REPORT ON THE DISEASES OF SILKWORMS IN INDIA Q\ 



by a ryot — it might be too costly or be might object to the trouble. 

 In this case the likelihood of checking the disease is slight. The 

 rearer should be induced to clean the litter frequently. The smoke 

 of green wood is said to be helpful and might be tried, and the house 

 and furniture, especially the trays, should be smeared with cow- 

 dung, mixing the dung if possible with 2 per cent, formalin. Great 

 care should be taken in the disposal of the litter, which should be 

 burned at once. If the attack is bad the clothes and person of those 

 attending the worms should be carefully washed, formalin water 

 being employed if possible. The habit of the ryots in preventing 

 strangers, especially when disease is prevalent, from visiting their 

 rearing rooms is very sound and doubtless helps, to prevent the spread 

 of diseases like muscardine and pebrine. If eggs have been kept 

 in rooms in which an outbreak of muscardine has recently occurred or 

 in -rooms near which there was an outbreak, it is advisable to wash 

 the eggs in 1 per cent, formalin, and then pure water, before they 

 hatch. Good ventilation and an adequate amount of lighting in 

 the rearing house are excellent preventatives. 



Do conditions in India make the disease specially danger- 

 ous or difficult to check? The high temperature and humi- 

 dity prevailing in India, especially in Bengal and Assam, for several 

 months in the year make muscardine especially deadly in this 

 country. The conditions are eminently suited for the germination 

 of the spores, and the life-cycle of the fungus at thersame time can 

 be completed in three or four,days. The careless habits of the Indian 

 rearer and the great difficulty of disinfecting the kutcha build- 

 ings add to the difficulties attached to checking this disease. That 

 this pest has not been more destructive in the past is doubtless due 

 to the fact that during the rearing periods the conditions are not 

 always suitable for its spread^-either the air is not moist enough 

 when the temperature is right or the temperature is too low when 

 the moisture content of the air is favourable. The disease, although 

 a very dangerous one, can be checked if it is caught in. time or at least 

 it can be kept from spreading far and wide and from infecting 

 future rearings, but the average rearer does not worry much about 

 little matters like these. '' Darkness, stagnant air, dirt, excessive 

 warmth and moisture are the five things that favour mould " 

 (Banks, 1911). All five are abundantly present in most rearers' 

 houses at some time of the year, so that it must be confessed that 

 it seems more luck than good management that keeps the worms 

 from being wiped out more frequently than they are. 



In reporting on the outbreak of muscardine which he found in 

 Bengal in September 1921, my second assistant says that no means 

 whatever were being taken to check it. The rearers were genuinely 



e 2 



