CONDITIONS INFLUENCING- PEEVALENCE 183 



In such climates, e.g., in Assam and Burmah, the multi- 

 plication of all species of Mosquitoes, Anopheles included, can 

 hardly be otherwise than greatly favoured by growth of this 

 sort, and as a matter of fact, the clearing of jungle from 

 village sites is one of the few measures that come within 

 the range of practical politics in village sanitation of the 

 provinces in question. Costing as it does nothing more than 

 a little official persuasion, it is pretty generally carried into 

 effect, and is undoubtedly most beneficial. 



When the District Officer in Assam has induced his 

 villagers to clear away the jungle from their huts and to 

 give their wells the annual cleaning, he justly feels that he 

 has done all that is humanly possible for the sanitation of 

 the unpromising human material he has to deal with ; for 

 the Government resolution that converts the Assamese 

 peasant to sanitary decency will have to be framed with 

 a stringency far beyond the ingenuity of any legislator, past 

 or present. 



The consideration of the role played by plants in the 

 propagation of malaria leads naturally to the effects of 

 cultivation. As far as India is concerned the question of 

 the influence of cultivation on malaria resolves itself mainly 

 into that of the effects of irrigation. At any rate it is the 

 only one in which remedial measures on a large scale 

 can be attempted by Government, as the methods of the 

 indigenous cultivator are too ingrained and detailed to be 

 capable of modification by legislative measures, to say 

 nothing of the fact that agricultural experts are agreed that 

 in the main his system is but little capable of improvement, 

 and can therefore be hardly profitably meddled witb. 



The total area under irrigation in India is about 29,000 

 square miles, rather more than the area of Greece, or just 

 over 2 per cent, of the entire country ; but as the irrigated 

 areas are also very densely populated, their influence on 

 public health is much greater than such a proportion would 

 suggest, to say nothing of the fact that such areas serve as 

 foci from which the disease is constantly spread abroad by 

 human agency. 



It is needless for me to quote here any evidence as to the 



