238 TRANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. LXiv. 



6. As a rule, plague disappears iu the hot weather. For 

 this there are two reasons : — 



First. Any temperature above 75° Fahr. destroys the 

 infection of the Egyptian plague (Copland's " Dictionary of 

 Medicine" p. 215, part ii.). 



Second. The new corn is cut in the hot weather, so that 

 the villagers are no longer obliged to eat their old grain, 

 even when it happens to be thoroughly decayed, as it now 

 and then is. Of course, the old grain is not decayed every 

 year in every village, but it is occasionally, and then (I 

 believe) it causes, if eaten, an outbreak of plague. 



7. The disease always originates in out-of-the-way 

 villages on high mountains, and spreads by infection to 

 villages in the southern parganas ; the reason being that 

 tlie southern villages have a greater demand for their grain, 

 and do not keep it in store for many years, as out-of-the- 

 way villages occasionally do. 



8. The disease is much less prevalent in Garhwal than 

 it formerly was. This is owing to the villagers having a 

 much better market for their grain than they formerly had, 

 owing to the great increase of the number of pilgrims who 

 annually visit the temples of Kedarnath and Badrinath. 



9. The outbreaks of plague which occur in villages in 

 Garhwal are of two kinds : — 



First. Spontaneous outbreaks caused by eating damp 

 grain. 



Second. Outljreaks caused by infection brought from 

 previously infected villages. 



Flriil, — When a spontaneous outbreak occurs, it will, I 

 believe, be invariably found to have been preceded (or, more 

 rarely, accompanied or followed) by a great mortality of the 

 rats and mice in the village, showing that the grain has 

 become poisonous. In these spontaneous outbreaks the 

 mortality is very great, and tlie people do not escape the 

 disease even though they lk;e to the jungle, unless, indeed, 

 they also leave their grain behind, and get grain from some 

 other village. A good example of this form I saw in the 

 village of Kharki, near Pokri, where all the fourteen 

 inhjjltitants of two houses died, most of them in the 

 jungle. 



Second. — Tn outbreaks caused 1)y infection from a 



