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(7.34 per cent.), and other causes (.58 per cent.). The remarks of the Sanitary
Commissioner and the Calcutta Health Officer regarding infant mortality in
that city are interesting and no doubt generally sound. The Lieutenant-
Governor does not, however, concur in attributing the excessive mortality to
bad midwifery; for although this is no doubt an important factor in infant
mortality, skilled medical aid both in hospitals and from private practitioners
is much more easily obtained in Calcutta than elsewhere. Some part of the
difference may be accounted for by better registration. The facts stated in
paragraph 7 of the report indicate how defective registration is elsewhere.
6. To enable a comparison to be readily instituted between the year
under review and the preceding ten years, and also to ascertain how far the
statistics throw light on the progress of disease, the Lieutenant-Governor has
caused tables to be prepared showing the average annual mortality from
cholera, fever, small-pox and dysentery and diarrhœa in the quinquennial periods
ending in 1897 and 1902. These tables are interesting and are published
along with this resolution for general information. It is to be noted in regard
to them that the second quinquennium was coincident with an extension of the
system of daffadars or head-chaukidars, one of whose duties is to bring to
light any failure on the part of a chaukidar to report a birth or a death. The
returns for the later years are therefore slightly more accurate. The effect
of this is to make the results appear somewhat less favourable than they really
are; for any increase in the mortality is exaggerated., while on the other hand
any improvement is minimised and made to seem less than is actually the case.
The Lieutenant-Governor does not propose fully to discuss these statistics in
this Resolution; but there are certain features of them which seem to demand
attention.
7. In the case of cholera the quinquennial tables shew that in the later
period the average death-rate throughout the province as a whole was lower
by no less than one-fifth. The reduction was shared in by 38 out of 46
districts and by 7 out of 9 divisions. The fact that the decrease in the
virulence of this disease is not only great but widespread points unmistakeably
to an improvement in the sources from which the supplies of drinking water
are drawn. This is no doubt to be attributed to the awakening of the public
conscience in regard to the necessity for pure drinking water, of which the
long continued agitation on the subject affords sufficient evidence.
8. The results brought out in regard to fever are no less striking. They
may be summed up in the statement that there has been a movement of the
disease from ths west to the east. One of the most gratifying results brought
to light by the tables is that the number of deaths caused by fever in Calcutta
has been reduced by considerably over one-third, a result which must be
principally due to the sanitary reforms which have been carried out. The
statistics of rainfall were compiled because it was anticipated that they might
be expected to throw light upon the movement of this disease eastwards; and
the tables giving a summary of the results by divisions confirm this anticipation;
for it will be seen that the five Divisions in which the mortality has decreased
are those in which the rainfall has been least. In Bengal proper and in Eastern
Bengal it is possible that the effects of the excessive rainfall may in some
places have been aggravated by the earthquake of 1897. The interference
with river navigation in Mymensingh attracted attention at the time; and
one of the drainage schemes at present under consideration has been rendered
necessary by the elevation from this cause of the bed of a river in Rangpur.
No evidence has however been adduced to show whether similar facts have
been noticed elsewhere.
9. The fact of gravest import brought into prominence by the statistics
is the great and widespread increase in the mortality from small-pox. The
death-rate shows a rise in the second quinquennium in 38 out of 46 districts,
and in 8 out of 9 divisions, and has more than doubled in the province as a
whole. The area most severely visited by the disease in that period comprises
the Orissa Division, where the death-rate exceeded five times the Provincial
average, and the districts of Singhbhum and Midnapore, where it was
respectively nearly four and five times that average. The persistence of the
epidemic in the tract in question is attributed to the prevalence of the
practice of inoculation in the neighbouring Native States. The Health Officer