1()0 GNATS OR MOSQUITOES — CHAPTER VIII 



where thus more convenient, points of prophylaxis will be 

 dealt with in their own connection. 



The necessarily frequent allusions to climatic conditions 

 in India will be more easily understood by occasional 

 reference to the table on pp. 162 — 163, the materials of 

 which were kindly supplied me by Mr. J. Eliot, the 

 Meterological Keporter to the Indian Government. 



The range of climate within the peninsula is very wide, 

 almost every variety of tropical and subtropical condition 

 being represented, from the intense drought of the western 

 Punjab and Rajput desert, with their wide range of annual 

 temperature, to the uniform moist heat of Cochin and the 

 Burman littoral ; and it is obviously impossible to give any 

 complete account within the limits of a page or so of tabu- 

 lation. The references to the relative salubrity or other- 

 wise of the various places must, moreover, not be taken to 

 apply specially to the town mentioned in the table, but 

 rather to the region of which its climate is representative ; 

 and in speaking of the local malaria as " mild," " virulent," 

 and so forth, I do not refer to the species of parasite (for 

 little else than the sestivo-autumnal fever is to be met with 

 in India), but to the malignancy or otherwise of the type of 

 the disease, which varies greatly in different places, and 

 indeed, from year to year, in the same place. 



The places included in the list, being selected as fair 

 average examples of the climates or the regions in which 

 they are situate, by no means illustrate the extreme range 

 of variation within the limits of Indian jurisdiction ; and 

 hence do not include such situations as Cherra Punji 

 (said to be the wettest place in the world) where the rain 

 gauge has literally to be graduated to feet ; or Sibi, where, 

 as the tale has it, the sun has such power that the 

 European residents must needs assemble in the club, to 

 sit beneath the billiard table, still wearing their pith hats. 



Influence of Clifnate. — There can be no doubt that 

 climate is the most important of all the factors that 

 together contribute to render a given place malarious or 

 otherwise. The genus Anopheles has a world-wide distribu- 

 tion, extending much further north than malaria, which is 



