MUNICIPAL
DEPARTMENT.
SANITATION.
DARJEELING, THE 8TH JULY 1909.
RESOLUTION No. 637T.—San.
READ—
The Report of the Sanitary Commissioner, Bengal, for the year 1908.
Read also—
The Report on Vaccination in Bengal for the year 1908-09.
Lieutenant-Colonel F. C. Clarkson, I.M.S., was in charge of the office of the
Sanitary Commissioner, Bengal, throughout the year.
2. Climatic conditions.—The rainfall during the monsoon period was
below the normal throughout the province, especially in Bihar, and it was also
irregularly distributed. It ceased much earlier than usual, and during the
winter months, except for a few local showers, there was no general or
adequate fall. The winter rice crop suffered severely in consequence.
3. Births and deaths.—The year 1907 showed an excess of both births
and deaths as compared with that preceding it; but during the year under
review, while the ratio of deaths again increased, that of births showed a
falling off in comparison with the figures for 1907. The number of births
registered in the province (exclusive of Angul) was 1,823,716, or 36.09 per
mille of population, in comparison with 1,905,425, or 37.70 per mille, in the
preceding year. In the opinion of the Sanitary Commissioner, the decrease
in the number of births was due to the prevailing high prices of the principal
food-grains, which re-acted upon the vitality of the people. The early part
of the year under review was also unusually unhealthy. The total number
of deaths reported was 1,948,513, or 38.56 per mille, against 1,906,192, or 37.72
per mille of population, during 1907. The average of the preceding quin-
quennium was 1,795,532, or 35.53 per mille. As in the previous year, it is
reported that, owing to the difficulty in obtaining the ordinary food-grains,
the poorer classes had recourse to less suitable forms of food, with a consequent
deterioration in their general standard of health, but the explanation is of too
general a character to be of material value. In comparison with other pro-
vinces, Bengal stood below the Central Provinces, Punjab, United Provinces,
Eastern Bengal and Assam, and the North-West Frontier Province in the
matter of the recorded birth-rate, while only in the United Provinces and
Punjab was a higher death-rate returned. Within the province, the most
unhealthy Divisions during the year were those of Orissa and Chota Nagpur,
where cholera prevailed extensively. The Sanitary Commissioner brings to notice
that, while the figures for the seven years 1902—1908, excluding mortality
from plague, show that the public health in towns has always been better than in
rural areas, this difference in favour of the urban death-rate has been increasingly
marked during the last four years, a result which is attributed to the better
sanitary arrangements obtaining in towns. It is admitted that the progress in
urban sanitation is slow, but it is claimed that it is very perceptible. Con-
trary to the usual experience, the greatest unhealthiness prevailed in the first
seven months of the year, and not, as ordinarily, in the last quarter. Colonel
Clarkson attributes this result to the excessive prevalence of cholera in the
early part of the year, induced by bad food and water, while to the destruc-
tion of mosquito larvæ during the abnormally dry months preceding the
monsoon is ascribed the decreased severity of fever during the latter portion
of the year.
4. The experiment for testing the accuracy of the registration of vital
statistics, which was started in 1906 in parts of the Burdwan district, was
continued throughout the year under report, with the result that, out of 2,616