Nos. 693, 693A L., 14TH MAY 1908.
GOVERNMENT OF MADRAS.
LOCAL AND MUNICIPAL DEPARTMENT.
READ—the following paper :—
Letter—from Major W. WESLEY CLEMESHA, I.M.S., Acting Sanitary
Commissioner for Madras.
To —the Secretary to Government, Local and Municipal Department.
Dated—the 2nd April 1908 .
No.—1363-S.
I have the honour to forward herewith the report of the Superintendent, the
King Institute Guindy,
on the work fulfilled in the Bacteriological section during
the past year (1907) with the following remarks :
—
(1) There was an increase in the routine work of the institute, the number of
specimens dealt with having risen by 810 as compared with the previous year. It
occurred mainly under plague, water analysis, malaria, etc.
Certain suggestions for rearranging the working of Bacteriological department
of the institute have been submitted to Government separately. The water analysis
work will require alteration, so that the work may partake of the nature of research
and to enable standards to be fixed. This appears to be a great want in this country.
(2) The educational work has proceeded satisfactorily, bat I wish to point out
that no Assistant Surgeons attended the course this year. This matter will also be
brought to the notice of Government elsewhere.
(3) The results obtained by Captain Christophers in his researches into the
action of various pullicides are very important. His conclusions appear to be (1)t
hat crude oil emulsion is very little used as a pullicide —this is confirmed by the
work of Dr. Hossack who obtained very similar results, (2) that a locally-manufactured
emulsion of ordinary cheap kerosine with sunlight soap is—if it is carefully
made—a cheap and thoroughly efficient pullicide. If a pullicidal action is all that is
required ,then I consider that at present there is nothing better than Captain Christopher's
emulsion A We are not told if this mixture has any action as a bactericide if it
has any, it is probably a weak one. An ideal disinfectant for plague work should
have both pullicidal and bactericidal action. Consequently, a mixture of cyllin and
petrol is probably superior in actual practice in spite of the increased cost. It is
undoubtedly useful to know of a good pullicide and disinfectant, but as to whether it
is any use in spraying a house constructed with mud walls and possessing the usual
bamboo and tiled roof is very much open to doubt.
(4) The report on the malaria work by Assistant Surgeons Seethapathy and
Srinivasa Ragavachari is of interest, but it is far from complete. These officers have
certainly established the fact that in the villages they inspected malaria of a bad is type
rife, but they have not ascertained the species of anopheles that carries the parasite,
nor the special breeding place of this insect. These are really very important points
and lie at the foundation of all remedial measures. It is most improbable that
Anopheles Rossii is the agent. One point that should never be omitted in malarial
investigations is observations on the level of the sub-soil water in the badly-infected
areas. If this is constantly high it means that the puddles dry up very slowly and
that every small depression contains some water. If these conditions obtain through-
out the year malaria sooner or later becomes very virulent.