REPORT ON THE DISEASES OP SILKWORMS IN INDIA 3 



more care in growing the mulberry, more care in feeding the worms — ■ 

 especially feeding during the night and feeding always on freshly 

 gathered leaf — better ventilation and better spacing of the worms. 



It is impossible to note all the records of disease and remedies 

 for improving the silkworms, so that I am selecting only a few of 

 the more outstanding cases. Thus in 1867 an attempt to introduce 

 sericulture in Bihar resulted in disease sweeping off all the rearings. 

 While in Mysore in 1866 a disease broke out which was described 

 as " a sort of atrophy'" and was doubtless an epidemic of pebrine. 

 In every case in which work' on sericulture was conducted by 

 Europeans attention was drawn to the fact that the native rearer 

 was neither very careful nor cleanly in his methods, and that if 

 sericultural practice were improved the question of disease would 

 tend to disappear. Strangely enough, however, when this advice 

 was put into practice for a little while under European supervision 

 disease did not disappear as was expected. 



While private individuals were doing most of the work of value, 

 the various Governments in India continued to make more or less 

 spasmodic attempts to do something for sericulture. In Bengal 

 little seemed to have been done but in Bombay, Madras, Mysore, 

 Punjab, North- Western Provinces and Kashmir the various Govern- 

 ments seem to have in various ways encouraged sericulture but at 

 this particular period with but little success. 



During the years with which we have been dealing in the last 

 three paragraphs — that is to say, from about 1850 to 1870 — disease 

 -had been rampant among the silkworms of Europe, and sericulture 

 had been almost killed out in France and Italy. Many investiga- 

 tions were conducted into the question of silkworm diseases, and 

 finally the famous French bacteriologist, Pasteur, completed his 

 masterly researches, and by his papers and his book on " La Maladie 

 •des.Vers a Soie," published in 1870, brought comos out of the chaos 

 in which the subject was weltering. The great falling off in the 

 silk production in Europe turned the silk merchants' eyes once more 

 to the East, and the Government in India began to take a more 

 active interest in sericulture. The only immediate result was the 

 very able report by Geoghegan on " Silk in India " published in 

 1872. To this work I am indebted for many facts quoted above. 

 But there was now some definite knowledge available on the subject 

 of disease, and some improvement was to be expected — if not in the 

 worms themselves at least in the accounts published of their 

 condition. 



In 1886 and again in 1887 a conference was held in Calcutta on 

 sericulture, and Wood Mason and N. G. Mukerji were asked to 

 investigate the problems of disease in silkworms. The result of 



