THE SANITARY AWAKENING OF INDIA 



By SURGEON-GENERAL SIR CHARLES PARDEY LUKIS, K.H.S., 



K.C.S.I., M.D., F.R.C.S. 



Director-General, Indian Medical Service 



In the admirable address with which the Hon. Mr. S. H. Butler 

 opened the proceedings of the First All-India Sanitary Con- 

 ference, held at Bombay on November 13 and 14, 191 1, he said : 

 " The basis of all sanitary achievement in India must be a 

 knowledge of the people and the conditions under which they 

 live, their prejudices, their ways of life, their social customs, 

 their habits, surroundings and financial means." 



This was emphasised by me in a memorandum which I laid 

 upon the table at the meeting of the Imperial Legislative 

 Council, held at Simla on September 15, 191 1. In this 

 memorandum, which dealt with the measures taken for the 

 suppression of plague and malaria in India, I pointed out that 

 although the important discoveries and the vigorous pro- 

 phylactic efforts that had been made in India had resulted in 

 a very accurate knowledge of the measures necessary for the 

 control of the above-mentioned diseases, even a modicum of 

 success in effective prevention could not be hoped for unless 

 the people themselves were willing to co-operate whole- 

 heartedly in the campaign. I stated moreover that, in my 

 opinion, this active co-operation will not be secured until the 

 people have learned to understand and to have faith in the 

 principles on which these preventive measures are based, and 

 that their education on these matters is a primary and essential 

 condition of success. 



No one unacquainted with the conditions of life in tropical 

 or subtropical countries can have any idea of the difficulties that 

 beset the path of the sanitary reformer in a continent of such 

 vast size as India. The illiteracy of the vast majority of the 

 population, their prejudices, their conservatism and suspicion 

 of innovation or change, their fatalism, and their ignorance and 



disregard of the most elementary rules of domestic and personal 



181 



