SEPTEMBER, 1948 ]
JOHN
B.
POLDING
117
Punjab and North West Frontier Province tests have been disappointingly few. It is carefully to
be considered, therefore, whether the results shown in the figure are, on this account, invalid. Leaving
aside for the moment the serological test, reports of actual clinical abortions in villages are un-
doubtedly received voluntarily in the south-east, whilst in the north-west it is impossible to extract
an admission from proprietors that such an occurrence is other than very rare. Now the villagers
in the south-eastern tracts are often very orthodox and sometimes shy and ignorant too and it seems
unlikely that they would describe an occurrence unless it actually happened. Moreover, village
headmen will more or less willingly produce some 15 to 20 animals alleged to have aborted. So
that the common finding of a high proportion of strongly positive blood tests amongst these 'aborters',
together with the occasional isolation of a distinctive Brucella variant, surely corroborates the
villager's statements.
In the north-west, however, the inhabitants are often well-informed and capable zemindars,
yet they deny that abortion is common, resist blood sampling and in other words cannot be bothered
with a subject the importance of which has evidently not been made plain to them by actual losses.
Such tests as can be made hereabouts reveal only occasional doubtful, or more rarely, weakly posi-
tive reactors.
The inference is that the incidence of village infection as shown in Fig. 12 is, as far as it goes,
correct; nevertheless, whilst it can be generally accepted that village infection is rare in the north-
west and common in the south-east, it is of course highly probable that more centres of village infec-
tion remain to be discovered, especially in the extreme east, centre and south-west. Lastly it must
be always borne in mind that it is not suggested that Brucellosis is totally absent from village cattle
in the north-west; it is only stated that the incidence appears to be insignificant.
A detailed survey with reference to climatic * regions
A detailed description of the occurrence of Brucellosis, province by province, would be of scant
general interest. So, because it is believed that the disease occurs with a certain relation to climate,
a synopsis of its local incidence in regions of similar climate and character is given in Table I, while,
for the interest of local workers a detailed place-to-place survey, together with notes on climate are
interpolated in small print at the end of the sub-head.
TABLE I
Regional distribution of Brucellosis in India, with reference to climate
Region
Baluchistan,
North-
West Frontier Pro-
vince, Rajputana
Punjab, United Pro-
vinces, Bihar
Bengal, Assam . .
West Hyderabad, Berar
and West Central Pro-
vinces
East Central Provinces,
East
Hyderabad,
Orissa,
Madras,
Mysore, South
Bombay
Central and North
Bombay
Character of region
Desert and arid hills .
Cultivated plains .
Deltaic cultivation and
forest hills
Cultivated plateau and
forested hills
Richly-cultivated coas-
tal belts, with hilly
interior
Cultivated coastal belt,
with hilly interior
Annual rainfall
Uni-seasonal, 5-20 in.
Uni-seasonal, 15-40 in.
Bi-seasonal, 50-100 in.
Uni-seasonal, 25-50 in.
Tri-seasonal, 25-50 in.
Uni-seasonal, 25-100 in.
Brucellosis in
Farms
Minor epidemics or
absent (farms infre¬
quent)
Moderate
endemics
(farms abundant)
Moderate
endemics
(farms infrequent)
Minor endemics (farms
infrequent)
Minor endemics or
absent (farms infre¬
quent)
Major or minor ende¬
mics. Major epi¬
demics
(farms
abundant)
Villages
Negligible
Do.
Not known
Negligible
Abundant
Negligible
* The climatological data used in this section are taken from the Imperial Gazettier of India, Vol. XXVI, Oxford 1931.
Clarendon Press.