H 629—5