Annual report of the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India.

  • India. Sanitary Commissioner.
Date:
[1908]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    97/348 (page 75)
    (2,674), and diarrhoea (2,130). The death rate among coolies from all recruiting areas showed an increase. Of a total of 733 gardens 63 were brought on the unhealthy list, (i.ewith a death-rate of over 70 per mille among the garden population as a whole, or among the act or non-act population taken separately, atl number of deaths being not less than ten.) In the preceding year 28* of the 731* gardens were declared to be unhealthy. There were 75 deaths, including 50 from cholera, among coolies journeying to the Assam Valley, against 713 in the previous year. No death was reported among coolies in transit to the Surma Valley. 80. In view of the extraordinary epidemic of malarial fever in these provinces , „ . in the autumn of 1008, details regarding the rainfall United Provinces. . . . . & are of special interest, and it is unfortunate that a general sketch of the conditions must always fail to convey a correct idea of what took place in particular localities. In the second week of January there was favourable general rain throughout the province, and in the end of the month a good deal of rain fell in the districts in the north and west. Early in February there was again fairly general rain, but from then until the monsoon the rainfall was slight in amount and local in character, and the weather was hotter and drier than usual. The monsoon was not fully established until the 1st July in the west of the province and not until the middle of the month in the east. The rainfall in August was in defect in the east, and in excess in the west of the province. In the first week of September there was light or moderate rain in all districts, and this was the last rain that fell in the Agra and Meerut divisions. In the more-easterly districts more rain was received in September, and there were a few falls in October. November and December were drier than usual. The number of births registered during the year was 1,786,702, equal to a birth rate of 37'46 per thousand, which is 3*72 per thousand less than in 1907 and 5*63 per thousand le?s than the quinquennial mean. The cause of the decline, which, compared with the mean, was common to every district in the province, except Hamirpur, Banda, Jalaun and Jhausi in the south and Azamgarh in the east, is stated by the provincial Sanitary Commissioner to have been probably a result of scarcity and high prices. The highest district rates were 61*28, 59*99 and 48*78 per thousand, registered in Jhansi, Hamirpur and Jalaun, respectively, and the lowest were 27*36, 27*07 and 25*12 registered in Bara Banki, Bahraich and Dehra Dun. The recorded births were in excess of the deaths in only eight districts, Almoraand Garhwal in the north, Hamirpur and Jhansi in the south, and Gorakhpur, Ghazipur, Ballia, and Benares in the east. In Dehra Dun the percentage of male to female births was 121*96, and in Garhwal it was 99*90; in the other districts the percentages ranged from 116*36 in Muzaffarnagar to 104*12 in Almora, the provincial mean being 109*11. The number of deaths registered was 2,514.761 and the death rate reached the figure, unprecedented in these provinces, of 52*73, or 9*27 per thousand higher than in 1907, and 12*43 m excess °f the quinquennial mean. Cholera and small¬ pox were unusually prevalent, but 78 per cent of the deaths were registered under the heading “ fever,” to which was due the death of one person in every 24 of the population. The death rates were over 70 per thousand in six of the districts, namely, Budaun 78*02 (fever death rate 68*63), Muttra 76*98 (70*31), Bareilly 76*85 (67*31), Hardci 73*52 (59*30, Farrukhabad 71*45 (60*32), and Morada- • Revised figures.