Public Health And Vital Statistics, 1909: India
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Extracted from:
THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA
THE INDIAN EMPIRE
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF HIS MAJESTY'S SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA IN COUNCIL
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1909
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
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Condition in india as affecting the individual
THE general state of the public health in every country depends on the measure of adjustment of the relations of the f individual and the race to the environment : the more complete and con- tinuous the adjustment, the greater the longevity. The tendency of European civilization is to give man more and more com- plete control of his surroundings, whereas in India these are actually and relatively stronger, more capricious and unreliable, than in the West, while the individual is less resistant and adaptable. These influences have moulded the moral and physical character of the people and their civilization ; and a brief reference to some of the salient features of the situation will tend to elucidate the vital statistics, as well as to explain some of the peculiar difficulties of the problems they disclose.
Conditions regards the individual, the main general results of the in India as affection marriage customs are those to be expected from the absence of the indi- free selection and from endogamous restriction : viz. increase Ower o f transmitting characteristics (' prepotency '), adeterioration of physique l , lessened resistance to disease, and,
Early marriage
Early marriage possibly, some relative impairment of fertility. The almost . un j versa i custom of marriage at puberty implies that practically all the immature adolescents of every generation have an equal opportunity of propagating their kind ; and there is none of the salutary elimination effected in the West by the celibacy of large classes. The general average product must be lower ; and apart from the greater tendency to disease, inherited and acquired, the duration of life is affected in another way. For there is probably a direct relation between early marriage and 1 The result of 29,000 observations on healthy prisoners in Bengal showed that 60 per cent, were between 5' a" and 5' 4" in height ; 13 per cent, were below 5' a", and only 07 per cent, above 5' 8". The average weight of the healthy Bengali peasant was shown to be 109 Ib. (7 stone n lt>.). In Bombay the physical standard is even lower. (Buchanan, Indian Medical Gazette, October, 1897.)
the duration of the reproductive functions, and the premature strain on the latter tends to their earlier cessation. The climacteric is advanced, with all the corresponding results of earlier degeneration, and we thus obtain a more rapid vital cycle involving premature senility. As regards the individual, as will be seen later on, an enormous sacrifice is also incurred in the loss of maternal and infant life. On the other hand, the rapid succession of the generations, probably five or more in a century, is favourable to the process of adjustment to an environment that is subject to constant changes : we may see the results in the rapid recuperation of the people after famine and epidemics, and possibly in the relative immunity they possess to some of the chief causes of mortality.
Defective nutrition
With respect to nutrition, it cannot be doubted that the quality and nature of the food of the majority leaves much to be desired, and on this the measure of vital resistance largely depends, while the quantity available appears to influence the birth-rate in a marked degree. These combined effects are strongly emphasized in times of scarcity and famine, with con- sequent radical modification in the number, the vitality, and the age constitution of the population. Under ordinary con- ditions, the essential proteid (nitrogenous) element available is largely diminished by waste in all vegetable food, and primitive methods of cooking and digestive debility add to the loss. These disabilities are greatly enhanced in sickness, when bulky, dry, and ill-cooked food cannot be taken, and this is a factor in the heavy mortality and the economic loss from prostra- tion. Finally, poverty, of which sickness and mortality are perhaps the chief causes, has a direct effect on the resources in food, clothing, and housing, and on the standard of comfort, and so of * resistance/ while it affects detrimentally the power to achieve measures of amelioration.
The social environment ,influence of rainfall
Coming now to the general environment, its special characteristics may be briefly indicated under three heads : religious custom and moral, social, and physical. The whole tone of religious fl uen ce of thought, with its philosophy of fatalism, is against the indivi- religion dualistic self-assertion necessary to success in the struggle for existence ; it is opposed to co-operation for civic ideals ; and it promotes indifference to life. Evidence of this is seen in the now suppressed practices of the sacrifice of widows (satt) and female infanticide, and in the treatment of women in child-bed. Disastrous effects on a larger scale frequently follow on the congregation of vast numbers at places of pilgrimage, where the rites involve overcrowding, exposure, and the consumption of unwholesome, if sacred, food and water. The duties of daily life, limited in their application to the individual and the family, are ordered and performed as religious rites which the British Government is pledged to respect as long as they do not outrage the moral law ; and herein lies one difficulty in securing the observance of the sanitary ordinances which have occupied so large a place in the Statute Book of recent years. The caste constitution of society, if justified in the circum- stances of its origin and in many of its results, imposes a rigid bar to free competition and to the development of civilization. Again, many of the conditions of social life are largely the result of the anarchy and insecurity of life and^ property that prevailed anterior to British rule. This, with the climate and the water-supply, has determined the insanitary structure of the dwellings and their arrangement in aggregates, while the seclusion of women of the better classes has also had evil effects on the race of the natural leaders of the people. There has been little, if any, adjustment to the new conditions which are the outcome of the pax Britannica, while the most important of these conditions, operating on the cumulative effects of religion and custom, has resulted in an enormous increase of population. This has led to extraordinary density over great areas, and to overcrowding, to which the development of in- dustrial enterprise has greatly contributed in many large centres, while it must be remembered that an overwhelming proportion of the sickness and mortality is caused by specific communicable diseases.
The physical environment .influence of rainfall
Of the predominant features of the physical environment much might be said, but the following remarks must be conInfluence of fined to brief suggestions of the influence of rainfall and range rainfall. o f temperature. Nine-tenths of the vast population live from the land ; and the two indispensable conditions of existence, the supply of food and water, depend almost entirely, in the greater part of India, upon the character of the summer monsoon, i.e. upon the rainfall that occurs during some three or four months, which is then stored in, and on, the soil for con- sumption during the rest of the year. Speaking generally, the country is subject annually to a short period of deluge and a longer one of dryness, but there are the greatest contrasts in the relative intensity of the phenomena in different areas under normal conditions. These, moreover, give place, from time to time, to periods of excess or failure of the rains, with consequent accentuation of the phenomena in proportion to their duration and the area affected. Now, the sources of water-supply are of three kinds, surface * tanks ' (ponds), shallow wells, and rivers \ while everywhere, save in a few of the largest towns, all sewage and liquid and solid waste are committed to the soil for dis- posal, either by deposit on the surface or by burial, and this generally in close proximity to the inhabited site. The effect of heavy and continuous rain, which is far less penetrating in proportion to its quantity than outside the tropics, is to wash the accumulated soil impurities into the water-sources and to leave stagnant collections of water where drainage is defective. The ground-water, replenished by percolation often too rapid for effective filtration, rises quickly in the wells, until in a few weeks, over large areas, it is within a few feet of the surface which it frequently reaches by the end of the monsoon. In this way the majority of the wells of the inhabited sites are rendered saline and non-potable by infiltration of sewage salts. Meanwhile, all the conditions of life have been transformed : water is abundant, but certainly at first impure ; coarse green vegetables largely replace the simple grain diet ; there are frequent sudden alterations in temperature, against which the clothing resources are inadequate, and the people are driven to the shelter of their dwellings ; the cultivation of rice, the staple food-crop of large areas, necessitates interference with the natural drainage ; and lastly, there is a great development of insect and micro-organic life. Here we have all the conditions that lead to bowel complaints and fevers ; and the mortality curve, which is generally lowest in June, rises, with the mon- soon period, to its highest point in the two succeeding months. Thereafter, through the next six months, the course of events is reversed : the water-supplies and surface collections are gradually depleted ; and as the hot season advances many are completely exhausted, most of those that persist being reduced to the condition of muddy puddles in the case of wells and tanks, and to a stagnant chain of pools in the case of all but the largest rivers. If the monsoon should fail, or cease early, the conditions are aggravated : the supply of the prime neces- sity of existence is cut off at innumerable sources, causing an overwhelming call on those that remain, which are subject to greatly enhanced risks of pollution. It is too frequently the custom to use the same supply, indiscriminately, for the various purposes of drinking, bathing, washing clothes, and watering cattle ; and it will be understood that in these circumstances an
1 Water-supply systems, conserved on modern principles, are now (1905) at the disposal of ninety communities, having an aggregate population of 6J- millions.
Influence of temperature
Preponderating influence of the environment outbreak of cholera is frequently added to failure of the food supply. It will be seen later how, by its influence on the mortality and the food-supply, the rainfall also largely affects the birth-rate.
As regards the range of temperature, which varies greatly in different areas at different seasons, but which is generally far greater than in Europe, it is easy to trace its influence on the important vital condition of the supply of pure air in dwellings. It largely determines the materials and structure of these ; hence the striking contrast between the reed and thatch hut of the typical Bengal hamlet and the impervious mud and brick structures of the dry inland tracts where the range is highest and where protection from extremes of heat and cold is necessitated. Here, also, dwellings were aggregated under the necessity for defence, and consequently present all the features of camps ; there were no arrangements for site- ventilation, or conservancy ; and even now the cattle are driven at night into clo^e courtyards, and often into dwellings, which are devoid of appliances for the admission of light and air. The joint-family system involves overcrowding, especially in sleeping rooms, which is most marked in towns ; and where the range of temperature is greatest, the effects of the scanty resources in clothing are uLo most manifest. There is abundant evidence to show that these conditions, varying in degree over large areas, determine the incidence of diseases of the ' zymotic ' class, and especially of typhus and the contagious fevers ; also of pneumonia, phthisis, and other fatal lung dis- orders, which are favoured by aggregation in foul air, and which are the causes of a very large proportion of the sickness and mortality.
To sum up, we have a vast and heterogeneous population, in a primitive and rigid stage of civilization which involves certain physical and moral disabilities, dependent in general on the land not only for daily bread, but for all material resources. The marked feature of the general situation is man's com- parative subordination to the environment, against which the struggle is maintained, with varying issue, rather than with his fellow men. The character of the rainfall determines the quantity and quality of the food and water-supplies, and through these, in a large measure, the health of the community, as evidenced by the high and fluctuating birth and death-rates and by the frequent reversal of their normal relations; and this occurs not only in specially unfavourable years, but in certain months of the year under more ordinary circumstances.
vital statistics their defective character
In approaching the discussion of the vital statistics of the Vital general population, it is necessary to explain that we are still ftatistics. far from a complete and accurate record of the births and defective deaths, and of the causes of death ; that there is no record character, of marriages, and but a very inadequate one of sickness. 'Registration was first instituted in British India generally about thirty years ago, much later in certain areas, and to-day (1905) some of the less accessible hill tracts and most of the Native States are still outside its scope. The difficulties encountered have been great, and many remain. The people, doubtful of the object, shrink from publicity in domestic affairs. The agents are, for the most part, illiterate village watchmen, or town police, who are required to report to the police station at regular but varying intervals the simple fact of birth or death and the supposed cause in the latter event. As to the record of actual occurrences, the error of defect varies considerably in different areas : in some it is almost negligible, in others it may amount to nearly one-third of the total, but there is a general progressive improvement everywhere. The statement of the cause of death leaves much to be desired : the vast majority die without qualified medical attendance, and we have to rely on the crude impressions of the people, who attribute most fatal illnesses marked by a rise of temperature to * fever, 7 and who, during epidemics, frequently conceal either the fact or the true cause, in order to escape sanitary measures. At such times, and also during famine, special sources of fallacy arise from the migration of large numbers, so that, even if the facts are obtained by special effort, the local ratios are vitiated. Everywhere efforts are made to check the records by local inquiries, and, in many towns, by supervision of the appointed places for burial or burning.
Birth rate in india
A general Census was first taken between 1867 and 1872, and was repeated in 1881, 1891, and 1901. The value of these enumerations has been inestimable, though the return of ages is by no means accurate and there has possibly been some con- cealment of females. The figures have enabled us to obtain an approximate estimate of the true birth and death-rates, and of the mortality by age and sex, and thus have afforded data for the construction of a Life Table. The great fluctuations in the birth and death-rates, and the frequent reversal of their normal rela- tions, are marked in the irregular progress of the population, and for this reason the census figures soon become inaccurate for ratio calculations in inter-censal periods. With these limitations, it will be seen that the material for a closely reasoned analysis is often lacking. But the recorded facts are of great value in the study of the conditions of each area ; of far less use, though still suggestive, for inter- Provincial comparisons. Any attempt to trace the effect of sanitary measures on the health of the people is at present beset by obvious fallacies, for as registration improves the rates tend to rise in any case; but there is abundant evidence forthcoming on this question in the vital statistics of the troops and prisoners which are discussed later on in this chapter.
The following statement gives a general view of the birth- rates recorded in different Provinces during the two decades ending with 1890 and 1900, with other particulars for com- parison : Birth-rates per 1,000 in the Chief Provinces of British India>
1881-1900.
Rattoofbirths PROVINCE. Mean annual rate I recorded) I or 1X81-90 t Non- Famine ) Mean annual rate (recorded) for 180,1-J0<(Famine.)
Highest and lowest annual rates (recorUed)L (mean of 189,1- KK>O) per i,(xx> married v^omen (15- 40) according to Crnus of ityi.
Probable true normal rate of population'. Bengal (not 35'9 i 4 3-o | 28-1 ( 219-6 51-8
available
Assam
31'8 35-4 239 1 190.3 United Provinces 39-5 37-7t 3i-i! 220.9 44.2 Punjab 39- ' 4i-9t 48.4
37- 45-8 Central Provinces 41.4 35-9t 48.9 { 26-8 ( 1863
Berar
40-8
38-4 1
5-5 >
219-0
Madras
29.2
29*0 25- l I 164-2 50-3 Bombay
34-3
34- it
39- | 26-9 \
200-4
49-3
Lower Burma .
22.6
30.1
20-0 \
227.6
The probable true normal rates (column 6) are taken from the Report of Mr. Hardy, F.I.A., F.S.S., Census Report, 1891, vol. ii. The rate for all Provinces (combined) is calculated at 48*8 per milk, and thi* may be assumed to represent, approximately, the rates for the areas for which separate calculations have not yet been made* The subsequent decade (1891-1900) was marked by abnormal conditions arising from famine and plague. Famine in these areas during last quinquennium.
In spite of defective registration, the recorded rates are gener-
ally high in comparison with those of Europe, outside Germany,
Austria-Hungary, and Italy : the ' probable true rates ' are
much higher without exception. There is great variation both
in the recorded rates of different areas for the same period, and
in those of different years for the same area : this is partly due
to the influence of famine, and partly to differences in the
registration error, the approximate measure of which is obtained
by comparing the * probable true rates ' with those recorded
in the non-famine period (1881-90). In Europe the average
number of births per 1,000 married women at age 15-50 may
be put at 250; and consequently the Indian rates (column 5)
indicate defective registration or relative infertility, and doubt-
less both factors are in operation.
How affected by marriage customs
We may now proceed to discuss the chief influences which How
determine these characteristic results. The marriage customs affected
marriage must undoubtedly be given a foremost place, for marriage is, in customs. effect, not a voluntary contract as in the West, but a religious obligation, binding on both sexes, which is enforced by the social code and necessitated by the law of inheritance. Briefly, it is as a rule contracted, in the higher castes which acknow- ledge Brahmanical authority, with a girl who has not arrived at puberty (though consummation is generally deferred till then), while the husband is often much older ; unions are forbidden between persons of the same kindred and between those of differing castes and sub-castes ; more than one wife is permitted, failing male issue by the first ; widowers may remarry, but this is not permitted to widows. The results are that marriage is almost universal, at the earliest practicable age ; there is disparity in the ages of husband and wife ; and, as a consequence, an excessive proportion of widows. These general rules and results are subject to modification in the practice of the lower Hindu castes, Musalmans, Buddhists, Native Chris- tians, and some aboriginal tribes. Among them, as a rule, the age of the female at marriage is generally higher and the dis- parity in the ages of husband and wife is less ; there is also a freer choice, from. the absence of caste restrictions ; and there is no restriction on widow remarriage. The following figures will afford a clearer view of the situation by comparison with Europe : it is interesting to note in passing that Hungary occupies a position, in this respect, midway between East and West Percentage Distribution of the Population by Civil Condition.
AGE AND CIVIL CONDITION.
EUROPE (EXCLUDING HUNGARY).
Male.
Frmalf.
Male.
Female.
( Unmarried All ages < Married ( Widowed
49.2
45-4
5-4
34-4
47.6
17.9
63-0
33-o 3'5
59-o
32-0
8-3
! Unmarried
Married
Widowed
51-8
45.8
2-4
"3
82.8
5-9
95-
4-7
005
85.0
I 4 .0
0-2
S Unmarried
Married
Widowed
n-5
817
5-3
a -5
8cM
17-4
36 o
62-0
1.4
' 28-6
678
3-5
Among the many interesting facts to which these figures point, we may merely note the contrasts displayed in the proportions of the population married in India and Europe, and again in the proportions of the widowed and the single among males and females in India at the two age periods, denoting the earlier age at marriage of females and its penalty in widowhood. Here, then, are the conditions for a high birth-rate ; but, at the same time, factors that doubtless operate to diminish the full measure of fertility which the mere marriage-rate would lead one to expect among a people the vast majority of whom are impelled by religious and social sanctions to disregard prudential considerations. The early age at marriage, with the premature strain on the immature functions, probably leads to early exhaustion in both sexes, which is perhaps hastened by the debilitating effects of malarial fevers to which all are subject ; the practice of the prolonged suckling of infants may aKo operate. Lastly, the earliest age of procreative power is not the age of greatest fecundity.
By agricultural distress or prosperity
But, in dealing next with the causes of the fluctuations in the
or between rate we ^ m ^ influences at work of far greater and less
prosperity, questionable force : namely, those that affect prosperity, which, in India, is summed up for the masses in sufficient food and a relative diminution of sickness. The marriage rate is affected by the character of the harvests, as the ceremony involves lavish expenditure, loans being generally raised for which the crops are the security. But the birth-rate is a far more sensitive barometer of prosperity, because the marriage of children does not usually connote cohabitation. Nothing is
clearer than the effects of marked abundance of food or the reverse upon the general state of the public health, and of both food and health upon the birth-rate. With any marked rise or fall in food prices there is immediately a similar movement in the death-rate, and an opposite movement in the birth-rate nine months later. When famine prevails and, subsequently, other factors co-operate, marriages are deferred and the able- bodied leave their homes in search of work or relief. With the recurrence of the first bountiful harvest the tide turns, deferred marriages are celebrated, cohabitation is resumed, and the sexual instinct, depressed by privation, resumes its sway forti- fied by rest and by comparatively abundant food. The death- rate now falls rapidly to below the normal, owing to the previous elimination of the physically weakest ; and nine months later the birth-rate (calculated on the total population, which now contains a larger proportion of persons at the reproductive ages) rises with a bound and is maintained above the normal, generally for about a year, when the ordinary relations of the rates are resumed.
Similar influences may be traced in the normal seasonal p y nor mal incidence of the birth-rate, which is stamped with the same seasonal characteristic features in every Province, though these are xanatlons * subject to slight local modifications referable to the period of the harvest and of the greatest sickness and mortality. Speaking generally, where the staple food harvest is reaped in October there is a sudden rise in the birth-rate in July, continued through August to the maximum in September-October. There is a gradual fall during November-December, though the rate is still above the mean, which is reached in January ; thenceforth the decline persists more or less steadily, to attain the lowest point in June. Where the staple food harvest comes in December, events are consistently postponed for about two months. The influence of the general health is manifest if the birth and death-rates are plotted together on a chart with an interval of nine or ten months between them, i.e. the death-rate for January against the birth-rate for October, and so on : the result is a striking contrast in the curves, the one falling as the other rises, though there may be occasional trifling exceptions to the rule. Again, on irrigated tracts with adequate drainage, where the crops are secure, the birth-rate is consistently high : conversely, where in water-logged areas the soil deteriorates and the people are prostrated by chronic malarial disease, there is often depopulation from impairment of fecundity.
Comparison of Hindu and Muhammadan fecundity
Proportion of male and female births
Regarding the influence of race, the records only furnish particulars under local territorial distinctions : the main ethnic elements are nearly everywhere largely interfused, and any comparison between areas wherein the dominant element varies is vitiated by the registration error. Religion affords no reli- able clue to ethnic distinctions. It is possible, however, to arrive at some estimate of the relative fecundity of the different races and sects by means of the Census returns of the propor- tion of children in each. As a rule, the aboriginal tribes and the Musalmans (who are often proselytes from the lower Hindu castes) stand out from the general community in this respect. This is due partly to the more favourable marriage customs previously alluded to, and possibly also to the greater variety of food, which generally contains a larger measure of the animal element than among Hindus.
The proportion borne by males to females at birth is shown below : -
PROVINCE. Males horn to 100 females.
(Mean of
1891-1900).
Punjab .
11 1-6
United Provinces
109-0
Bombay
108.1
Assam .
107-7
Lower Burma
107.4
Berar .
106.8
Bengal
106.5
Central Provinces
106.4
Madras . .
104.4
1 Proclaimed Clans ' (Infanticide Act)
106.4
The range within each area is greatest where registration, always at its worst in regard to events affecting females, is most defective. The highest proportion of males is returned in areas where the male population outnumbers the female, and where the practice of female infanticide formerly prevailed ; but in certain parts of two of the Provinces at the top of the list registration is notoriously very defective, viz. in the Western Punjab and in Sind. The records of Berar, where registration is at its best, show that the excess of males born in the January to June or July period is always very much higher than during the rest of the year, the mean during a normal quinquennium being, for the first six months of the year, 107-3, an d for the last six months 104-8. Now the corre- sponding periods of conception are April to September and October to March ; and the latter period is associated with three
distinct factors the harvest, the season of least sickness and mortality, and that of the lowest temperature, which would appear to influence favourably the relatively higher production of females l .
urban and rural birth rates
The results of urban and rural conditions on the birth-rate Urban and will be gathered from the statement below :
rates.
Ratio per 1,000 of population
PROVINCE.
(Mean of 1892-6)*.
Urban.
Rural.
Bengal
24-9
34-3
Assam .
24.4
31-5
40.2
37*4
Punjab
40.4
43-8
Central Provinces
32.2
357
Berar .
38-2
37-5
Madras
32.1
27.4
Bombay
28.5
36-4
Burma
22.3
28-6
The rates are, as a rule, lower in the towns, and lowest in the large industrial centres, owing, chiefly, to the unequal sex distribution of their population which is affected by the demand for adult male labourers e.g. in Calcutta (1901) the propor- tion of males to females was as two to one, in Bombay over three to two, and in Rangoon nearly two and a half to one. The tendency to a general rise in the price of food which has marked recent times, while benefiting the agriculturist, has doubtless pressed heavily on the poorer classes in towns, where also the general standard of vitality is lower. Lastly, the women are frequently sent to their rural homes for their confinement.
Proportion of male and female
The record of still-births has unfortunately not been main- Proportion tained generally, but for Berar the returns give what is ^[ r ^ 1 " doubtless a fair indication of the proportion which occur in an agricultural community in India. Here, during the decade ending 1900, still-born males were at the rate of 5-2, and females of 4*1, per cent, of the live-births of the respective sexes. In the larger cities, however, the rates are far higher : in Calcutta the average for the three years ending 1900 was 8 per cent, of the live-births ; in Rangoon it was 1 1-6 per cent. ; and in Bombay the mean for 1895-9 was I2 '9 P er cent, rising to 18-7 in the last year. But here the rates have recently
1 See article * Sex,' Encyclopaedia Britannica^ 9th Edition. a Statistics for later years furnished to the Government of India do not discriminate between urban and rural birth-rates.
Recorded death-rates
been affected by the prevalence of plague and famine, which have driven mothers from and to the city in a destitute condition. The figures represent the pressure of want and insanitary conditions, and, doubtless, of barbarous midwifery ; at the same time there is no guarantee that all these infants were actually born dead. The unfavourable conditions attend- ing parturition in India ensure a high mortality of mothers and infants, but the way is open to gross neglect and, occasion- ally, to infanticide.
The introductory remarks, and the account given of marriage and the birth-rate* will have prepared the reader for some of the notable characteristics of the mortality figures. The following table affords a review of the death-rates' recorded
Mortality-rates per 1,000 in the Chief Provinces of British India, 18811900. Number PROVINCE.
Recorded mean tor 1881-90.
Recorded mean for 1891-5.
Record- ed mean
for
1896-
1900.
Highest
a no low-
est rates
recorded
during the
20 years.
Probable
true
normal
rate,
1888-91.
of years
in which
deaths
exceed
births in
total
peiiod.
Bengal
22.1
30-7
30.8
\ 3^-6 )
44-8
2*
A ssam
26.7
30.2
36-9
$ 50-6 I
i 16.0 |
. .
lot
United Pro- )
I 42 - )
vinces \
32.8
32-2
33-i t
1 '*' 1
37-7
a
Punjab
31-3
34-5
32-4:
ISS!
36-0
3
Central Pro- )
vinces \
33-0
33-8
45-6*
i -4-3 {
5
Berar
33-2
38.8
48-5:
| 82.7 I
I >3-4 \
8
Madras
20.5
20.7
22.1
26-2 )
JI6.2J
36-0
Bombay .
26-2
29-6
41. 3 {
1 7 I
35-4
2
( 2O*Q \
Lower Burma .
17-5
20.7
26.2
iij-ri
33
- During 1892-1900, births for years* prior to 1892 not being available.
t During 1883-1900, ,, 1883
J Famine in these areas during this period ; plague in Bengal, United Provinces, Punjab, Madras, and Bombay.
The ' probable true normal rates ' are estimates based on the Census data of 1881 and 1891 by Mr. Hardy, F.T.A., F.S.S. ; the rate for all British India being 39.6 per mille (see Census Report , 1891, vol. li). The Assam rate is probably somewhat higher than that of Bengal, while the rates of the Central Provinces and Berar probably come between those of the United Provinces and Bengal.
in each Province during the twenty years ending with 1900, distinguishing for the second decade between the first and last quinquennia, as famine and epidemic disease, including plague, have disturbed the normal incidence of mortality in the areas noted since 1896.
We see, first, that, in spite of defective registration, the Causes recorded rates are, generally, very high, and exhibit a pro- gressive rise; they are indeed much above the European standard if Austria-Hungary and Italy be excluded. They vary greatly in different areas during the same period, and in the same areas from year to year ; and while this is characteristic of the figures at all times, we have to distinguish the exag- gerating effects of special morbific influences, such as famine. While the progressive rise in the rates is doubtless partly due to improved registration, the inter-Provincial variations are largely the result of differences in the registration error which preclude the use of the figures for any valid comparison of the ordinary vital conditions of different areas. This is made clear if the recorded rates are compared with the 'probable true rates J (column 6) ; but as the local error varies inappreci- ably from year to year, the former afford valuable indications of the course of events in each separate area. lastly, special attention is invited to the remarkable range of fluctuation in the Provincial rates (column 5), and to the figures showing the number of years in which the deaths have exceeded the births in each area (column 7). In all respects the greatest contrast is presented to the English statistics, and this, as we have seen, applies equally to the birth-rate : indeed, the connexion between the vital phenomena is very intimate and direct under the controlling influence of the environment, to the ordinary well-defined variations of which, every now and then, cyclical changes of a catastrophic kind are superadded. These changes, ordinary and extraordinary, are stamped upon the population, influencing its age-constitution, its vitality, and consequently its longevity and its rate of increase, with necessary reaction upon the death-rate. With a fluctuating tendency to increase during ordinary years, there are recur- rent halts and local retrocessions which profoundly alter the age-constitution, by the suspension of reproductive power on the one hand, and by excessive mortality, which is most marked at certain ages, on the other. The general effects of famine in this respect have been briefly described, and some of the remarkable features of the death-rates are thus explained.
5'4
[CHAP.
Age-sta-
India and England,
Mortality and ex- pectation of life at different ages.
Before tracing the incidence and causes of the mortality
- n detail, it is necessary to glance at the age-distribution of
the population, not only because it exhibits the vital material exposed to the struggle, but because it marks the effect of past vicissitudes and so affords the best corrective to the death-rates which are inaccurate as to both the numbers and the ages of the dying. The following table shows the numbers per thousand living in India at three age-periods at the Census of 1891 and of 1901, respectively, together with corresponding figures for England and Wales (1901). The influence of the intervening years of famine is shown in the diminished pro- portion of the under 5 population in India in 1901 as compared with 1891 :
Age-distribution of the Population, per r,ooo living.
Under 5.
5-55-
55 and upwards.
Male.
Female.
Male.
Female.
Male.
Female.
India (1891) .
159
162
780
771
6l
6 7
(1901) .
126
134
8lO
794
64
72
England and Wales
126
I2O
777
769
97
III
The figures for India (1891) are taken from the adjusted age-tables furnished by Mr. Hardy to the Census Report.
We may now briefly trace the incidence of mortality on age and sex, its chief causes, and their local and seasonal distribution. Any attempt to find a mean that would accu- rately express the resultant of all the conditions in the struggle could only have, at best, an academic interest when the irregular intervention of profoundly disturbing factors is borne in mind, factors too that operate unequally in different areas. For the present purpose it will be more useful to obtain an idea of the rates which apply to India as a whole under ordinary conditions ; and, for the rest, it will suffice to apply the general considerations as to the special effect of famine and the accompanying epidemic diseases, which have been set forth. The inaccuracies in the age returns (Census) and in the registration data render the Provincial records misleading as they stand ; but the former may be adjusted, and the latter corrected, in the light of certain local mortality statistics that may be deemed both representative and fairly accurate, the observed rates of increase in the population at different ages affording valuable guidance. In this way Mr. Hardy has been able to arrive at standard rates, which, though largely estimated, may be accepted as approximately accurate. For full details
x] PUBLICHEALTH AND VITAL STATISTICS 515
of his methods and results, his valuable contributions to the Indian Census Reports of 1881 and 1891 must be consulted. The following statement, which is based thereon 1 , shows the ordinary death-rates and the expectation of life at the different ages for both sexes, with the corresponding English figures for comparison :
ESTIMATED
MORTALITY PER |,OOO LIVING AT EACH AGE-
MEAN ANNUAL
DEATH-RATE,
1881-1890, PER
EXPECTATION OP LlFE
AT AGES IN COL. 6.
Age,
GROUP, 1881-
1891.
1,000 LIVING.
AGE.
India.
England and
Wales.
India,
1881-91.
England,
1881-00.
V
M.
F.
M.
F.
M.
F.
M.
F.
Under 5
128.8
112.3
61.5
51.9
o
24.6
25-5
43-7
47.2
5 ~ '
18.5
18.9
5-3
5-2
5
37- 1
36.1
52-7
54-9
10
ii. i
14.0
2-9
3i
10
35-5
34-4
49-o
51-]
15
12.3
16-7
4-3
4.4
15
32-3
44-5
46-5
20
15-1
19-0
5-7
5-5
20
29.2
39-3
40-3
42.4
2 5
20- 1
22-1
7-7
7-4
25
26.3
27-0
3^-3
38-5
35^~
28.4
27.1
12.4
10-6
35
21. 1
22-4
28-9
45'
39-7
33-9
15.0
45
I6. 5
17.9
22-1
24.0
55
58-7
50-3
3^6
28.4
5
12.2
13.2
I &-7
17.2
1 00.5
91.7
7-3
60.3
65-
8.2
8.7
10-3
ii.^
75 and upwards
201-8
194-5
162.6
147.9
75-
4.9
6-7
All ages
40-6
38-6
20. 2
18.0
"~39-6 ~
19.1
These figures are very significant as regards both the details for India and the contrast they afford to the English rates. The excess mortality in India is proportionally greatest at the 5-24 age period, when, however, the dqaths represent only 14-25 per cent, of the total at all ages; the next thirty years (25-54) account for 25-5 per cent, of the total mortality; for the rest of life it is 17-7 per cent., leaving 42-6 per cent, to fall upon the 0-5 age period. The heavy loss in the working period of life is of grave import from an economic point of view, especially when the tax paid in sickness and the shorter duration of life are taken into account. It may be assumed that there are probably three cases of sickness for every death, and at this rate the number constantly sick among the 232 millions of British India would amount to nearly 28 mil- lions. This sickness falls heavily upon the adult population, and is generally of a nature that confers no immunity, but especially in the case of malaria, dysentery and diarrhoea, and lung diseases rather increases the liability to subsequent
1 The decade 1891-1901 has been ignored, owing to the abnormal con* ditions of famine and plague.
Male and female death- rates.
attacks. Where it does not temporarily prostrate, as is not infrequently the case, it often involves a lower rate of wages for labourers, and everywhere depresses the moral and physical character, and so forms a potent source of poverty. This view is enforced by the contrast between India and England in respect to the duration of life : between 15 and 35 years of age the probabilities are from 36 to 38 per cent, for males, and from 34 to 48 per cent, for females, less favourable in India : the difference at birth amounts to 79 and 85 per cent., respectively. In regard to sex, while the estimated death-rates at all ages in India are 40-6 and 38-6 per mille for males and females, respectively, there is a notable contrast in the relative incidence of mortality on the 10-34 age-periods and the res't of life. This is most marked where the male population outnumbers the female as is the case generally in the north and north- west, and notably in the Punjab and the United Provinces. During the first year of life the female death-rate is lower than the male, but the advantage gradually diminishes, to,disappear at the age of 6 to 7. From this point females die off in higher proportion, the excess being greatest at 15-20, after which the difference diminishes until at age 35 it disappears, and thereafter the female rate remains lower. Here doubtless we get a broad indication of the period of procreative life, and of the special dangers that attend it gwing to early marriage and the disparity of the ages of parents, to the special in- sanitary conditions to which the parturient woman is subjected (she being deemed 'unclean' by religious ordinance), and to barbarous midwifery. In many classes of the community the wife takes a large share of bread-winning labour, besides being the domestic drudge. There is abundant evidence of the great prevalence of puerperal fevers and convulsions, and of the frequency of 'accidents/ often induced by the meddlesome methods of native midwives. If we could assume that the difference in the male and female death-rates at the 10-34 age- periods represents the loss of maternal life in child-bed, it would indicate fully 150,000 deaths annually on the present population of British India, or about one death to every 75 live-births 1 . The Dufferin Association, by the employ- ment of qualified lady doctors and the training of midwives, has done, and is doing, work of inestimable value in the salva- tion of life and in the diminution of suffering, from which, in time, other important results will follow. The statistics of
1 In London in the seventeenth century it was about I to 40; in England it is now about i to 21 a.
x] PUBLIC'HEALTH AND VITAL STATISTICS 517
suicide, which indicate the far greater liability of the female sex to this form of death, give, doubtless, some indication of the disabilities to which women are subject in India, among which a lack of care during illness may be included.
Starting from Ireland and progressing east and south, there infantile is a gradual and regular rise in the mortality of infants, until in India, under ordinary circumstances, probably about one-third of those born die within the first year of life, these deaths con- stituting about 26 per cent, of the total mortality. The following table gives the rates per 1,000 recorded in the principal Provinces during the ten years ending 1900, with other particulars :
Nuiftber of Infants dying out of every 1,000 Live-births.
Dying under I year of a^e,
Dving
Rat^s in Famine
Ordinary
urban
rates *
PROVINCE.
mean often
yeais
(1891-1900^.
uudt r 5
years.
yea is. Dying
under i year.
Dying
under
i year.
Male.
Female.
Central Provinces
294-4
273-2
434
j 3*6 (i*97) I
(387(1900)$
345
Iterar .
257-7
244-2
5i6
375 (1900)
345
Punjab
2 3 J -9
24^.9
3<;7
268 (1900)
264
United Provinces
230.9
228-1
37
272 (1897)
304
Lower Burma
210.3
i6>4
297
277
Assam
206-9
205.4
35i
191
Bengal
20I-6t
I8.V3 1
3'9
.
272
Bom bay
199.0
186-4
390
266 (1900)
400
Madras .
172.8
i57-i
274
198
Although the period includes years in which famine and exceptional epidemic disease prevailed in several areas, it is certain that in nearly every case the above record fails to con- vey an accurate measure of the loss in ordinary times. Probably this is adequately expressed by the Central Provinces rate alone, while in Madras more than one-third of the deaths are unre- corded. These Provincial rates, moreover, are the means of the District rates, which vary enormously in the same year and under apparently similar conditions. Clearly, defective regis- tration is largely accountable, as is shown by the fact that the rates are consistently highest, and the range lowest, where registration is at its best. If, however, the results in any single area be compared with its own record, valuable indications are afforded of the general state of health and of the material resources of the people. The rates for the famine years are for the whole area calculated on the mean of the births for the
- Kx eluding Presidency cities and Rangoon. f Mean of 1893-1900*
5 1 8 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.
year and the one preceding ; but if the most severely affected tracts be taken and the calculation be based on the births of the year, the results are more portentous : e.g. in 1900 490 infants were recorded as dying out of 1,000 born in Berar; in Bombay, among a population of seven millions, the rate was 462 ; and in the worst-stricken areas of the Central Provinces it was over 500. Again, the urban rates (column 5) testify to the specially insanitary conditions of life in the towns, of which an approximate idea may be obtained from the rate of the United Provinces (304), for though famine increased the mortality in some of the areas, this was not the case here in the period taken (1898-1900). Lastly, in the Presidency cities and Rangoon the following rates were recorded : Calcutta 377, Madras 284, Rangoon 402, representing in all cases the means of the five years ending with 1900. In Bombay the mean rate of the twenty years ending 1895 was 421, and for 1896-1900 it was 711; but this, while marking the influence of famine and pestilence, is largely the effect of the very defective registration of births, and of fatalities among the destitute refugees brought into the city to die. The heavy mortality everywhere may be ascribed to the immaturity and ignorance of the mothers, and to the physical labour the majority are called upon to perform ; to improper feeding, and to the exposure of infants to all the influences of an insanitary environment wherein the causes of malaria, small-pox, measles, bowel complaints, and tetanus abound. The practice of female infanticide, which but a few years since prevailed among certain high-caste Hindu clans, chiefly in the United Provinces, the Punjab, and Bombay, and to suppress which special laws were enacted, may now be deemed a negligible quantity in the sum of the causes in operation.
Oompari- The relative influence of urban and rural conditions on the S h ^ a morta ^ t y at a ^ a es }S a subject that invites extended reference, rural mor- but it is impossible to do more here than suggest some of the tahty. ma f n considerations. Nine-tenths of the people live from the land, the average population of an Indian village being about 360. About twenty-nine millions out of the 294 millions enu- merated in 1901 occupy the towns, of which there are altogether 2,148 ; and of this number 1,427 towns contain less than 10,000 inhabitants, 471 between 10,000 and 20,000, while twenty-nine of the remaining 250 have a population of upwards of 100,000. There is a marked contrast in the conditions of life between the great rural majority and the town minority afc regards occupation and the complex influences arising from aggregation in different
x] PUB LIC HEALTH AND VITAL STATISTICS 519
degrees. A civilization that might be justified in one case is entirely at a disadvantage in the other ; and yet we find that as the original court and camp centres of the old regime developed into industrial towns and trade emporia, and while these grew and multiplied, there was no corresponding advance in civic organization, no adjustment to the new conditions. The circumstances were similar to those of camps, and precluded resort to the primitive methods of village conservancy, and year by year the consequences gathered fatal force. During the early period of British rule the governing power was engrossed in extending and consolidating its position, its representatives were few and scattered, and it was part of its policy to refrain from interference with the domestic concerns of the people, who have since shown themselves slow to co-operate in the develop- ment of municipal institutions. Much has been accomplished since 1870 by the provision of pure water-supplies, and of drainage and conservancy systems ; but the conditions already developed have largely neutralized their effect, and the authori- ties of the largest cities have now to face the necessity of radical schemes of reconstruction at enormous cost. The following table affords a comparison of the urban and rural death-rates recorded in the different Provinces during the five years ending with 1900: the abnormal sex-distribution, due to an excess of adult males which is a feature of the town populations nearly everywhere save in Madras, while it tends to lower the rates, enhances their significance. It must also be pointed out that famine and plague in recent years have set up cross tides of migration, to and from the towns, which render the records in many centres especially subject to qualification.
Mean Death-rate per 1,000 of Population (1896-1900).
PROVINCE.
Urban.
Rural.
Bengal* .
United Provinces * +
Punjab *f .
Central Provinces f
Beiarf .
Madras
Bombay *t
33-o
40.6
35-6
50-3
5 '-4
30-5
61-6
30-7
3 2 -5
32-0
45' 2 48.1
21-4
38-4
The excessive proportion in towns of indoor artisans, of the Over- poor, and of the criminal and vicious classes, doubtless involves crowding a lower average standard of physique. But of all factors in Bombay.
- Plague areas.
f- Famine areas.
5 20 THE INDIAN EMPIRE ' [CHAP.
operation, the influence of aggregation is paramount : every- where the intimacy of the family bond, with its menage in common often for three generations, entails disabilities in this connexion, but in the larger towns the dangers are greatly enhanced by economic causes. Bombay probably presents an extreme example of conditions which characterize many Indian towns, but which have no parallel in the West. The Census of 1901 discloses that 87 per cent, of all the tenements in Bombay consist of one room only, and that within these 80 per cent of the population find shelter. In no one of the seven wards of the city is the proportion so accommodated less than 67 per cent., and in two it rises to 88. Each of these single rooms contains on an average 4*2 persons ; and with this extremity of density the tenements are aggregated in huge many-storied blocks, with every arrangement, both within and on the site, calculated to defeat the access of light and air and to accumu- late damp and faecal products. The conditions are such as to necessitate the constant use of artificial light during the day, and it is scarcely surprising to find that the death-rate from pulmonary phthisis for the whole city averaged 9*4 per mille during 1899 and 1900 : in one ward (population 130,000) where the density is greatest, the phthisis death-rate in 1900 was reported to be 16-4 per mille. These results are confirmed by the returns of the local jail, wherein, during the three years ending 1900, n-6 per mille of average strength died of this disease annually, the rate for London being about i8. The low remuneration of labour makes the problem of housing, and of the sanitary conversion of these enormous rookeries in all the large towns, orio of stupendous difficulty ; and the most strenuous efforts from without will fail of their full effect unless the people co-operate, and evolve a higher standard of domestic hygiene.
Hindu and Taking the figures for Hindus and Muhammadans under macUm*" similar conditions, the death-rates are, as a rule, in favour of mortality, the latter. This is the more notable as the Musalmans, as a body, are often included in the poorer sections of the com- munity ; they are frequently proselytes from the lower caste Hindus ; and in the United Provinces they congregate more largely in the towns. Nevertheless, for the period 1891-1900 the mean death-rate of Muhammadans was lower than that of Hindus in the Punjab, the United Provinces, Madras, Bombay, and Lower Burma, and in Bengal during 189196. In the native army, during the five years 1895-9, the mean death- rate of Hindus (all classes) was 8-8 per mille, while that of
x] PUBLIC HEALTH AND VITAL STATISTICS 521
Muhammadans was only 3-6. Again, the available records of the mortality from plague, while subject to many qualifications, afford testimony to the greater power of resistance which Musalmans enjoy. Lastly, the death-rate among Eurasians and Native Christians (though race cannot be invoked in the latter case) is almost everywhere invariably lower than that of the general native population. It is probable that the nature and variety of the food play a considerable part in the produc- tion of these results.
The following statement will convey a broad general idea of Causes of the distribution of the chief causes of mortality, as registered : m <> rt aUty,
as regis~ Causes of Deaths recorded in all Provinces of British India.
tered.
1881-90*.
1891-1900 1'
Cause of death.
Number
of deaths.
Axerage
annual
death-
rate per
Per-
centage
to
total
Number
ot deaths.
Average
annual death- rate per
Per.
centage
to
total
inille.
deaths.
miJIe.
deaths
Cholera .
306,518
i-5
6-0
450,502
2-1
6. 7
Small-pox
123,772
0.6
2-4
82,588
0-4
1-2
Fevers
3,359^27
16.5
66.3
4.363,055
2O-O
65-5
Dysentery and
diarrhoea
263,608
i-3
5'2
278,298
i-3
4-2
Injuries (snake-
bite, suicide,
&c.) .
80,973
0.4
1.6
94,082
0.4
I. 4
All other causes
934, J 27
4-5
18.4
i,39 6 >936+
6.4
2LOj
TOTAL
5,067,925
24.8
6,665,461
30-6
The previous discussion of the death-rate makes it evident that a large proportion of the mortality is unregistered of which perhaps 40 per cent, is referable to the deaths of infants. Next, the proportion under each registered cause to the total is, in nearly every case, misleading, notably so as regards the deaths from fevers, bowel complaints, and 'all other causes.' Premising that diseases of the lungs should have been recorded under the last of these heads, and that nearly every fatal illness in which there is a marked rise of temperature is ascribed to ' fever,' it may be affirmed generally that the actual mortality should be much more equally distributed between these three classes. This view is based on the evidence of the returns from the Native army and the jail population, of the civil
- Average population under registration, 203,778,338.
t air^oo^S 1 -
J Includes plague.
VOL. I. M m
THE INDIAN EMPIRE
[CHAP.
hospital records, and of the results of special inquiries into the causes of death made by qualified practitioners in certain centres. Malarial fever is, however, doubtless a contributory in the majority of cases, either by lowering natural resistance to other diseases or by actively complicating these. The following statement shows how the recorded mortality is distri- buted locally, and the composition of the death-rate under ordinary conditions :
Composition of the Death-rate per 1,000, as registered > under Normal Conditions.
p
6
i
J
f*
J3
&*
i:
3
rt
6
Cause of death.
c
2
2*
c"
rt o
Ti
"2
g
c
V
<
&
c >
&
2
u
^
5
U
^
Cholera
3-7
1.8
' 1
1. 1
2-O
Small-pox
0-2
0-7
0-8
O-2
0-2
0-6
O<2
0.4
o-3
Fevers
23-3
18-0
24.9
'9-5
2L2
2O-I
8.1
21. 5
10.7
20.3
Dysentery and
diarrhoea
5*
3* 1
1-0
o7
1-8
6-5
0-8
1.8
1.6
I-I
All other causes
0-7
5-9
4-3
9.4
8. 7
127
9.6
5-4
8.4
6.4
All causes
32-1
3M
32-6
30-5
33-7
416
20.4
30-4
22-2
30.1
These figures are the means of five years of a fairly normal period (1892-6), and are subject to the qualifications already indicated. The cholera rate of the United Provinces is a little higher than the normal, and for the rest it may be said that the Berar figures most nearly represent the truth. To show how the rates are modified by exceptional causes ; the figures re- corded in three areas recently affected by famine are subjoined.
Mortality rates per 1,000 of Population in Famine Areas.
PROVIHCK,
Cholera.
Small-
Fevers.
Dysentery
and
AH
other
All
poi.
diarrhoea.
causes.
Berar (1900)
6.4
o-3
3 9'5
22-4
24.1
82.7
Central Pro-
vinces (1897).
6.0
0.4
41.0
8-5
J 3-4
69'3
Central Pro-
vinces (1900).
Bombay ( 1 900) .
8-7
0.8
28.8
28.9
5-5
n.6
15-5
20-4
57-8
70.1
This exhibits the effects of a diminished power of resistance to all disease causes, which acquired epidemic force owing to deficient and improper food, impure water, and the wanderings of the people in search of work and relief.
x] PUBLIC HEALTH AND VITAL STATISTICS 523
The ordinary causes of sickness and mortality may be said Three main to fall Aiainly into three great classes. First, the specific g[^ c ^ f fevers, including malaria, small-pox, influenza, Malta fever, ease cerebro-spinal meningitis, typhus, and doubtless others that specific await differentiation. Second, those affecting the abdominal Diseases organs : notably cholera and enteric fevers, dysentery and affecting diarrhoea. Lastly, the lung diseases tubercle, pneumonia, ^cfininal bronchitis, &c. ; the first two being specific infections, and all organs, frequently the sequelae of fevers and bowel complaints. Another * nd lun fact of great significance is the wide prevalence of intestinal and skin parasites, and of ulcers and other indications of scurvy. Thus, an overwhelming proportion of the sickness and mortality is due to diseases of which the salient property is communicability ; and, at the same time, there is the evidence of deficient powers of resistance, and of insanitary habits and surroundings, viz. aggregation, foul air, deficient and impure water, and defective conservancy, including drainage. Each of the three groups of disease above mentioned can be causally associated with one or more of these defects, and it will be found that the composition of the death-rate varies locally with the de- gree of operation of these factors. Where, as in Bengal, the chief difficulties are connected with drainage and the conservancy of the water-supplies, we see a larger proportion of malarial fevers and of bowel complaints ; where, as in the Punjab, the social customs and the climate lead to crowding in ill-ventilated tenements, the other specific fevers and lung diseases are more fatal. Climate, then, operates by favouring the life processes of the micro-organic causes of disease, and by influencing the food supplies and the density of the population, and also its domestic habits, of which the most important is the degree of aggregation. Limits of space preclude an examination of the seasonal incidence of mortality in the different areas which would make this clear, and the Provincial and special reports should be consulted. Nothing could be more striking than the obvious relation which the rainfall bears to the prevalence of fevers and of bowel complaints. There is an extraordinary rise in the mortality curve from both with the establishment of the monsoon ; but as dysentery and diarrhoea (and cholera is subject to the same conditions) depend chiefly on impurities washed into the water-supplies by the first deluge after drought, their maximum is reached earlier than in the case of fevers, which depend on the formation of stagnant collections of water and the causes of which require a longer period of incubation and are less quickly fatal. In the case of both fever and bowel
M m 2
524 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.
complaints there is a fall through the winter, with a smaller secondary rise in the hot weather, due probably to cbncentra- tion of pollution of the water-supplies and to irrigation for agricultural purposes ; and some of the fevers are then, possibly, of the enteric class, though malarial fevers also increase at this time. Small-pox, as in England, is more markedly prevalent in the winter, spring, and early summer, with a decided fall below the mean from July to November. Diseases of the lungs are most fatal during the rains and in the winter months, when, in addition to vicissitudes of climate, the people are crowded in their dwellings.
Epidemics. The circumstances under which excessive mortality from epidemics occurs have been generally indicated in the previous pages ; and relapsing fever, dengue, and plague have to be added to the list of the specific fevers in this connexion. They are the results of some marked change in the relations of the aggregate of individuals to the environment, or of some exaggeration of the force of one or more of the factors. Failure of the rains, by diminishing the food-supply, has an immense and immediate effect on the vital powers of the population, lowering its resistance to all ordinary and extra- ordinary causes of mortality, while facilitating their propaga- tion. On the other hand there is the danger of excess of rainfall ; of cyclonic storms ; of inundations from overflow of rivers, to which both the drier and the wetter tracts are subject. More gradual, but persistently fatal, are the results, in the shape of epidemic fevers, of the geographical transfor- mations incident to the building up of land in deltaic areas, involving floods and alterations in the courses of rivers and of the natural drainage. The effects of aggregation vary with the conditions : on the one hand, an outbreak of cholera or small-pox among a concourse of pilgrims ; on the other, the more gradual evolution of conditions that invite the ravages of plague and typhus.
Small-pox. The record of small-pox is very imperfect for the first seventy years of the nineteenth century: inoculation was widely practised and vaccination only made its way slowly against the prejudices of the people. The number of operations in India in 1850 did not exceed 350,000, but since then the quality and quantity of the work have steadily increased, the number of persons now annually protected exceeding eight millions. The figures below are interesting, and there is little doubt of the diagnosis of this disease, with which the most ignorant are familiar. The figures show a decrease in the
x] PUBLI&HEALTH AND VITAL STATISTICS 525
mortality, account being taken of the growth of population, which represents the saving of about 1,160,000 lives in the third period as compared with the first, although, owing to plague and famine, all the conditions, save vaccination, were more favourable to the disease in 1890-1900.
SMALLPOX MORTALITY IN BRITISH INDIA.
VACCINATION.
Annual
Period.
Annual
average
number of
deaths.
Ratio
per I,(XK> of
population.
average
number of
person*
successfully
vaccinated.
1871-80 .
1881-90*.
168,964
121,680
o-93
0-63
3,951*709
5,024,352
1891-1900
81,233
0.38
6,778,624
For an account of the present plague epidemic the reader Plague, must be referred to the official reports, and especially to that of the Indian Commission of 18989. Since the recognition of the outbreak in Bombay in August, 1896, it has appeared in epidemic form in six of the Provinces of British India, and in several of the Native States. The aggregate number of deaths from plague recorded up to the end of 1903 amounted to 2,105,548, distributed, in round numbers, as follows: Bombay, including Sind, 934,000; Punjab, 454,000; Bengal, 178,000; United Provinces, 129,000; Central Provinces, 43,000 ; Madras, 30,000 ; Central India, 30,000 ; Mysore, 88,000; Hyderabad, 44,000; Kashmir, 10,000; Rajputana, 3,000. The record of deaths for Bombay city for the same period is 113,129, and for Calcutta 34,769 l .
The European army in India provides a select population Vital of adult males (with a smaller number of women and children), statisti cs aliens to the country and climate, and subject to the vicissi- an( i tudes of war. The Native army consists of the pick of the prisoners, manhood of the various indigenous races, also liable to war risks and to service outside their original habitat, a change to which most natives are peculiarly sensitive ; while the majority of the prisoners represent the destitute and vicious sections of the general population. All these classes have been under daily medical observation for many years, the records of which possess a substantial scientific value, and there is also a large mass of literature dealing with many of the problems of public health. To these detailed sources of information, the most important of which are indicated in the Bibliography 1 For further information about plague, see Vol. IV, ch. liv.
526
THE INDIAN EMPIRE
[CHAP.
European army.
at the end of this chapter, we must refer the reader who would pursue the investigation of the many questions that arise out of the bare statement of the main facts, which is all that space admits of here. In regard to the brief historical review presented, it must be noted that the sanitary awakening in England, though heralded by a few army and navy surgeons at the end of the eighteenth century, may be dated from the middle of the nineteenth century. After the first Public Health Act (1848), there was little progress until the question of army sanitary reform t engaged the attention of Royal Commissions in England (1858) and in India (1863), with important legislative results in both countries. A Sanitary Department was organized in India in 1 864 ; but many medical officers had already been calling attention to defaults in the hygiene of the troops and prisoners, and considerable progress in amelioration had been made before the Indian Commission was appointed. The move- ment was therefore roughly synchronous with that in England.
The first table below shows the gross death-rates among European troops per mille of strength for periods commencing roughly with the term of office of the first Governor-General and ending with the Mutiny; and the table which follows, which also gives the rates per mille, affords some idea of the chief causes of mortality. It must be remembered, however, that during these periods wars were much more frequent than has been the case subsequently.
PERIOD.
PRESIDENCY ARMY.
51
Bengal,
Bombay.
Madras.
1770-1800
1801-30
1831-5^
70.6
80.6
69-6
78-2
95-4
50-4
37-5
84-3
47-3
54-7
84-6
57-7
PaFSIDRNCY
ARMY.
Period.
o
fc.
D\s^ntrry
ah'i diar-
rhoea.
Cholera.
Hepatitis.
.a a
'. 5
i
^1
j
Bengal
1 1832-52
29.7
13.6
19-3
8-5
10.4
4*3
4.0
2-6
1.8
2O-O
75-9 |
64.1 $
Bombay .
( 1803-27
( 1828-53
10.8
10.6
19.9
12.8
5-4
10.0
4.3
4.1
1.6
1.4
22-7
II-7
65.6)
50-7 i
Madras
j 1829-38
i 1841-52
4-8
2-8
'33
8-0
i:
5'*
2.9
'4-3
11.9
45-0 )
32-05
- Not available.
x] PUBLIC JIEALTH AND VITAL STATISTICS 527
The extent of the sickness may be gathered from the fact
that, during the whole period, the men were admitted to hos- pital at the rate of over 2,000 per mille of strength, while the loss by invaliding amounted to 29 per mille. The Royal Com- mission of 1863 expressed the opinion that a death-rate of 20 per mille might ' be taken as the possible mortality under im- proved sanitary conditions,' and the record of the first twenty years of what may be termed the sanitary era will show how soon their anticipations were to be more than realized :
<*,
Sickness and Mortality per 1,000 among the European Troops
in India , 1870-89.
A A '
DEATHS FROM
Period,
Admis-
sions to
hospital
(all
causes).
Cholera.
Enteric
fever.
Oher
fe*trs*.
Hepa-
titis.
Dyson-
teiy
an'd
diar-
All
causes.
In-
valid-
ing.
rhoea
1870-9
1,475
3-2
2.0
1.4
2-1
1.6
19-3
43
1880-9
M93
i-7
3-7
0-9
1-4
J.2
I 57
27
That is to say, an average death-rate of about 70 per mille during the first half of the century had been reduced to an average of 17-5, which is equal to a saving of over 100,000 lives on the average strength in the last thirty years. The following figures show the position during the six years ending with 1900 :
Sickness and Mortality per 1,000 among the European Troops in India, 1895-1900.
- *
V)
b
X
e
ri
u
e
o
-
'55
o
E
3
12 .
rt <ri
rt
^
Constantly
Cholera
Enteric fe^
Other feve
Tubercle of 1
Other respin
diseases
Hepatic infl
mat ion a
abscess
Dysentery
diarrhoe
Venereal dis<
All cause
MS
0-9
0-6
7.0
368.0
0.7
3-9
29*0
0-6
20.4
1-3
I-I
419.0
O-2
1,360-0
A - Admissions to hospital ; D Deaths.
If field operations be excluded, the death-rate for India falls to 15-6 per mille. Out of every thousand men, 30 were invalided annually, but of these only 10-6 for discharge from
Including intermittent, remittent, and simple continued.
528
THE INDIAN EMPIRE
CHAP.
Officers of the European army.
Women of the European
army.
the service. The following statement shows how the liability to sickness and mortality is affected by age and 1/jngth of foreign service :
Sickness and Mortality per 1,000 by Age and Length of Service among the European Troops in India (1895-9) *
AGE.
Admitted
to hospital
(all causes)
Admitted
for rntenc
fever.
Deaths
from all
causes.
Deaths
from
enteric
fever.
Invalided
(a 11 causes)
Under ao
1,064
24-0
9 .2
f.I
15-3 '*
2025 .
1,703
38.6
18.1
10-2
37-9
253 -
1,200
14.9
I i.S
3-9
27.8
3 35
62O
6 '5
13-4
2-4
21-O
354
553
2-1
i;.6
1.4
27-6
40 and upwards .
545
267
48-7
LENGTH OF SERVICE
IN INDIA.
Under I year
>693
62.8
23-2
K.I
34-5
I 2 years
,524
31-7
16.3
8-5
39'0
23
>44
2O6
^35
5-7
35-i
34
,315
15-9
11.6
4.9
35-o
45
,239
13-6
n. i
4.2
31-6
510
.244
9.9
14.1
2-8
29.1
The marked effect of enteric fever on the relative age inci- dence of mortality will be noted. Lastly, more than half the total invaliding is due to four classes of disease : namely, venereal diseases, 23 per cent. ; intermittent and remittent fevers, 1 1 ; diseases of the heart and circulation, 1 1 ; and debility, 9 per cent.
The mortality among officers of the Company's service during the period 1814-33 is stated to have been at the rate of 38 per mille of strength per annum, and that for officers of the Royal Army in India, 34 per mille : the contrast afforded by the figures for the six years ending with 1900, in which it fell to 14*4 per mille, is striking and instructive. The chief causes of mortality are similar to those affecting the troops, though there is a lower fatality under each head save cholera.
The early records of sickness and mortality among the women connected with the European army are scanty and unreliable ; but in the Bengal army the average annual death-rate for the four years before the Mutiny was 44-5 per mille, and this rose to 49-6 during the four years following. It fell to an average (for India) of 24-5 per mille during the first decade of the sanitary
1 In 1900, as in 1901, the statistics are affected by the abnormal ages of the troops, due to absence of reliefs owing to the South African War.
x] PUBLIC .HEALTH AND VITAL STATISTICS 529
era, and the present improved conditions are shown by the
fact thattn 1895-1900 it was only 16-6 per mille.
The average annual death-rate among European soldiers' Children children in the Bengal army during the four years prior to the / tlle Mutiny was 84.1 per mille, and it rose to 93-3 in the decade ending army. 1870, the mortality from cholera accounting for 11-2 of the total. The effect of sanitary measures is perceptible in the decrease to 67-8 per mille (for India) in 1871-80, and to 44-4 for the six years ending with 1900. Of the mortality of recent years 94 per cent, occurs within the first five years of life : the average death-rate for the first year is 195 per mille, and for the 0-5 age-period 71, or about 15 more than that in England and Wale's. Measles and whooping cough caused annually 50 cases of sickness among every 1,000 children, and diphtheria and croup accounted for 25 deaths in the six years ending 1900, a rate of 0-74 per annum.
It is impossible to obtain an accurate measure of the sickness Native and mortality of the Native troops in the past, for the records take no account of that occurring among the men who were absent from their regiments on leave. While some general idea may be obtained from the following statement, which mainly corresponds to the second quarter of the nineteenth century, it may be said that the true gross death-rate probably amounted then to at least 22 per mille :
PRESIDENCY ARMY.
PERIOD 1833-53*.
RATIOS PER MILLB OF STRENGTH OF DEATHS FROM
Cholera.
Dysentery
and
diarrhoea.
Phthisis.
Fevers.
All
causes.
Bengal .
Horn bay
Madras .
All India
l-8i
2.29
7-34
1.6
1.9
2*1
O'22
o-45
5-1
5-5 2.8
14.4
15-8
18.8
2.9
1.8
O-22
4.8
15-6
Passing over the next twenty-five years, the records for which are similarly vitiated but indicate little change in the conditions, we come to the first decade of the sanitary era (1871-80), when the admissions to hospital averaged 1,287 P er mille of strength, and the death-rate 20*3 l , while 34 men in every thousand were
- Period 1842-53 for Madras.
1 This period, it must be remembered, covers the Afghan War.
530
THE INDIAN EMPIRE
[CHAP.
Jail popu lation.
invalided for discharge. We may now examine the position in 1895-1900, as set forth in the following table : f
Sickness and Mortality per 1,000 in the Native Army of India
(1895-1900).
Fevers :
Con-
stantly
sick.
Cho-
lera.
intermit^
tent,
remittent,
and simple
Tubercle
of lungs.
Other
rrspiratory
diseases.
Dysentery
and
diarrhoea.
Venereal
diseases.
All
causes.
continued.
.0 i A
- -5
327-9
3'0
43-6
58.7
37-5
783.0,
- ID
0.9
1.8
0-7
4-o
0-7
0-1
ii. 7
A- Admissions to hospital ; D = Deaths,
To this, which shows a reduction in the mortality of nearly 50 per cent., equal to an annual saving of over 1,200 lives, it may be added that the invaliding rate has fallen to 13 per mille of strength. Enteric fever caused only 204 admissions and 67 deaths during the six years, yielding ratios of 0-3 and 0-09 per mille per annum, respectively : that is to say, the Euro- pean troops are about 88 times more liable to this disease, from which the mortality to strength is nearly 80 times greater, than are the troops of the Native army.
The following statement exhibits (per 1,000) the general character of the jail mortuary statistics during a period which corresponds roughly to the second quarter of the nineteenth century :
PRISONERS IN THE JAILS OP PRESIDENCIES.
Period.
Admissions
to hospital
(all causes).
DEATHS FROM
"e\crs.
III
rt
u
"o
jd
monary
iihisiS.
causes.
Utf
Q *5
U
=> a.
CH
<
Bengal
Bombay
Madras
India .
l8 33-54
I,2*8l
1,050
10.9
4.4
21-7
17.0 '
87
10-9
2-6
6'-5
6-3
>,330
10.8
20-7
9-3
i-3
707
During the next seventeen years there was little improvement. The death-rate for Bengal averaged 68-2 per mille, but in Bombay it fell to 44-2, while in Madras it rose to 78-5 owing chiefly to outbreaks of cholera. This brings us to the year 1870, the commencement of the sanitary era and of the appoint- ment of medical officers to the full administrative charge of jails. During 1871-80 the average death-rate in Bengal was 46-6 per mille, and in Bombay 53-7. In Madras it was still as
x] PUBLIdHEALTH AND VITAL STATISTICS 531 i
high as 73*9, but two-thirds of the mortality occurred in famine years (1)877-8). If this period be excluded, the Madras rate falls to 36 per mille, and the combined rate for all India to 46-4. We may now examine in detail the record of the twenty years ending wjth 1900, and in order to convey an idea of the present position, the figures for 1881-94 and 1895-1900 are given separately. In the latter period they are deduced from an average annual strength, for all India, of 112,951 prisoners.
Sickness and Mortality per 1,000 among Prisoners in India, 1881-1900.
PROVINCF.
SICKNESS.
DEATHS FROM
Average con-
stantly sick.
Admissions to
hospital (all
causes).
a>
Cholera.
Dysentery and
diarrhoea.
6
c "9 .
Other respira-
tory diseases.
All causes.
( 1881-94
45
1,324
3-3
5.0
192
3-4
5-4
45-9 f
enga . | 1895-00
38
1 ,088
28
2-3
9.4
37
4-3
29-6 J
A J 1881-94
55
1,836
3-5
5-3
20.4
0.8
56
48.9
ssam . | 1895-00
1, 008
9.0
4-2
15.6
1.6
4.4
477 i
United Pro- ( 1881-94
31
757
1.4
1-5
7-2
1.8
5-9
25.6 j
vinces . ( 1895-00
46
888
'7
0-4
8.5
2-6
5-8
'7-9t i
Punjab . ) 'f '-94
J f 1895-00
36
34
1,486
1*279
LI
1.6
o. i
8.0
3-9
1-5
2-6
n-3
6.1
3.V
2O-O )
Central l 1881-94
33
930
2-1
4-4
20-1
0-8
56
46-3 |
Provinces. J ^95-00
43
1,049
1.9
3-4
38-6
3-9
6-7
7i-4ti
Bombay . j ij'-94
' \ 1895-00
27
29
766
806
2-9
2.6
2.9
7-3
6.8
i.i
2.8
9.1
7.6
33-4 1 <
Madras . \ >| 8 '-94
\ 1895-00
27
26
739
661
LO
1.8
4-4
4.6
10.4
3-3
2.9
30-9 {
26.9 \
Berir . J 'f -94
( 1895-00
- 9
688
672
1*5
0-6
1-6
2-4
8.7
i> i
47
7-9
17.0 )
34-atl
Barma \ 1881-94
41
955
2-1
6.9
10-8
2.6
3-4
38-3 |
- ) 1895-00
3 1
67,
I I
1-8
49
3-7
2.4
2O-O }
Andamans. ) '^-94
( 1895-00
62
i, '682
3-9
3-6
9.1
12.3
3-3
5- 1
3-2
317 j
32-1 \
A11 T J* 1 lOol O<t
All India j ,0
38
39
1,099
906
2.4
2*1
a.8
107
9.1
2*1
6.1
33-8 )
29.6 J
- Under 'fevers' are grouped 'intermittent,' 'remittent/ 'simple con-
tinued ' and ' enteric ' fevers, the death ratio of 2.15 (1895-1900 all India) being made up thus : intermittent 0.95, remittent 1-05, simple con- tinued 0-04, and enteric o-u. Intermittent fevers cause four times as many admissions as remittent and half as many again as simple continued: there were only i6S cases of enteric in all the jails during the six years period.
f Famine in 1896-7 and in 1900.
532
THE INDIAN EMPIRE
[CHAP.
Com- parison of European and Native troops and prisoners as regards disease statistics.
This shows a reduction in the combined deain-rare (India) of nearly 60 per cent, compared with the period? up to 1870. It must be noted, too, that during 1895-1900 famine and exceptional epidemic disease prevailed in at least five of the Provinces, and affected the population in nearly all, driving to crime large numbers of the destitute, many of whom were admitted to jail in the last stages of disease and want. In the three years 1901-3 the death-rates for all India have fallen to 26-8, 24-8, and 21-4 per mille respectively.
It is calculated that under normal conditions the death-rat^- of the free population between the ages of 20 and 64 is about 29 per mille, so that the present jail death-rate affords testimony to the care and skill bestowed on the prisoners, who are for the most part drawn from the poorest and most depraved sections of the community. As regards the causes of mortality, it will be seen that the proportion borne to the total by the sum of the four classes of disease distinguished in the table on page 530 is 54 percent, in the last period (1895-1900), against 59 per cent, in the first (1833-53). There has, therefore, been little or no change in the nature and type of the chief disease causes ; but the death-rate from cholera has decreased by 7-8 per mille, that from fevers by 8-7, that from dysentery by 1 1-6, or by about 28 per mille under the three heads, while the phthisis rate has increased by 1-9, owing doubtless to improved diagnosis. The death-rate from small-pox (1895-1900) was only 0-07 per mille.
Finally, it will be instructive to compare the incidence of the chief causes of sickness and mortality on the three classes hitherto discussed (European and Native troops and prisoners), taking the mean results for the five years 1895-9.
In every 100 admissions to hospital there were among :
EUROPEAN TROOPS.
Cases.
NATIVE TROOPS.
Cases.
PRISONERS.
Cases.
34-2
Venereal diseases
31.3
Intermittent
fever
38-3
Intermittent
fever
Intermittent fever
Simple continued
fever
22-6
2. 4
Dysentery
Venereal dis-
eases
5 '2
4.6
Dysentery
Abscess, ulcer,
and boils
9.9
9.1
Dysentery .
- -3
Respiratory dis-
eases *
3-6
Diarrhoea
6.1
Respiratory dis-
eases*
1.8
Remittent fever
2-1
Respiratory
diseases *
3-6
Simple con-
tinued fever
2-3
Excluding tubercle and pneumonia.
x] PUBLIC flEALTH AND VITAL STATISTICS 533
' In every 100 deaths there were among :
A.
EUROPEAN TROOPS.
Cases.
NATIVE TROOPS.
Cases.
PRISONERS.
Cases.
Enteric fever
Hepatic abscess
43-4
8.1
Pneumonia
Remittent fever .
31-6
9.9
Dysentery .
Pneumonia
24.3
14.1
Dysentery .
Heat-stroke
6-3
4-8
Tubercle of lungs
Intermittent fever
6.0
5-3
Tubercle of lungs
Diarrhoea.
II. I
7.0
Pneumonia .
3-7
Cholera
4.4
Anaemia and de-
5-7
bility
Tubercle of lungs
3-5
Respiratory dis-
4-4
Cholera .
4.1
eases *
t^Vculatory dis-
3-0
Dysentery .
4-3
Respiratory dis-
3-6
eases
eases* .
Remittent fever.
3-6
Intermittent
3-4
fever
As regards sickness, the Europeans are specially liable to a class of disorder from which the natives under comparison are much freer, owing largely to marriage or incarceration. In regard to the mortality, we see the pre-eminent fatality of specific bowel and lung diseases, though its relative measure varies with the circumstances, including the susceptibility and vitality of the subjects. The disabilities of the class from which the prisoners are drawn have been alluded to; those of the Native troops are largely clue to exposure to strange climates, not necessarily outside India, and to their freedom to indulge their ingrained domestic customs in barracks. If it were not for enteric fever, the probabilities of life for the European troops would be as good as for males at the same ages in England ; but the subject is too extensive and intricate for discussion here, and is dealt with at length in the reports about to be mentioned. The prospects of a further diminution of the present comparatively low death-rate lie chiefly in the direction of the prevention of this disease, and that it will be achieved to a large extent admits of little doubt.
The following statement of the sickness and mortality (per Cholera 1,000) from cholera among the troops and prisoners in Bengal, statistics ot the 'home' of the disease, may fitly close this brief review, as it prisoned affords a significant summary of the results of the application m of sanitary measures to which the foregoing pages bear ample testimony ;
Excluding tubercle and pneumonia.
534
THE INDIAN EMPIRE
[CHAP.
European Troops.
Native
Troops.
/Prisoners.
PBRIOD.
PERIOD.
PERIOD.
Cues.
Deaths.
Cases.
Deaths.
Cases.
Deaths
1818-27 .
1828 37 .
29.8
33-7
8-8
8.0
l 83i-53
8-3
3-0*
1^33-54
20.5
8.8
1838-47 .
33-
13.0
1848-57 .
20-0
9.2
1861-70
5-o
'5*
1859-70
21-8
8-9
1858-67 .
I5- 1
9.1
1870-4 .
4.1
2.6
1870-4
2-O
ri
1870-4
7-0
2-8
1875-9
5-4
3-8
1875-9
2-8
1.6
'875-9
88
4-f*
i 880-4
3-3
. 2-3
1880-4
l'I
07
1880-4
4.0
2.2
1885-9
2-2
i-4
1 1X85-9
'7
i-i
1885-9
6-2
3-6
1890-4 .
2-7
1-9
1890-4
2-6
1.6
1890-4
3-7
2-1
1895-1900
- -5
LI
1895-1900
i-3
0.9
1895-1900
4.1
3-3
These figures refer to communities over the physical condi- tions of which the Government and its officers exercise more or less control, though the troops live among, and come into con- stant contact with, the general population. Moreover, there are conditions inalienable from the concentration of large bodies of men in barracks or jails which enhance the difficulties of ex- cluding sickness of a communicable nature. The results prior and subsequent to the sanitary era may be contrasted ; and it should be noted that the period 1895-1900 is one in which cholera among the general population was, owing to famine and scarcity, prevalent beyond all previous record.
A. E. ROBERTS.
- Cases and deaths among those absent from their iegiuient* not included
be lore 1870.
x] PUBLIC HEALTH AND VITAL STATISTICS 535
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Central Population. (a) The record of the Vital Statistics on a uniform system commenced in 1864 with (i) the Annual Report* of the Presidency Sanitary Commissions (1864-8) : these led to (2) the subsequent Annual Reports of the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India and (3) of the Provincial Sanitary Commissioners. The foregoing are sum- marized in the Reports (4) presented to Parliament on Sanitary Measures in India (1868 to date), and are completed by (5) the General and Provincial "fnsus Reports, 1872, 1881, 1891, and 1901.
() Medical and charitable relief the annual Provincial Reports (6) on Vaccination, from 1861-9 to date, the year of commencement varying in different-Provinces; (7) on Hospitals and Dispensaries, from 1852-76 to date ; (8) the several Famine Reports, notably those of the Commissions of 1880 and 1901.
(c) The Special Reports on Epidemic Disease in India are very numerous, and only the main sources will be cited as they contain the necessary references. For cholera, (9) the Reports of the Presidency Boards on the great epidemic of 1817, and that of the Commission of 1861 ; (10) the Statistical Record of Cholera in Bengal from 1817 to 1872, by Bryden (1874^ ; the Sanitary Reports (2) and (3) supra bring the record up to the present date, the volumes of (2) for 1878 and 1894 being specially valuable. For epidemic malarial fever, in Bengal and Assam, see early volumes of (3) for Bengal, and (u) the Repoits of Elliott (,1863); Giles (1890); Rogers (1897); Ross (1899).
For Plague, (12) Report of Indian Commission of 1898-9 (1901).
Army. (13) Report of the Royal Commission on the Sanitary Condition of the Army in India (1863); (14) BrydetA Statistical Tables (Bengal) from 1858 to 1870 the Sanitary Repoits (2) bring the record up to date; (15) Army Medical Department Reports, 1859 to date.
Prisoners. See (14) and (2) ; (16) the Annual Reports of the Inspectors- General of Jails from 1850-66 to date ; (17) Reports of the Jail Committees of 1838, 1864, 1877, and 1889. -
NOTE. Nos. (2) and (3) and many of the official reports quoted may be obtained in London from Messrs. Arnold, Constable, Sampson Low, and other publishers; in Berlin, from Messrs. Fried lander; in Paris, from Messrs. Leroux.
INDEX
A.
Aboriginal races and languages of India ; probably Dravidian, 298, 299, and Munda. 382, 383 ; the Santals, 431, 296; the tribes of Chota Nagpur, 296, 308, 309 ; the Khonds of Orissa, 309 ; the Goods, 428 ; a leaf-clad Munda tribe, speaking Juang, 384 ; Mongo- loid tribes of the Assam hills, 309, 387 ; their nature-worship found in the Mahabharata, 418, 432; in the cult of Siva, 420; in Animism, a con- stituent of many creeds and the basis of the present religion of the peasant, 432, 433. Stf also Dravidian, Munda, Tribes, Animism, Totemisra, Exo- gamy.
Afghanistan, its physical aspects, n~ 14; the chief passes to, 10; its four great river basins, 1 1 ; absorption of its rivers in deserts, 1 1, 12; its ex- tensive system of irrigation, 12; its mountains, 12, 13; its valleys, 13, 14; the Hindu Kush, 12 ; dependent upon storms for ram, 140 ; ethnology o', 293 ; ethnography of the Afghan type of tribe, 309, 330 ; its language, Pashto, an Iranian tongue, 354 ; its distribution, character, dialects, litera- ture, and the number of its speakers,
354. 355-
Age, statistics of, 478 ; mean age of living, 24.9 years, 4/8; higher in Aryan N. India than in Mongolian and Diavidian Bengal and Bombay, 478 ; influenced by ratio of death and birth rates, by famines, 478 ; a table of age- distribution ot the population in India and England, 5/4; mortality and ex- pectation of life at different ages in India and England, with a table, 514- 516 ; age as a factor in mortality from enteric, 528. See also Infantile Mor- tality, Census Table VII.
Aghoris, a Saiva sect, eaters of filth and corpses, 421.
Agni, the Vedic god of fire, 403.
Ahmadiyas, the, a recent sect of Islam in the Punjab, 438 ; their leader, Mulla Ghulam Ahmad, claims to be at once Mahdi and Messiah, 438; the Koran containsall knowledge, 438 ; dis- courages religious war, 438 ; denounces Christianity, Hinduism, the Shiah doctrines, and English education, 438.
Akbar the Great, his tolerance of Hindu- ism, 434; of Christianity, 442.
Allgarh, the Anglo-Oriental College at, 438 ; repiesentative of the progressive party in Islam, 438.
Allahabad, meteorology of, 126.
Alluvial remains : Elephas namadint^ 100; Hippopotamus^ 100; Bos natlla- die us, 100.
Anaimalai Hills, the, physical aspects of, 40; meteorology of, 114. c
Andamans, the, geology of, 90, 94 ; recent isolation of, 99; botany of, 203, 204 ; their language Andamanese, really a group of agglutinating languages,
389-
Animism, what is meant by the term, 430,431,473 (footnote); a massof prim- itive beliefs, the real faith of the people, 430; largely non- Aryan in its origin and distribution, 432 ; prevalent at all times and everywhere, 432 ; census returns of only nominal value, 432 ; in its purest form among the forest races of the Peninsula and Himalayas, 431 ; their kingdoms and dynasties, 431 ; its effect onlilam, 435 ; its fusion with Islam in the Pachpinyas, 435, 436; the religion of 3 per cent, of the population, 47* ; the regional distribution of Animists,
47', 473-
Antelopes, three genera peculiar to the Peninsula, 234; the Nilgai, the Four- horned Antelope, the Indian Antelope or * black buck,' their distribution, haunts and habits, 235 ; the Tibetan Antelope, 235 ; Gazelles, 235.
Anthropometry, as applied to Ethnology,
284, 285 ; data of, in India, 286, 287 ; methods of, applied to head, 288, 289, nose, 289, 290, orbit of eye, 291, stature, 292 ; conditions favourable to anthro- pometry and its peculiar value in India,
285, 286, 288.
Apabhramsa (* corrupt'), title given to the true vernaculars afur the Prakrits became literary and polished, 361 ; the parents of the modern vernaculars, 362.
Approaches by land and gateways of India, 5, 6, 10, 18.
Aravalli mountains, their antiquity and degradation, I ; divide Indian desert or the Thar from South Kajputana, 33; meteorology of, 123; botany of, 176, 177.
INDEX
537
Arny of India, vital statistics of, 525- 530. See Specific Fevers, Enteric, Cholera, 'Phthisis.
Aryan Languages, their passage from synthesis to analysis, 351 ; supersede indigenous forms of speech, 351; a branch of Indo-European family, 352, its original home probably in Steppe country of S. Russia, 352, its division into centum- speakers, who travelled westwaids, and .ra/i/tt-speakers of the eastward, to which Aryan and other gioups belong, 352; migration of Aryans by Jaxartes and Oxus to Kho- Hind and Badakshan, 353, their division into Indo-Arvans, marching south over the Hindu Kush by Kabul to India, and Eianiins (Iranians) towards Merv, Persia. Baluchistan, and Afghanistan, 353; their present area in India, 351.
Aryan, the race, its possible existence, physical chaiacteristics and onginal habitat, 299, 35,2.
Aryan (geological) era, the, 68-103.
Aryo-Dravidian or Hindustani Type or Race, the, 294 ; its distiibutinn, phy- sical and social characteristics, 294; Dr. Iloernle's theory, 303, 304, sup- ported by Dr. Grierson's Linguistic Survey, 303, 304, as due to a later swarm of Aryans unaccompanied by women, 303, 304.
Asoka (2^9-232 I?, r.), king of the Maur) and) nasty, and pation of Ihiddh- i-.m, 411 ; transfoimed it fiom a local cult to a woild-vvide religion, 411.
Assam, valley of, 27, compared with Bengal and Burma, 27, its narrowed vista and area of cultivation, 27, its tea-gardens, 27, its clearings, 27, its better climate, 27, its enormous wastes, 27, the jungles of the Duars of Bhutan Himalayas, 27; obstacles to railuay connexion with Burma, 20; Assam and NE. Himalayas geologically later than N\V. Himalayas, 2 ; largest rainfall in Assam hills, 104 ; earth- quake ot 1897, 9$ ; meteorology of: hailstorms, 117, rainfall of hot weathei, 118, 141, 122, 123, 130, 136, 140, 142 ; botany of, see (Jangetic Plain; zoology of, 214; ethnology of, 295; the language of the upper and middle Assam valley, Assamese, with an important literature, 378, of Noith, Eastern and Central Assam, and the lower valley, 3187 ; population and density in, 451,452 ; giowth of popula- tion in, 462 ; favoured by immigration of tea-coolies, 462 ; checked by kald az&r, 462 ; birth-rate, 506 ; death-rate, 5 1 2.
Aurangzeb, his bigotry and persecution of Hindus, 434.
VOL. I. N
B.
Backergunge, cyclone of 1876, 135.
Bagdi, Jeliya, Namasudra or Chandal, Pod, Rajbansi-Koch, castes of sixth class in Bengal, 328.
Baidyas, physician caste of second class in Bengal, 327; their doubtful preten- sions, 327.
Baishtam, bunri, Subarnabanik, castes of fifth class in Bengal, 328.
Baluchistan ; physical aspects of, southern, 6 7, northem, 8, 9;* geology of, 75, 88, 90, 92, 93, 101 ; meteorology of, 113, 132; outside sphere of monsoon cunents, 122; storms the main source of rain, 140; its annual lain fall, 145; botany of British Baluchistan, 209; ethnology of, 293 ; ethnography of the Baloch tribe, 310; absence of caste s>st<m, 329, 330; intermaniage customs, 330; its principal language, Baloch, an Iranian tongue, 353 ; its dialects, distribution, and the number of its speakers, 353, 354 ; Biahui, a Diavidian language, spoken in the central highlands, 381.
Bamboos, 160; numbei of species, 162; in Sikkim, 167 ; in Western Himalayan Region, 172; in Indus Plain, 177; in Bengal pioper, 181 ; in upper Gangetic plain, 181 ; none in Sumiarbans, 184; in Malabar Region, 187; of Nllgui Sholas, 1 88 ; in the Deccan, 192 ; in Ce\lon, 195 ; in Burma, 190,, 200, 201 ; in the Andamans, 204; in Malayan Peninsula, 206, 207.
Barwaik sept of Rajputs in Chanda, their humble extraction, 320, 321.
Batiachians, 272-274.
Bears, four species of, their distribution, haunts, and habits, 223, 224.
Bee-eaters (birds), 248.
Beast hospitals, 414.
Beast stories, 221.
Bennies, the head-quarters of Brahman orthodoxy, 421; the lingam of Siva the chief object of worship at, 421.
Bengal, rainfall in hot season, 118; date of wet monsoon, 124; castes of, 294, 326-329; population and density in Pro- vince of Bengal, 452 ; growth of popu- lation in different parts, 462 ; favourable and unfavourable conditions, 463; birth- rate, 506; death-rate, 512; infantile mortality, 517.
Bengali, the language of the territories subject to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal and the Bengali Districts of Assam, 376; the literary and official, with a highly Sanskritized vocabulary and archaic grammar, manufactured at the beginning of last century, unintelligible
n
533
INDEX
to the ordinary natives, 377 ; the spoken, divided into three groups of dialects, Western or standard, Eastern, and Northern, 377, 378.
Berar, the home of Maharasbtrl, the scat of a power which encouraged vernacu- lar and Sanskrit literature, 361 ; its population and density, 453 ; birth- rate. 506; death-rate, 512; infantile mortality, 517.
Bhakti, or fervent devotion to God, of the KablrpanthiSjthe only road to happiness and salvation, 425, 426.
Bhotia (from Bhot, the Indian name of Tibet), the general name of a group of dialects, of which Tibetan is one, 386 ; connected with groups of Himalayan languages, * Pronominalized* and 4 Xon- pronominalized,' 386 ; relations of both to an older tongue resembling Munda,
387.
Bhumij of \V. Bengal, a Dravidian race, with exogamous totemism, have a- dopted Bengali language, caste, and Brahmnnism, 313.
Bibliographies : geology, 102, 103 ; meteorology, 156; botany, 211, 212; ethnology and caste, 34-S ; languages, 395-401 ; religions, 446 ; vital staiU- ticN, 535-
Bihar, date of wet monsoon in, 124, premature cessation, 130; ethnology of, 294 ; its language, Bihar!, 375 ; population and density of, 452.
Bihari, the language of Bihar, Patna, Gaya, Tirhut, Bhojpur, Chota Nagpur, 375 \ i ts three dialects, Maithill, Magahl, and Bhojpurl, 375, 376. See also Magarrfia.
Birds, 239-266.
Birth-rate, statistics of, 478, 479, 506 ; affected by marriage customs, 507, 508 ; by agricultural distress or pros- perity, 508 ; by normal seasonal varia- tions, 509; by supplies of food, 509; by disease, 509 ; higher among Mu- hammadans than Hindu**, 510 : propor- tion of male to female births, 510; urban and rural birth-rates, with table for Provinces, 511; proportion of still births, 511, 512 ; years in which deaths exceed births in the chief Provinces from 1881 to 1900, 512.
Bison, or Gaur {Bos Gaurus}, found in all the great forest tracts, 231, 232.
Blan ford's The Kainf all of India, quoted passim in ch. in upon decrease of rainfall and change of ciirnnte in modern times, 301, 302 ; ethnological inferences therefrom, 302.
Blindness, statistics and distribution of,
485-
- Blue jay,' so called, 248.
Poas and Pythons, 369.
Bohras, the, * traders' of W. India, a sect of Islam, 438 ; mainly converts from Hinduism, 438 ; a mercantile group, originally Shiahs, 438 ; a land- holding group, generally Sunnis with a tendency towards Wahabism, 438.
Bolan pass between Sind and Baluchi- stan, 7.
Bombay city, 457; population of, 10,000 in 1 66 1, <jS2,ooo in 1906, 458; density of, 458 ; 75 per cent, immi- grants, 38 per cent, women, 458 ; infant mortality in 1900, 518; o v ^r- crowding in, 520; the high death- rate from phthisis 520.
' Bombay duck/ 278.
Bombay Presidency, date of %vet monsoon, 124; delay of rainfall in Northern Bom- bay, 130; population and density, 4-2, 453; decrease of population since 1*81 due to plague, 463 ; infantile mortality in,5i7; birth-rate, 506; death-rate, 51 2.
Bordei lands of India, physical description of, 6-21 ; wealth and strength of India largely dependent upon, 21, 22.
Borghat, the, 39.
Botany of British India, and some adjacent territories, ch. iv, pp. 157-212; only native flowering prants, ferns and their allies, included under term Flora in this Sketch, 157 ; Mora of British India vaned and rich, but no Natural Order peculiar to it, 157 ; hence no Indian Flora proper, 158; phytogcographic anomalies few, 159 ; rhododendron belt of high Eastern Himalayas an ex- ception to general absence of plants giving, like British heaths, a character to wule landscapes, 159; indigenous palms, 160; bamboos, 1 60 ; gregarious shrubs, 160; fresh-water flowering plants, 161 ; number of recorded Na- tural Orders and species, 161 ; domi- nant Orders, 162; proportion of Mono- cotyledons to Dicotyledons, of genera to species, 162 ; number of recorded species of Palms, Bamboos, Conifers, Cycadcae t 162; characteristics of three primary botanical Areas in British India, 162 ; basis of subdivision into nine botanical Regions, 162 ; enumeration and limitation of Regions, 163; strict geographical limitations difficult or impossible, 164 ; rough coincidence of Regions with wet and dry areas of Prain's Plants of Bengal ', 164; with sub-areas of C. K Clarke, 165 ; corre- spondence of Regions with sixty-four Provinces of Flora fndica, 165, 166; details of nine Regions, 166-207; (i) Eastern Himalayan Region, 166-170; in it I 4 lora of Sikkim alone well-known,
INDEX
539
rt>6; Florn of Mishmi Hills, 166 n. ; Sikkim, 166-170; tropical zone, 167, 168 ; temf>crate zone, 168, 169; alpine 2000,169,170; (a) Western Himalayan Kegion, 170-176; tropical zone, 172; temperate zone, 173; alpine zone, 174; Tibetan valleys, 175; (3) Innus plain Region, 176-179; characteristic plants, 178, 179; peculiarities oi Salt Range, Smd, and Indus Delta, 179 ; (4) Gan- getic plain Region, 179-184; divided into three sub-iegions, upper Gangetic Main, 180, 181 ; Bengal proper, 181, 182 ; and the Sundarbans and the Flora
- >Tthe Indian Deltas, 1X2-184 ; contrast
jf Western Peninsula (Malabar and the Deccan) \\ith Burma, 185, iS6; (5) Malabar Rtgion, 186-189; the Nllgiiis, 187-189; the Laccadive Archipelago, 189; ((>} Deccan Region, 189-193; sub- divided into sub-rcgionsof Deccan, 190- 193, and of Coromandel, 193; (7) the Ceylon Region, 193-196; the Patanas, 195; the Maldive Archipelago, 196; (S) Burmese Kegion, 196-205 ; Burma, botamcally lichest and least known, 196; cardinal features of its Mora, 196199; divided into sub-regions, Northern Burma, 199-200, \Vcstern and Southern, 200, 201 , Eastern, 201-203, and Central Burma, 203 ; the Andaman Islands, 203, 204 ; the Nicobar Islands, 204, 205 ; (9) the Malavan Peninsula Region, 205^-207; little known ot its Mora, cardinal features, 205-207; Pe- nang Islet, 207 ; Cocosand Keeling Is- lets, 207. Appendices: A. TheKuiram Valley, 208 ; B British Baluchistan, 209, 210. Bibliography, 211, 212. Brahma, the fust peison of the Hindu Triad, in the Epic period, the Cieatoi, 404, 420; now not widely worshipped,
I 20 ' Brahmanas, the, sacred Sanskrit wiitings
explanatory of the sacrifices and duties of the priests, 404 ; later in thought than the Vedic Hymns, eaiher than the Upanishads, 406.
Brahmanism, its birth-place in the * Mid- land,* 404 ; a ritualistic and philoso- phical development of Ycdism, 404; the Brahmanas, 404; supremacy of the priestly class, 404, 405 ; the sub- jection of the other classes, 407 ; a uystem of ritual and worship rather than of religion, 405 ; its vague eschatology, 405; its human sacntice, 405, 406 ; its exclusion of all but Brahmans from the ascetic fraternities, 408, 414 ; re- action against, in Buddhism and Jainism, 406, 407 ; the compatibility of Hinduism with both, 408, 415, 416; the evolution fiom Brahmamsm of
modern Hinduism, 412, 417. See also Caste, Hinduism.
Brahmans, ethnology of, the Maratha Brahmans, 293; of Hindustan, 294; of Bihar, 294 ; of Bengal, 294, 295, 304 ; Nambudri or Namputiri of Malabar, 319 ; their traditional origin and exceptional customs and ritual, 319; Rarhi of Bengal, legend of, 304, 319, 320 ; Barna, 326, 331 ; Vyasokta, 326.
Brahmans, the. their mythical origin, 332 ; suppression of the Kshattriyas,4O7; first of all castes in social precedence, 324 326 ; their social and ritual relations to other castes, 324-326 ; Biahmans and Brahmans, 326, 327 ; their wide diffu- sion and large number. 331 ; probably of mixed descent, 33 1 ; different theories of the origin of the caste or Brahmani- cal system, 332-347; more orthodox and powerful in South than in North India, 422.
Biahmaputra, the river, its origin in Tibet as Tsan-po, 19, 27 ; its course north of the Ilimalavas, 27; enters British terri- toiy as the Dihang, 27 ; after confluence with the Dibang and Luhit known as Brahmaputia, 27 ; in Assam and Ben- gal, 27, 28 ; junction with Ganges and Meghna, 25, 28; their combined delta and estuaries, 27, 28; its crops and traffic, 28; not utilized for irrigation, 28; general characters of a deltaic river, 25-28.
Brahmaputra, valley of, important as highway to Tibet and China, 19; its agricultural possibilities, 19, 20.
Biaiuu, ethnology of, 293 ; ethnography of the Brahui tribe, 310, 382 ; social relations with the Baloch and Jats, 3*0; their Diavidian language, Biahui, 382.
Buddhism, 408-413 ; originally a system of monasticism and begging friars, itself a development of last and ascetic stages of Brahmanism, 408 ; subse- quent antagonism, 408 ; its relations to caste then and now, 408 ; its ethics not new, 409 ; not concerned with theology and psychology, 400, ; its way of salvation, by purity and love, 409 ; its pessimism, 409 ; Nirvana, 410 ; the causes of its spread : its fieedom from ritual, its practical benevolence, the personality of the master, 410; the divinity of Buddha not an original belief, 410 ; the influence of the Sangha or Congregation of the Monastic Older, 410; its rules of life finally more bur- densome than caste, 410; Buddhism as a state religion under Asoka, 411; falling off in spirituality, 411 ; as a missionary religion reaching Ceylon, Burma, Siam)
N n 2
540
INDEX
China, Japan, 41 1 ; later Indian Buddh- ism, 411 ; council of King Kanishka, 41 1 ; its decay and its causes, 411-413; its idealism, and the reform of Brahman- ism, 412, 41 3, 42 1,42 2 ; theiiseof Mus- lim power, 413 ; its exclusion of the laity from its Sangha, 415; modern Buddh- ism in India, its habitats and numbers, 413, 473; survivals of Buddhism in Bengal, the Saraks, 413: contrasted with Jainism, 414; the religion of 3 per cent, of the population. 47 i ; mostly iound in Burma and Himalayas, 473.
Buffalo, wild and tame, 231, 232.
Bulbuls ( birds), 241.
Burma, physical aspects of Northern or Upper, 20, 21, 10.0 ; ot Lower, 21, 201 ; obstacles to railway communication with Upper Assam, 20; the Irrauaddy river, its rise, affluents, climate and products of its valley, 21.
Burma,geologyof, thePu:anagroup/>2,63; older Palaeozoic in Upper, 67 ; Car bo- Trias, 70; lYnno- Carboniferous. 74; serpentines and jadtites, 9 ; Miocene, 93 ; Ternary re<.ordj>, 94 ; table ot Tertiaiy formations, 95 ; Miocene Ye- nang\aung series, 94, 95 ; lria\vad<iy system, 97 ; fossil \\ood, 97 ; piobablc equivalence with Si\\alik series, 97.
Burma, meteorology of, 1 14, 1 1 9, 122, 128,
I3> I 35" I 37-
Burma, botany of Burmese Region, by far the lichee of Briti>h India, and the lea^t known, 1^6-205 ; forests, 197-199; ot Northern Burma, like Eastern llnrul- la)an, but without alpine zone, 199- 200 ; of Southern and \Vestern, 200, 201; of Easiern, 201-203; report^ limite'l and contacting, 202 ; of Central Burma, 203 ; of Andamans, 203, 204 ; of Nicobar Islands, 204, 205.
Burma, zoology of, 214; ethnology of, 295 ; absence of caste system, 330 ; endo- gamy of Thugaung* in Minbu. 330; its language, Burmese, 388 ; numbers nine millions of Buddhists, 413 ; popu- lation and density oJ, 453 ; rapid growth of population in, due to its great prosperity, 463, 464 ; birth-rate in Lower Burma, 506 ; death-rate, 512; infantile mortality, 517.
Burmese, the langunge of Upj>er and Lower Burma, 388; Arakanese, the most important of many dialects, 388 ; its considerable literature and a written character of its own, 388.
C.
Calcutta, geology of, alluvium, loo ; date of monsoon rain, 124; weather in July, 126; cyclone of 1864, 135; ex- cessive downpour of rain, 144 ; popula-
tion of, 457 ; in 1710, 12,000; in 1891, 1,106,738; one of the twelve largest cities of the world, 457 f density of, 4*7 75 P er cent, immigrants, 33 per cent, females, 457.
Caip, all fresh-wnter fish, all edible ; the tohu or rohi, the fatla, the mahsccr, others spotted and trout-like, 277.
Caste, the system of, derivation and im- plication of the term, 311; definition ot caste, 311; absolute prohibition of mixed marriages its essential character- istic, 287 ; conversion of tiibes into castes.with and without mixluie of bW4, 311-313; varieties of castes, 313- 322: classification of caste, its difficulty for Census of 1901, 323, 324; social precedence adopted as a* basis, 324; general results, 325, 326; contagion of caste among Muhammadans, 329 ; its absence troin Baluchistan and Burma, 329, 330; origin of caste, 33 2 ~3 17 > tn e Indian theory, 332, 333; cieation of lour original castes or gi oup% 332 ; caste system evolved from a subsequent series of complicated crosses, 332 ; modified by hypergamy (anu!&nta and hypogamy f fratitowa , instances, 332, 333 ; historic.il elements of Indian theory, 333; confumed by I )r. tick's studies of the structure of soeictx in North- Kast India at the time 01 Buddha, ."534: its probable origin in Iranian legend of four classes, 335 ; modified by racial antagonism in India, 335, and later developments, 336; Sir ]>cn/il Ibbe'.son's theory of evolution of caste, 337; Mr. Nesficld's theory, 337 3T>8 ; M. Scnarl's theory, 339- 342 ; caste a normal development and arrestment of early Aryan institutions, 341 ; India never rose to idea of a State or a 1'atherland, 341 ; con- tributing factors, 341 ; Greek and Ro- man parallels, 340-342 ; caste system absent from the Vedas, 342 ; caste not merely function or occupation. 342- 344 ; castes not merely developed tribes, 344 ; exogamy of primitive tribes, 344; the actual genesis of caste irom the widespread distinction of blood plus colour between higher and lower races in contact, 345 ; portion of half-breeds everywhere, 345 ; caste a result of second and successive waves of Indo- Aryan invaders and of hypergamy, 345 346* 357 I principle of the facts of caste perpetuated and extended by a substructure of fiction, 346 ; social or artificial distinctions tend to be thought genetic and natural, 347 ; caste instinct favoured by characteristics of Indian mind, 347 ; in agreement with doctrine
INDEX
54*
o'f transmigration and karma, 347; Buddhism and caste, 408 ; Jain ism and caste, 416*; recognition of, by Catholic missions, 442 ; moral and physical effects of caste system, 501, 502, 507, 508, 520. See Brahmans, Hinduism. Cartes, varieties of: tribal, by conversion of tribes, examples of, 314 ; functional or occupational, examples of, 314, 315 ; sectarian, sects that have reverted to caste, the Lingayat caste, 315, 316, 422, 423; castes, ancient and modern, formed by crossing, 317, 318 ; national,
- he Newars in Nepal, the Maiathas,
38, 319; sectarian abjuration of caste usually a transient phase, 315, 316, 408, 423, 427 ; castes formed by migration* or change of residence, Nambudri Brahmans of Malabar, Karhi of Bengal, Baruaik sept of Rajputs in Chanda, 319-321 ; castes formed by neglect or changes of customs and ritual, the Ka,\a,>ths, the Bal.hans or Bhuinhars, 321; the practice of widow reman inge, the Kurmls of Bihar arid of the United Provinces, 322 ; classified in Census of 1901 on basis of social
rrecedence, 324; seven main clashes of lindus in Bengal, 326-328; distnbu- tion of castes and tribes, 331, 332, 498. See Census Table XII.
Cat-bear or Himalayan Racoon, its dis- tribution, haunts and habits, 223.
Co u very, the, a river of the Deccan, 4 The Ganges of the South.' 45; its ribe, course, 'anicuts,' and delta, 45, 46.
Census, difficulties of making and taking,
3 3 3, 3 2 4 43 2 > 47*> 55> S 1 ^ 5M>
SIT-
Census Tables, 489- 499: I. General state- ment of number of towns, villages, and houses, with their population, male anil female, in nil India, 489; II. Variation in population, from 1872 to 1901,489; III. Population distributed by Provinces and States, 490 ; III A. Bengal, Assam, and Central Provinces as reconstituted in 1 905, 491; IV. Towns and villages classified by population,
491 ; V. Population of chief towns,
492 ; VI. Religious census, 493 ; VII. Age census, 493; VIII. Census of civil condition, 494 ; IX. Education census, 495 ; X. Census of language, 496; XI. Birthplace census, 497 ; XII. Statistics of main castes and tribes, and chief habitats, 498 ; XIII. Census of occupations and means of livelihood, 499.
Central India, 35, 36 ; physical and geological features and climate, 35, 36; date of wet monsoon, 124; delay of, 130, 132, 150; ethnology of, 296.
Central Provinces, the, physical aspects of, 36, 37 ; date of wet monsoon, 124 ; delay of wet monsoon, 130; rain- fall, 141, 142 ; ethnology 0^296 ; popu- lation and density of, 453 ; varying rate of population since 1881, 464; de- crease since 1 891 , due to famine, cholera, and malaria, 464 ; mortality greater among aborigines than among Hindus, 464 ; infantile mortality in 1900, 518; birth-rate, 506; death-rate, 512.
Ceylon, physical aspects of, 47-49 politi- cally distinct, physically connected with the Peninsula, 47 ; a group of moun- tains with a broad fringe of plain, 47 ; its forests and jungles, 47 ; Us remains of great Buddhist cities, 47, 48 ; its beautiful inland coast scenery, 48 ; its ports of Tnncomalee, Colombo, and Point de Galle, 48; its rivers, 48; its roads, 48, 49 ; its plantations of tea, coffee, and cocoa, 49 ; geology of, 47 ; botany of Ceylon Region, 193-196; the Patanas, 195; relation of its flora to Malabar and Coromandel types, 193, its stronger Malayan affinity. 194; the Maldive Archipelago, 196; Tamil, the vernacular of Noith Ceylon, 380 ; religion of, numbers more than two millions of Buddhists, 411 ; emigration to, of Tamil coolies from Madras, 468.
Chaitanya, a Biahman preacher of the Kabirpanthis in Central Bengal and Orissa, 426; converted Buddhists and even Muhammadans, 426 ; did not confine post ofGosain or spiritual guide to Brahmans, 426; the Sankirtan, or procession of worshippers playing and singing, 426; held up love of Kadha for Krishna as highest form of devotion, 4^6; grosser developments of his teaching in the Vallabhaeharya sect, 426.
Chasi Kaibartta, sub-caste of fourth class in Bengal, 327 ; their Biahmans de- graded, 327; their social rise to third class, 328.
Cheetah or hunting leopard, 219.
Chenab, the, an affluent of the Indus, 32 ; great recent development of irri- gation from, 465.
Chitral, its Devonian fossils, 67.
Cholera, the conditions favourable to its outbreak and spread, 503, 504, 523, 534> general mortality from 1881 to iS90, 1891 to 1900, 521 ; in different Provinces, under normal conditions, 522 ; in famine aieas, 522 ; among Kuiopean troops, 526, 527 ; among native troops, 529, 530; in jails, 530, 531 ; cholera statistics of troops and prisoners in Bengal, the 'home ' of the disease, 534.
542
INDEX
Cbota Nagpnr, its population mainly Dravidinn, 296 ; the principal home of the Munda languages, 383 ; botany of, 190-192, see Deccan ; the Dravidian tribe, as found in, 308, 309; Kurukh, the vernacular of a Dravidian tribe in it and neighbouring parts of Central Provinces, 381 ; efforts of missionaries among its forest tribes, 443; its low population and density, 452 ; extensive emigration from, 467, 468.
Christianity, began with Syrian Church in Malabar, 441 ; a Nestoriaii Church under the Patriarch of Babylon, 441 ; embraces the Roman communion at Synod of Diamper, 441 ; later schism and origin of existing branches, 441 ; the Old Church, under Patriarch of Antioch, the New or Jacobites affiliated to Rome, 442; Catholic and Protestant mis-ions, 442, 443 ; remarkable pro- gress of, during the last thiity years, 445 * ts Causes, religious, moral, social, and political, 445 ; the social piomotion of the low-caste man who becomes a Christian, 445 ; the religion of i per cent, of the population, 471. See also Missions.
Christian*, their sects, numbers, nation- ality, and distribution, 443, 444, 475, 476 ; their rapid growth in the last decade, 476 ; increase by 1 14 per cent, of native Christians, 476, 477.
Clarke, C. B., 'On the Botanical Sub- areas of British India/ 158 n., 165.
Classifications and tables other than statistical. See Tables and Classifica- tions,
Coal, its formation in Upper Palaeozoic times, 51, 52; found in the Damuda series of Gondwana system, 82; Ram- ganj coalfield, 83 ; in Assam, 93. (Cf. also Vol. Ill, Mines and NT inerals.)
Cobra. See Snakes (Colubridae), 271, 272.
Cochin, high density of population in one of its taluks y 454 ; botany of, see Malabar Region.
Cocos and Keeling Islets, botany of, 207.
Cold season : in January and February, pressure conditions in Asia and Indian Ocean, with graphic, no; sketch of air movement, 1 1 1 ; storms of, phe- nomena of the upper current, 112, 113; weather in India during, 113, 114; rainfall and snowfall, 114; mean rain- fall, 140.
Colour, of skin, eyes, hair, of different races, 283, 284; insufficient as a basis of ethnological division, 283, 284.
Coorgs, ethnology of, 293.
'Coppersmith* bird, 247.
Coromandel Coast, the, physical aspects of, 41, 193 ; its art culture and industry, 41 ; geology of : its highly fos>iliferous rocks of Cretaceous period, 77, see Trichinopoly : botany of, 193.
Craniometry, inferior in ethnology to anthropometry, 284, 285; but con- firmatory of its conclusions, 286.
Crocodiles : fresh-water and estuarial, the Ghari^al (' Gavial*), 266, 267.
Cuckoos, parasitic and mimetic, the ' brain- fever bird,' the Koel, the Coucal or 'crow-pheasant,' 250, 251.
Cuddapah and Kurnool (geological) *?> terns, 61, 62.
Deaf-mutism, statistics and distribution of, 485.
Death-rate, statistics of, 478, 479 ; a table of recorded death rates in chief Pro- vinces from 1 88 1 to 1900, 512; years in that period of excess of deaths over births, 512; apparent progressive rise in high death-rates explained, 513 ; the influence of extraordinary causes, 513; contrast between Indian and English rates, 513; male and female death-rates, 516; infantile mortality, 5*7 5*^1 comparison of urban and rural mortality, 518; death-rate of European and native troop*, 525-530; of prisoners, 530, 531.
Deccan, the: its physical aspects, 37. 42-46; its mountain ranges and elevated table-land, 37, 42 ; its * cotton * soil, 43, 101 ; its iorcsts, 43, 44; its rivers, 42 ; the cour-e and ' anicuts ' or dams of the Godavari, 44, 45 ; of the Kistna, 45; of the Cauvery, 45, 46; their deltas, the granaries of the Peninsula, 42, 45, 46 ; moral and physical cha- racteristics of SE. India, 46 ; geo- logy of: the Deccan trap, its igneoub origin, extent, depth, and composition, 2,
87, 88 ; probable date of its formation, 88; conceals ultra-basic rocks below,
88, 89 ; association of Cardita beau- monti with trap, 91 ; regar or black cotton soil of Deccan, 101 ; meteoro logy of, 114, 124, 133, 137, 142, 143, M5> ! 5; botany of Deccan Region, 189-193; subdivision of plateau, 190; of Deccan proper, 191-193 ; indigenous plants of cotton* soil, 192 ; population and density, 453.
Deer, their distubution and haunts, the ' barking deer/ the Kashmir sttfc, the swamp deer, the brow-antlered deer, the idmbar orjarnu, the spotted deer, the hog deer, the musk deer, the chevrotain or mouse deer, 235-337.
INDEX
INDEX
543
Deltas, of Irrawaddy and Salween, 21; of Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna, 35,28 ; o'Mahanadl, 26; ofGodavari, 45 ; of Kistna, 45 ; of Cauvery, 45 ; character of a deltaic river, 25-28 ; geo- logy of, 94, 100, 101 ; botany of, 182- 184,198. See also Snndarbans.
Dsijsity of population : India as a whole, 450 ; in British territory, 450 ; in Native States, 450 ; a diagram of rela- tive area and population of various Biitish Provinces and chief Native States, 450 ; inequalities of density, 451 ; density generally varies with rain- fall, 451 ; in Assam, 451, 452; in Bengal, 452 ; in the Presidency of Bombay, 452, 453; in Burma, 453; in Central Provinces, 453 ; in the Pre^i- dency of Madras, 453, 454 ; in the Punjab and North West Frontier Pro- vince, 454 ; in the United Provinces, 454 ; in the Native States, 454, 458 ; in Calcutta, 4>7 ; Bombay, 457; Madras,
458.
Dharwarian system, the: rocks of, 60; rich in iron, copper, and gold, 60.
Dill, Professor, Roman Society in the Last Days of the Western Empire^ quoted, 343, 344.
Dogs iwildj, two species, differ in denti- tion from wolves and jacknls, their distribution and habits, 221, 222.
Dolphin, the Gangetic, or stisii; of the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra and their tributaries, 238 ; blind, one of three surviving representatives of family of Plataimtidae, 238.
Doms, Hans, Chamars, Muchis, Bauris, castes of the seventh and lowest class in Bengal, 328.
Dravidian : the geological era, 64-67 ; the physical type, 296 ; the race, its physical marks, social rank, and distri- bution from Ceylon to valley of Ganges, peivading Madras, Hydeiabad, the Central Provinces, most of Centiai India, Chota Nagpfir, 296; of doubtful origin and affinities, 298; Huxley's surmise of relation to Aborigines of Australia, 298; Sir \V. \V. Hunter's theory, 298, 299; piobably aboriginal or indigenous, 298 ; lotemism among, 299,308,313; its Animism, 299; con- tributes coarser elements to woiship of Siva, 420; two different families of languages spoken by the race, Di&vidian propcr and Munda, 379.
Dravidian Languages, the, their main characteristics, 379, 380 ; contrast of Dravidiau with MundS, 378 ; spoken in South and Central India, Chola NSgpur, the Santal Parganas and (Brahul) in Baluchistan, 379 ; a classi-
fied list of vernaculars, 379 ; no recent progress in their study, 350.
Droughts, (and famine), 127, 145-146; areas liable to droughts, 141, 145 ; double droughts, 146; relation of droughts in India with di oughts else- where, 126, 127; Mr. Blanfoid's em- Eiiical forecast of drought by Hima- tyan rainfall, 129. See also Vol. Ill, ch. x.
Dry season, transition to, from wet, during October, November, and half of December, 131 ; the period of slowly retreating south-west monsoon currents, 132; changes of pressure, 132, 133; recurvature of Bay current, 1 33 ; rains, storms, and cyclones, 134, 135 ; pres- sure, weather, and rainfall, in different parts of India from October, 135-137 ; mean rainfall, 140.
E.
Eagles, the golden eagle, the imperial, the spotted, the crested serpent, 253.
Earthquakes, 98 ; great earthquake of Assam in 1897, 98, 99; of Kangra in 1905, 98, 99; ofCutch in 1819, 99.
Education, statistics of, 483, 484 ; pro- portion of literates, who can read and write, to illiterates, in India, I to 10 of males, I to 144 of females, 483; in the Provinces, 483; highest in Burma, due to free education by the pongyis or Buddhist monks, 483 ; proportion highest along and near sea-coast, 484; higher among Dravidians and Mongo- lians, 484 ; proportion among religious communities, 484 ; highest among Pat sis, 66 per cent., lowest among Animists, \ per cent., 484; proportion of literates m English, 68 males and 7 females out of every 10.000 of each sex, 484 ; highest among Parsis, low- est among Animists, 484. See Census Table IX, 4 g S .
Elephants, wild and tamed, 230 ; a single species surviving of the ele\en of Pliocene times, 97.
Emigration from India, statistics of, in- complete, 470; mainly of labourers and coolies to the British Colonies, including South Africa, Uganda, Mau- ritius, and British Guiana, 471, 472; conditions of coolie recruitment, 471.
Endogamy, tribal, 308, 309, 310 ; of caste-system, 287, 311, 317, 322, 334, 335 348; of Muhammadans, 329; Greek, 340 ; Roman, 340 ; under later Roman Empire, 343, 344; part of the pride of race and colour everywhere, 345 ; probably later in time and thought than exogamy, the piacticeof primitive tribes, 344.
544
INDEX
English Church in India, succeeded to Lutheran missions, 443 ; foundation of see of Calcutta, 443 ; Heber, second bishop, 443.
Enteric fever, dependent, like cholera, upon pollution of water-supply by first rains after drought, 524 ; death-rate from, among European toops, 527, 528; in Native army, 530; in jails, 531 ; relation of death-rate to age, 528; European troops eighty-eight times more liable to this disease than native, 530.
Eranian (or Iranian) languages, 353-356.
Estuarial Flora, 182.
Ethnography. See Ethnology and Caste, B.
Ethnology and Caste, ch. vi, pp. 283-348. A. The data of ethnology or science of racial divisions, 283-308 ; physical characters most trustwoithy, 283 ; in- definite physical characters, colour of skin, 283 ; hair and eyes, 284 ; definite or anthropometric physical chaiacters, 284 ; superiority of anthropometry, or measurements of the living, over cranio- metry, or measurements of skulls, 284, 285 ; anthropoinetiy in India as part of Ethnographic Survey, 285 ; the data now available, 286, 287 ; the establish- ment of three main types, 286 ; this classification accepted by independent authorities in England, France, and Germany, 286; confirmed by cianio- metry, 286 ; conditions favourable to anthropometry in India, especially prohibition of mixed marriages by law of caste, 286, 288 ; measurement of head form, the cephalic index, a8S ; division of heads into broad, long, and medium, 288 ; value of cephalic index as a te>t of race, 2$S, 289 ; head-foim in India, 289 ; measurement of the nose, the nasal index, 2X9; division of noses into narrow, broad, and medium, 289,
290 ; value of nasal index as a test of racial affinity, 290 ; the nasal index in India, 290 ; its correspondence with social groupings, 290; the orbito-nn^al index, a test of Mongolian affinities,
291 ; division of faces into platyopic, mesopic, and pro-opic, 291 ; statin e, as an index of race, more significant in India than in Europe, 29^ ; the seven main physical types in India (exclusive of Negritos), their character- istics and geographical distribution, 292- 297 ; limitations of the type scheme, 2 97 C 1 ) * ne Dravidian type, 296, 29-S, 299 ; probably the oldest in- digenous, 298 ; of doubtful origin and affinities, 258 ; Huxley's surmise, 298 ; Sir W. Hunter's theory, 298; (2) the Indo-Aryan type, its physical and social characteristics and distribution,
293 299-303; its uniformity ana its identity, in spite of social differences, 293,299; its non-Indian origin, 300; the mode of its entry into India, 301-303 ; possibly by a series of tribal migrations from the north-west, first of men with their wives, under favourable climatic conditions no longer existing, 30, 301, 302 ; probable decrease in modern times of rainfall and fertility in Central Asia and Persia, 301, 302; (3) Aryo- Dravidian or Hindustani type, 294, 303, 304 ; Dr. Hoernle's theory of its origin from secondary migrations f of men without their women, confirmed by Dr. Grierson's Linguistic Survey, 3^3, 34 35 8 ! (4) the Mongolo- I)ravidian or Bengali type*, 294, 304 ; (5) the Scytho-lJiavidian type, 293, 304-308 ; historical iccord ot Scythian invasions of India, 305, 306; possible origin of Scytho-Dravidian type, 306, 307 ; possible course of Scythians from \Vestern Punjab southwards, to become ancestors of Maiathas, 307, 308; (6) the Turko-Iranian type, 293 ; (7) the Mongoloid type, 295, 296. B. Ethnography, the data of, or social divisions, 308-347 ; th,el>ravidiantnbe, 308; the Mongoloid tribe, 309; the Tuiko-Iranian tiibes ; the Afghan type, 309 ; the Baloch and Brahui type, 310 ; the word * caste,' its derivation and implication, 311; definition of caste, 311; conversion of tiibes into castes with and without mixture of blood, by absorption into old castes, 311 ; as a result of social ambition, 312; as a result of religious conversion, 312 ; by creation of new castes with adoption of ritual and customs, 312 ; by a gradual and insensible conversion to Hinduism with retention of tribal designation, 313; types of caste r 313-322; tribal castes, 314; functional or occupational castes, 314; sectarian castes, 315; castes fomed by crossing, 316; the Shagirdpeshas, 317; national castes, 318; the Marathas, 318; castes of degradation and promotion formed by change of residence, 319; the Nam- budn Brahmans of Malabar, 319; the Rarhi Brahmans of Bengal, the Bar- waiks in Chanda, 319, 320; castes formed by changes of custom, 321; totemism and totemistic exogamy, 322, 323; classification of castes, its difficulties for the Census, 323, 324; principles adopted in the 1901 Cejffcus, 324; by recognized social precedence, 3 2 4 325; general results, 325; per- sistent influence of traditional system of four original castes, the water and
INDEX
545
sweetmeat test, range of pollution, 325, 326 ; the seven mam classes of Hindus in Bengal, 326-328; (i) Brahmans of various status, 326; (2) Rajputs, Baidyas, Kayasths, 327; (3) Navasakha and other * clean * Siidras, 327; (4) Chasi, Kaibartta, and Goala, 327 ; (5) whom the village barber will shave, 328 ; (6) whom the regular barber will not shave, 328 ; (7) eaters of all man- ner of unclean food, scavengers, &c., 328 ; opposition between Hinduism and Islam, 328 ; modified by contagion of caste in India, 329 ; exaltation of ioreign descent in both, 329 ; Muham- madan practice of hypcrgamy and endogamy, 329 ; absence of caste system in Baluchistan and Burma, 329, 330; distribution of nearly 2,400 castes and tribes, see Ethnographic Map in Atlas; 15,000,000 Bifihmans, 331; origin of caste, 3*2-347; the Indian theory of four original castes as contained in Institutes of Manu, 332, 333; its histoiic elements stated, 333, and con filmed by Dr. Kick's studies, 334 ; its probable origin in the Iranian legend oi four classes, 334, 335 ; modi- fied by existence of racial antagonism in India, 335, and by later develop- ments, 436; Sir Penzil Ibbctson's theory of e\olution of caste, 336, 337 ; M. Senart's criticism, 337 ; Mr. Ncs- field's theory, 337, 338 ; M. Scnart's theory, 339 342 ; caste an extension of ancient Aryan family system, 340; early Greek and Roman parallels, 340, 341 ; explanation of later divergence in. India, 341, 342; caste not merely community of occupation, 342, 344 ; not compaiable with guilds of mediae- val Euiope, 342, 343; caste tendencies under the later Roman Empire, 343 ; public functions made hereditary guilds with endogamy for men, 343, 344 ; did not survive Empire, 344; castes not merely developed tribes, 344; primi- tive tribes exogamous, 344 ; the genesis of caste, 345-347 ; fioni a basis 01 wide- spread fact, observed in India and else- where, 345 ; distinction of blood plus colour between higher and lower races in contact, 345 ; position of half-breeds, 345 caste a result of second and suc- cessive waves of Indo-Aiyan invaders, and of hypergamy, 345, 346 ; super- structure of fiction, 346; social or artificial distinctions tend to be thought natural and genetic, 346 ; the caste instinct favoured by characteristics of Indian intellect, 347 ; m agreement with philosophic doctrine of transmi- gration and karma^ 347 ; summary of
conclusions, 347, 348 ; bibliography,
348.
Eurasians and Europeans, 477 ; their numbers, growth, and distribution, 477 ; apparent more rapid growth of Eura- sian population explained, 477 ; two- fifths of Euiopeans born in India, 477 ; ten-elevenths of Europeans British sub- jects, 477 ; religions of Europeans and Eurasians, 477.
Exogamy, tribal, 308, 309 ; of caste sys- tem, 313, 317, 348; totemistic, 313, 322, 323, 344,348; early Roman, 340 ; more primitive than endogamy, 344 ; its relations with the nasal index, 290.
F.
Fauna, 213-282. See Zoology.
Feins and their allies, 600 species, 161 ; in Sikkim, 167; in Indus plain, 178; of Sholas, 188 ; in Chota Nagpur, 192 ; in Ceylon, 196; in Burma, 197, 201 ; in Pen an g, 207.
Fevers. See Specific Fevers.
Fishes, 274 282. See Zoology.
Pinches, 244, 245.
Hora, none peculiar to India, 158. See Botany.
Flora Indica, an introductory essay to, by J. D. Hooker and Thomas Ihomson, 157, 165.
Flying Fox, 225.
Food : of the majority defective in proteid, badly cooked, and insufficient, 501 ; sources of, equal to present giowth of population, 461, 462.
Foie^ts, 43, 44 ; of Burma, 197-199. See Vol. Ill, ch. ii.
Fossils, notable ; Neobolus, 65 ; Red- lichia, 65 ; Stenotheca, 65 ; Olenidae, 66; Hal) sites catenularia, 66 ; Phillip- sia, 66 ; Fenestella, 66 ; Bryozoa, 66 ; Echinosphaerites, 67 ; Tentaculites, 67 ; Calceola sandalma, 67 ; Otoceras, Ophiceras, Meekoceras, 68; Richto- fenia sinensis, 71 ; Oxvtoina, 72 ; Nau- tilus peregrinus, 72 ; Fusulina, 72, 74; Schwagerma, 72 ; Lyttonia nobilis, 72; Xcnodiscus (Xenaspis) carbonarius, 72 ; Bellerophon, 72 ; Ceratites, 73 ; Ste- phanites superbus, 73 ; Flemingites flemingianus, 73 ; Koninckites volutus, 73 ; Prionolohus rotundatus, 73 ; Celtiles, 73; Gangamopteiis, 73, 84; Megalodon, 74; Athyris, Productus, Spirifeiina, 74; of Trichinopoly area, 78 ; Inoceramus labiatus, 79 ; Pachy- discns peramplus, 79 ; Baculites, 79 ; Nautilus danicus, 80; Neiinea, 80; Megalosaurus, 79; Ceratodus, 84; Hyperodapedon, 84; Parasuchus, 84; Estheria, 84; Lepidodendron,SigilJpria, Catamites, 84 ; Glossopteris, 84, 85 ;
546
INDEX
PI atacan thorn ys, 86 ; Titanosaurns in- dicus, 88 ; Nummulites, 88 ; Cardita beaumonti, 91 ; Velates Schmiedehana, 95; Pelecypoda, Gastropoda, 95.
Foxes, five species of, 222.
Frogs and Toads : the jumping frog, Aana tigrina y the 'Chunam irog ' of Madras, tree-frogs, 273, 274.
Function, community of, as basis and factor in evolution of caste, 311, 314, 3 J 5> 33**; determination of, by birth, 332 ; not the sole basis, 342 ; mislead- ing comparison with guilds of mediae- val Europe, 342 ; failure of common function to generate and maintain caste under later Roman Empire, 343. &t also Occupations.
G.
Gamble, J. S., his valuable help in the chapter on Botany, 157 ., 189 n.
Game birds : peafowl, pheasants, jungle- fowl, spur-fowls, quails, partridges, 256-258 ; plovers, snipes, and wood- cock, 260, 261, 262 ; swans, geese, ducks, 265.
Ganges, the, geological division of, from Indus, 3, 22 ; influence of south-west monsoons upon climate of its basin, 22 ; its river system, 23-26 ; its sanctity, 23 ; the fertilizer and highway of Bengal, 22, 23, 24 ; its rise and course, 23 ; its length and volume, 23 ; its fall at Alla- habad after confluence with Jumna, 24; through its delta, 25 ; life and growth on its banks, 24, 25 ; true delta formed by it and the Hooghly, 25 ; gatheis and de- posits silt, 25 ; stages in the life of the Ganges or any great Indian river as a land-maker, a land -breaker, a fertilizer, a rover, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32 ; junction of Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna, their combined delta of 500,000 square miles, 25, 28; extraordinary variety of crops and products, 25, 26 ; tributaries of Ganges, 23 ; the Jumna, its rise, tributaries, and independent course, 23, 24 ; changes of channel of Ganges from time to time, 26 ; Ganges as a factor in civilization of India and the world, 26 ; its great cities, 26; geology of its delta, 100.
Gangetic Plain, meteorology of, 3, 21, in, 117, 122, 124, 130, 132, 141, 143, 451 ; has the greatest density of popu- lation, 451 ; botany of Gangetic plain Region, 179-186; of upper Gangetic plain, 1 80, 181 ;of Bengal proper, 181, 182; of Sundarbans, 182-184, See also Ganges.
Gautama, the Buddha, or 'Enlightened one,' born B.C. 596 of Kshattriya caste, in the Tarai, 407, 408 ; his early
life of sensuous ease, his conversionto asceticism, his ' Enlightenment ' and bis Gospel of the Fourfold* Truth and the Eightfold Path, 407 ; preached for forty-five years in Magadha, Bihar, and near Benares , and died B c. 50^ , 407 , 408.
Geography of India. See Physical Aspects.
Geology of India, chap. ii. pp. 50-103. I. Introduction, 50-57 ; Peninsular and extra-peninsular India, 50; the stable Peninsula, 50, 51 ; the folded extra- peninsular area, 52 ; correlation of Indian strata with the European scale, 51 ; vari
