CONDITIONS INFLUENCING PREVALENCE 



211 



These admissions took place on a strength, of 67,697, so 

 that roughly speaking about a quarter of the entire force 

 suffered from malarial fever during the year. 



In the native army the seasonal prevalence of the disease 

 follows a closely similar course. 



This on a strength of 128,529, and again it will be seen 

 that roughly a quarter of the strength suffered from 

 malaria. 



Our European and native armies in India are not strictly 

 comparable, as the latter is a long service force, necessarily 

 composed of men, older and more seasoned to soldiering 

 than their European comrades ; but in spite of this, while 

 rather less than a quarter of the former suffered, the latter 

 did so in the proportion of rather more than a quarter. 

 Something of the difference is doubtless due to the more 

 sanitary tendencies of European personal habits ; but mak- 

 ing all such allowances, it must be admitted that if the 

 native has acquired any immunity he has done so to so small 

 an extent that it is a factor of too trivial importance to be 

 worthy of practical consideration. 



It is further noteworthy that in specially malarious dis- 

 tricts, such as the Bengal and Orissa group of stations, where 

 the relatively greater preponderance of genuinely malarious 

 cases tends to minimise the fallacy of included cases of 

 diseases simulating malaria, the seasonal variations in the 

 intensity of malaria are much better shown than in less 

 malarious places. 



In all stations where the seasonal prevalence of Mos- 

 quitoes has been made the subject of careful investigation, 

 the period of greatest intensity of malaria has been found 



