Annual sanitary report of the Province of Assam.

  • Assam
Date:
[1914]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual sanitary report of the Province of Assam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/52 page 13
    The figures show a decrease as compared with those of the previous year, and it is satisfactory that the upward tendency manifested in the mortality figures of the previous two or three years in Nowgong and Goalpara, with regard to which some misgivings were entertained, has been arrested. Six travelling dispensaries were at work in the affected areas for varying periods during the latter part of the year, and although their work was in some cases inter¬ rupted or delayed owing to resignations or withdrawals among the staff owing to the exigencies of the war, these institutions are serving the purpose for which they were intended, vii., that of obtaining information as to the behaviour of the disease, and of treating sick persons and bringing medical aid to remote villages. The provision of pack-transport has proved successful in ensuring the mobility of the dispensaries independent of local conditions, but considerable difficulties have been experienced with the staff who appear to find living under canvas uncongenial, although all necessary provision for their comfort has been made. During the year 342 visits were paid to kala-azar patients and 4,231 cases suffering from other diseases were treated, of which 1,137 cases were diagnosed as malaria, 640 as suffering from minor complaints of the digestive system and 405 were cases of skin disease. Our operations aimed at the control of this disease in the Golaghat area, which were considered necessary on account of the proximity of this area to a previously uninfected population in an area of economic importance, were continued with satis¬ factory results. The Deputy Sanitary Commissioner in reporting on these operations, which are under his personal control, writes :— “ To sura up, it appears legitimate to say that the disease has now practically ceased to exist except in the Dumjooria and Batiporia Lukumani area, where it is by no means of an acute type. The recurrence in two families removed to new sites is disappointing, but the reason is quite clear. To build a new house within 10 yards of the plinth of the old one is unsatisfactory when tea-garden experience has shown that it is necessary to move a much greater distance. Whether the site infection is conveyed through a crawling insect with a short range of locomotion, or whether it consists in the progressive fouling of neighbouring jungle providing a manner of transmission analogous to that of ankylostome infection, in either case removal to a site sufficiently far to prevent the migration of infected insects and substituting a different patch of jung’e as the cover to which the family resort for purposes of nature, must be necessary to be an efficient preventive of the disease. '3 26. Dysentery and Diarrhoea. Death-rate per mille. Districts. 1904-13. 1914. 1 2 3 Cachar • • 4 • •• • • • • 4 4 2*51 1-63 Sylhet # • • • •• M* 4 • • • « • 1-98 1-97 Goalpara • • • • * • ••• |«« • • • •44 •40 Kamrup M* III, ••• ••• • « t 132 •97 Darrang • • • • • • • • • Ml «4# 4-22 3-36 Nowgong # • • 444 444 444 ... 2-11 1-80 Sibsagar • • # • • • 4f • • * * • #44 4 25 4*95 Lakhimpur • • • • • • • • • • 4 4 • • • 4-84 3-69 Total 444 2 42 2*23 The provincial death-rate during the year under report is almost the same as the decennial average. As usual, the rate was the highest in the three Upper Assam Valley districts—Sibsagar, Darrang and .Lakhimpur.
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