23
51. In 1838 an anonymous writer in the Asiatic Society's Journal in a
description of the island of Bombay, remarks that—
"The island of Bombay from an unwholesome swamp has bean
converted into a very salubrious residence
the superabundant trees
have been cut down, the marshes filled up
"
That the writer connected the improvement in the health of Bombay with
the filling up of the swamps is certain, but in view of the fact that a great
portion of the island at the present day is still below sea-level and must have
been subject then as now to flooding and the formation of large numbers of
pools of stagnant water, this explanation is doubtful ; and from what we learn a
few years later it may be questioned whether there was much reason to suppose
that such a change as that recorded by the writer had been effected. Thus
between 1340—185 ) we learn that there were terrible miasmata in the Fort and
Esplanade, And Douglas in "Glimpses of Old Bombay," page 39, speaking of
Colaba, says—
" The suspicion that it was unhealthy in the year which followed,
took tangible shape in 1840, when it was announced to the dismay of all
concerned, that Colaba having been pronounced by medical authorities a
most unhealthy station for European troops is to be forthwith abandoned
as a military station
And in 1841 a Medical Board found that a deadly
malaria was caused by the mangrove trees on the western shore and the
sea washing thereon twice in twenty-four hours."
The writer adds—
" Colaba would soon have justified its nam.3 of Old Woman's Island
had not the two Napiers Charles and Robert steppad in successively to
avert this disaster. The spade and the blade were the remedies."
Some years later Dr. Hewlett speaking of Bombay prior to 1835 stated
that "the City had an unenviable raputation for unhealthiness " and in
1874 the Health Officer of the City refers to "the putrid salt marsh to the
windward of the town,* undrained, uncared for,
horribly offensive, unutter-
ably foul
"and remarked that this condition had remained unabated for
thirty years.
52. Although such evidence as exists does not point to malaria having
been particularly prevalent in Bombay, it is certain that the disease must have
been present to some extent even in the earliest times. And this view is born3
out by facts gleaned from later records. Thus Morehead in speaking of the
type of malaria met with in different parts of India mentions that of 243 cases
in Bombay, 221 were quotidian, 27 tertian and 5 uncertain. At a later date
Vandyke Carter working in Bombay was the first medical man in India to
confirm Laveran's discovery of the malaria parasite. Carter records finding
Laveran's organism present in 13 per cent. of the cases examined by him, so
that malarial infection was undoubtedly present to an appreciable extent at
that time ; and as Carter only noted the presence of pigmented organisms it is
probable that a much larger proportion of his cases were malarial in nature than
his figures show. Unfortunately few recorded observations relating to the
incidence of malaria in Bombay since Carter's time appear to exist ; and
though in 1901 in a special report regarding malaria and anopheles mosquitoes
it was asserted that, until the public generally were educated to appreciate the
fact that malarial fevers were the cause of most of the sickness in the City,
little could be done to reduce the disease, no evidence regarding the prevalence
of the disease, or its local incidence, appears in the report.
53. In 1901 a Committee of eleven members of the Corporation was
appointed to deal with the question of the presence of anopheles mosquitoes in
the City and the measures to be adopted against them. Their report was
submitted to the Corporation in 1902. No investigation regarding the presence
of malaria was undertaken, but the Committee recommended that steps should
be taken to destroy all kinds of mosquitoes.
54. The only information available regarding the incidence of malaria
among the population before 1903 is in the form of mortality returns and statistics
of admissions to hospitals and dispensaries ; but in that year a valuable paper
The italics are mine.—C. A. B.