53 
34. In India the relation existing between irregularity of 
seasonal conditions and health, and disease is well understood. 
It is a recognised fact in the Punjab, that an unusually wet 
autumn will be attended, as a rule, by a heavy fever-rate ; 
while a dry season will be a healthy one; that, on the other 
hand, heavy winter and spring rains have little, if any, influ- 
ence on the degree of fever sickness. At Peshawur, the 
British troops suffer greatly, owing to the prevalence of heat 
fevers during the hot months, namely, May, June, and July; 
from those of a so-called “ malarious 33 nature from the month 
of September to that of December — that is, during the pre- 
valence of the rains. As illustrating the association of unusual 
dryness with the occurrence of more than usual sickness, two 
instances must suffice, both having reference to Jhelum. At 
that station the years 1872 and 1876 were peculiarly unhealthy . 
In the former year, the autumnal fall of rain was below the 
average ; in the latter, while the rainfall was 22 ‘3 inches as 
compared to 1875, fever occurred among the troops in the 
ratio per 1,000 of 960 cases, as against 505 in 1875. Cholera 
also prevailed. As recently as the month of October last, 
accounts continued to reach us by each weekly mail that 
during the autumn unusually heavy rainfall occurred at Um- 
ritsur, the quantity amounting to 40 inches, instead of 18, as 
an average of ordinary years. Pestilence, in the form of 
choleraic fever, broke out as a result and consequence. In 
that city 242 deaths were reported as having occurred on 
September 28th, and on the day following 280, and so on for 
several days. 
35. The subject of acclimatisation with reference to plants, 
animals, and man, can be no more than touched upon. Its 
importance, however, is manifest. The term itself implies 
adaptation to conditions of foreign climates at first injurious, 
and the capacity of surviving and flourishing in such con- 
ditions. It has a significance different from that of domesti- 
cation ; also from that of naturalisation. Thus a large 
number of European plants have been introduced, and flourish 
in America and in New Zealand, without having undergone 
the process of acclimatisation properly so called. In Britain 
the canary bird is domesticated, but not acclimatised ; that is, 
not capable of withstanding the severity of our climate with- 
out protection. In America and in New Zealand, sparrows, 
rats, goats, and other British animals, including the rabbit, 
are naturalised without being acclimatised — the bird and the 
rodent multiplying to such an extent that the creatures have 
become nuisances. Plants in England are often naturalised 
without being acclimatised ; hence the circumstance that 
