8. The annual mortality from fevers shown in Chart 1 of Appendix A
Shows a conspicuous rise in 1917 as compared with 1916, The total mortality
with its relation to the fever mortality and the autumnal exacerbation are
demonstrated in Chart 2 of the same Appendix. The autumnal fever deaths of
1917 were more than double the number that occurred in the same period
of the previous year, in which the incidence of fever was fairly high, while
they were four times more than in 1915.
III.—METEOROLOGICAL FEATURES OF THE PUNJAB FOB 1917.
9. During the first two months the rainfall was either wanting
altogether or much below normal ; the month of March was relatively drier
S the fall defective though the precipitation exceeded that of : the months of
January and February. The rainfall in April was, though late, abnormally
high. The month of May was noticeable for a number of dust-storms and
thunder-storms and the rainfall was much above the average. The monsoon
Broke as early as the 2nd June and spread to the whole of the Province ; and
there were general rains on the 2nd ,3rd, 7th, 17th to 20th and 29th of June
fond the total monthly rainfall was 1.15" above the average. The precipitation
in July was about the normal in the south-west, but was more marked
in the north and east. The rainfall was far in excess generally during the
months of August and September, the total for the whole of the province
being in excess of the normal by 4" or 75 per cent. in the former months, and
8 1/4" or 306 per cent, in the latter. During the first week of October there were
numerous showers in the north and east of the Province and again from the
24th to the 26th of the month, amounting for the month to 3.03 " which was
2.82 " above the average. The month of November was unusually rainless.
In December winter rain was of frequent occurrence and depressions were
more marked than usual in the north and east. The total annual rainfall was
very heavy, being as much as 16.93 " in excess of the normal.
The humidity of the atmosphere was low in February and March,
it bordered on the average in January and July, but was high in the months in
which malaria was present in epidemic form.
The maximum temperature in the month of February was above the
normal by 5 1/2, but was lower than usual by 3° or more from April to June and
again from August to November. The minimum temperature remained prac-
tically about the normal but for the months of April, May and November,
when it was about 4 below the average.
10. Thus it appears that the monsoon was unusually heavy, with ex-
cessive, but not a continuous rainfall, and that the humidity was distinctly
high during the autumnal months of the year. These factors provided clima-
tic conditions favourable to the prevalence of malaria in an epidemic form. It
was the heavy rainfall late in October more marked in the eastern districts,
which probably minimized the severity of the epidemic of malaria in this part
of the Province ; in the district of Gurgaon, however, it had the contrary effect
as it caused flooding of the country : while being so much further south there
was little relative reduction of temperature. In the eastern districts too there
was no general flooding from the Rivers ; so except in some localities where
drainage was inefficient, as in the Amritsar District, the water nowed off ra-
pidly taking with it no doubt innumerable quantities of anopheline larvae.
To the west and south-west this late fall of rain had much the same
effect as in Gurgaon—it caused local flooding which lasted for a long time, but it
was not sufficient to cause any marked fall in the temperature with the result
that there was a late and very severe epidemic of malaria.
IV.—DISTRIBUTION OF ENDEMIC MALARIA.
11. The epidemic through which the Province has passed, though not
as great in its effects as in the last previous general epidemic in 1908 when
there were 697,058 deaths from " fevers " and a mortality rate of 34.66, was
yet sufficiently severe and only the districts of Simla, Kangra and Rawalpindi
escaped.