27(5 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XV. 



" mencement of the South-West Monsoon, which is a very dry land wind, and 

 " chills are very easily caught if men sit about in wet clothes. This year the 

 " majority of the cases came from Fort Frederick and not from Ostenbury 

 " as in the previous year. There is a moat to the south-west of the Fort, 

 " which had a lot of stagnant water left from the previous rains. This was 

 " drying up very rapidly and gave off a very offensive smell, and I think that 

 " much of the fever was probably due to this little marsh, as at change of the 

 " monsoon the marsh air was swept over the Fort and it was the people in the 

 " low ground that suffered mostly. This moat has since been filled up." 

 It was about the year 1898 that the mosquito-malarial theory was 

 becoming more widely known, and it is likely enough that this will be 

 the last medical report in which malarial fever is attributed to offensive 

 smells. However that may be, many points yet remain obscure. With 

 regard to the moat, no doubt this was a fine breeding place for Ano- 

 pheles, which found their way readily into the barrack rooms almost 

 overlooking it, and now that it has been filled up, Anopheles and fevers 

 have to a large extent disappeared, a great good being effected, though 

 through mistaken reasoning. 



It has been suggested to me that the south-west wind blows A no- 

 pheles with its lethal poison into the Fort : this I am quite sure is not the 

 case. It is contrary to the habits of all mosquitoes to allow themselves 

 to be blown about by the wind. The stronger the wind the more they 

 seek the shelter of bushes and so forth, and they seldom show them- 

 selves during the prevalence of a strong wind. 



There are one or two questions very interesting in themselves which 

 await solution by future observers here • — for instance, does Anopheles 

 fuliginosus convey malarial fever ? My own impression, given with the 

 greatest deference, is that it does not ; otherwise I cannot account for 

 the present state of affairs. For the last five mouths (January — May) 

 Anopheles fulhjinosus has been breeding in swarms in the tanks in the 

 town; but malarial fever, except for a few cases (sufficient to be a means 

 of spreading the malarial poison), is remarkable for its absence. 

 During this last fortnight (May 1st to 14th), when the little monsoon 

 broke, the fever began to show itself. This in other ways is not a 

 healthy wind; when it first starts, coughs, colds, and general malaise 



are very common, but pass off when the wind is thoroughly established. 

 [In a recently published paper on " Malaria in India " bj' Capt. S. P. James 

 (Scientific Memoirs by Officers of the Medical and Sanitary Departments of the 

 Government of India, New Series, No. 2, p. 39) the author writes of A. fuliginosus : 

 " Experimentally we have shown that the parasites of quartian, tertian and malign- 

 ant tertian malaria will develop in this mosquito. We have not, however, found it 

 infected uniler natural conditions. 1 '— E. E. G.] 



