BARD WAN. at
Besides these, there were in the same year six primary
428.
containing
schools,
girls’
135
there were altogether 15 ii
On the 31st March 1882, 97 pupils. inspected schools of all classes, with an
For administrative purposes Bardwan attendance of 45,442 pupils. District is divided into 4 Sub-divisions and 1 7 police circles (thdnds) as follows,
namely;— (i)
the
prising
Sadr or head-quarters
the
police circles
8
of Bardwan,
Raona, Gangur, Selimabad, Bud-Bud, and Ausgram
(2)
police circles of Raniganj, Asansol,
comprising the 3
comKhandghosh,
Sub-division,
Sahibganj,
Raniganj,
and Kaksa
Katwa (Cutwa), comprising the three police circles of Katwa, and (4) Kalna (Culna), with the three These, again, police circles of Kalna, Purbasthali, and Mantreswar. (3)
Ketugram, and Mangalkot
are sub-divided into 71 fiscal divisions {pargatids).
The
gross municipal
5 municipalities in the District in 1881-82 was ;:^j^8683 ; expenditure, ;,^842o ; average rate of municipal taxation, 2s. 6|d. per
income of the head.
—
The average annual temperature of Bardwan is Medical Aspects 81° F., and the annual rainfall, 60 '31 inches. Since 1866, the District .
has suffered very seriously from the ravages of malarious endemic fever.
The
disease seems to have
District,
whence
it
first
attracted notice about 1824 in Jessor
has gradually extended in a north-westerly direction
through Nadiya, the Twenty-four Parganas, and Hugh',
made
until, in 1863,
it
In appearance in the south-east of Bardwan District. 1866 and the three following years it raged with great severity, but with its first
varying intensity in different parts of the District.
northern fever,
tracts,
where the formation
is
laterite,
In the high-lying
there has been very
little
but in the lower and purely alluvial tracts, there has been an
enormous decrease
in the population
the ravages of this fever.
It is
between 1872 and 1881, due to an exaggerated and con-
described as
‘
most frequently of the intermittent type, generally assuming the most intense and asthenic character in localities where the recognised predisposing causes of the disease preponderate
gestive form of malarious fever,
The
most.’
nature of the country, namely, a badly-drained, water-logged
and the character and sequel of the fever, leave no room doubt as to its malarious origin. For six months of the year, from February to July, when the soil is dry, the District is healthy and fever uncommon. During the rainy season from June to September, the country is submerged, and with the drying up of the water, which com-
alluvial tract, for
mences
in
February.
October, the fever breaks out and
The
lasts
until the following
insanitary habits of the people, their spare diet,
water-supply and scanty clothing, combine to
bad
render them liable to
attacks of fever.
In some years, the disease prevails in a virulent epidemic form.
Many
different causes
have been assigned
for the increased severity
