vi Report on the Zoological Survey of India 



with a view to placing information at the disposal of the authorities 

 concerned with the food-supply of India ; but on discussing the matter 

 personally with Major-General W. K. Edwards, I. M.S., and asking 

 him whether it would not be possible for us to give more direct assist- 

 ance in medical matters, he suggested that it would be of great help 

 to his department if we could find out something about the etiology 

 of the disease Bilharziasis or Schistosomiasis under Indian conditions. 

 It was known that Indian troops were returning to India from Egypt 

 and East Africa badly infected with this disease, which there was no 

 reason to think was previously endemic in the country. The researches 

 of Leiper had recently drawn attention to the importance of the purely 

 biological aspect of Schistosomiasis, which is due to certain trematode 

 worms that necessarily pass one stage in their life-history as parasites 

 in certain water-snails. It was most important, therefore, to dis- 

 cover whether any known molluscan host was included in the Indian 

 fauna, whether the parasites were found in any indigenous mollusc 

 and, if this was not the case, whether any indigenous mollusc was cap- 

 able of being infected by them through the agency of human beings 

 suffering from the disease. A scheme for the investigation of these 

 points was drawn up by Dr. S. W. Kemp and myself and will be consi- 

 dered in the section of this report dealing with special lines of research. 

 At present I will describe shortly the tours carried out in connection 

 with it. 



As there was reason to suspect that one of the districts most open 

 to danger was that round Hyderabad, Deccan, owing to the heavy 

 infection of the Imperial Service troops of His Exalted Highness the 

 Nizam, Dr. Kemp proceeded direct to Secunderabad in August, 1918, 

 while I made a tour through the eastern districts of the Madras 

 Presidency and inland to the base of the Nilgiri hills, in order to dis- 

 cover the precise distribution and mode of life of the different molluscs 

 found in all bodies of water that could be visited. We met in Hydera- 

 bad at the beginning of September and returned together to Calcutta 

 via Vizagapatam in the north-east of the Presidency. 



On the 4th November, having been delayed by the illness of one 

 of us, we started for Seistan in the extreme east of Persia, as the autho- 

 rities were apprehensive of the introduction of Bilharziasis from that 

 quarter. After spending some weeks in Seistan we visited several 

 localities in northern Baluchistan and the Nushki desert. Dr. Kemp 

 then returned to Calcutta, while I proceeded through parts of the North- 

 West Frontier Province to the northern part of the Punjab. I returned 

 to Calcutta at the end of January, 1919. 



In the meanwhile Dr. Baini Prashad, who was then attached to the 

 Bengal Fishery Department, kindly undertook while on leave to make 

 a survey of the molluscs of the southern part of the Punjab. 



In February and March Dr. F. H. Gravely paid, for the same pur- 

 pose, a visit of about three weeks to the Central Provinces. Shorter 

 visits were also made by myself to Eanclii in Chota Nagpur and to 

 various localities in the vicinity of Calcutta, and by both Major Sewcll 



