130 HAPPY INDIA 



read that the banks of the Panama Canal were 

 made into a place that could be visited as a sana- 

 torium in consequence of the successful efforts of 

 the engineer in charge to abolish malaria, and the 

 malaria of the Panama Canal was the deadliest 

 kind the world has ever known. 



One of the great causes of the deadliness of malaria 

 in India is the poverty of the people. There is 

 no doubt that the enormous death-rate in the year 

 1918 was due to the starvation of the people due 

 to a deficiency in the harvest. If the improvements 

 in agriculture which I have suggested were made 

 and the crops were greatly increased if they were 

 increased by only 10 per cent, it would be enough 

 to give the people plenty of food, but I am quite 

 certain that the crops could be increased by 50 per 

 cent, very soon by the methods which I have sug- 

 gested then the people will be well fed, and as a 

 consequence they will be able to resist malaria much 

 better than they do now. 



One of the learned medical men who was employed 

 by the Government to investigate the matter, and 

 who has given a great many years to the study of 

 the question, told me that in Eastern Bengal, where 

 the land was flooded every year by the Ganges 

 and the Brahmaputra, and where the floods de- 

 posited a silt which manured the land, and as a 

 result the people got good crops and plenty of food, 

 there was practically no malaria, which meant that the 

 people were strong and were able to resist the attack. 

 Of course, if there is no malaria in a country, there 



