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enable me to complete the enquiry within the allotted time. Taking all these circum-
stances into consideration, and specially the condition of my jail which required my
devoted attention, I trust Government will be pleased to absolve me from any charge
of apathy on the subject that I would otherwise be liable to.
I have travelled over most of the places in which the disease prevails, and
visited several villages and examined 378 cases. By this means I have formed a
pretty accurate idea of the circumstances under which leprosy exists in this district.
I will now take up the subject under three heads as prescribed in paragraph 8 of
the Resolution of the Government of India dated the 5th March 1875 :
I. The extent to which leprosy exists among the people in the district.—The
prevalence of the disease in Rungpur was incidentally noticed by Dr. Liveing in
his Goulstonian lectures for 1873.* The census returns of 1872 show the number
of lepers in this district to be 2,120 males and 182 females. Now in the enumera-
tion reports none but the confirmed lepers could have found their way, and this I
found to be actually the case. Making the original census papers of the villages,
now lying in the Collectorate of the district, as my guide, in search of the afflicted
localities, I found that for every confirmed leper entered against them three in the
earlier stages of the disease on an average were left out. Then again a large
number of women afflicted with the disease eluded the notice of the census enu-
merators ; I could not accurately ascertain the proportion of women thus left out,
as I am certain the cases of young married women were not shown me by the
people. If I take the female lepers to be 1 to 2 of male ones, I cannot over-estimate
their number, for out of the 378 lepers I have taken notes of 125 were women. I
assume, then, from the census figures that on the day of enumeration of the popula-
tion of the district there were 2,120 male and 1,060 female lepers, or a total of
3,180 lepers in the advanced stage of the disease. Now if we add to that three
times as many persons who were in the earlier stages of the malady, and did not
declare themselves lepers before census enumerators, we have a total number of
12,720 individuals who were afflicted with leprosy in January 1872, or about 6 per
1,000 of population.
If we now see how this number is distributed over the district we shall come
to the next head of our enquiry, viz.—
* See page 31.
II. Is the disease localized ?—Following the census papers I have worked up
the proportion of lepers in each thannah as shown
in the accompanying statement,* and classified
them into four tracts having different degrees of prevalence in the following
manner :
First, the tract of extreme prevalence, consisting of two thannahs—Phoorun-
baree and Barobaree—lying between the Rivers Dhurla and Teesta, and having
lepers to the proportion of 11·2 per 1,000 of population.
The second tract in which the prevalence of the disease is above the average of
the district, viz., 7·3, is a large portion of country almost surrounding the tract of
extreme prevalence, and extending South and Bast towards the whole border of the
River Brahmaputra as far as it lies in this district. This tract comprizes the five
thannahs of Dimla, Sadoollapur, Ulipur, Chilmaree and Bhowanegunge, the three
last-named thannahs bordering that large river and lying at the site of union of the
Rivers Teesta and Dhurla with the Brahmaputra.
The third tract having a prevalence below the average of the district, viz., 4·8,
and is composed of the thannahs of Durwanee, Jaldhaka, Nisbettgunge, Maheegunge
on the South and East, and the isolated thannahs of Nageshuree on the North-East
and Gobindgunge on the South. The two last-named thannahs almost partake of the
character of the second tract. The four first-named thannahs again form that bit
of country lying between the purely alluvial soil forming the first and second
tracts and the hard latente country on the West and South.
Fourth, the tract of extreme freedom from the disease has a proportion of only
2·08 per 1,000, and is chiefly composed of the hard laterite portions of the district.
It will thus appear that the disease is distributed over the whole district, and
that certain portions of it in point of its prevalence present a remarkable con-
trast to others.
These tracts of extreme prevalence and comparative immunity present a
marked difference in their physical features and in the character of the people
inhabiting them, as also in the circumstances under which they live. And in order
* Elephantiasis Græecorum or true Leprosy, by Robert Liveing, page 127.