135 
STUDIES ON MALARIA IN CEYLON. WITH 
SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ITS PREVENTION 
IN AGRICULTURAL DISTRICTS 1 . 
By P. H. BAHR, M.A., M.D., D.T.M. & H. (Cantab.), 
M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. 
London School of Tropical Medicine. 
(With Plates VIII-XIII and 2 Maps.) 
For the purpose of present study, Ceylon may be regarded as pre¬ 
senting two definite climatic zones- the hot low plains and the damp 
cool tea-bearing area of the central provinces, a district lying between 
the isothermal lines of 70-75° F. (vide map 1) ; these two zones are 
probably the main factors in influencing the distribution of malaria 
in the island. 
Malaria is par excellence a scourge of the low-country, which may 
again be divided for our present purpose into the hot damp agricultural 
districts of the Western and Southern, and the hot but dry jungles of the 
North and Eastern Provinces. 
I have been unable in Ceylon, in contradistinction to what we know 
of the endemic malaria of the Malay States and of the Himalayas, to 
obtain any evidence of fresh infections arising at an elevation above 
2200 ft., though it is said that epidemics have occurred in former times 
at an elevation considerably higher than this in certain narrow and 
confined valleys near Kandy. In the Tamil coolies employed on the 
tea plantations, relapses of an infection acquired originally in India or 
in Ceylon at a lower elevation may occur, especially during the south¬ 
east Monsoon, but malaria per se cannot be regarded as affecting in 
any way the salubrity of the upcountry tea estates. It is otherwise 
on the rubber plantations of the Western Province and in the rice 
1 Based on information collected whilst investigating sprue for the Ceylon Government. 
1912-1913. 
