MORTALITY IN INDIA

Evening Star, Issue 16993, 15 March 1919, Page 8

MORTALITY IN INDIA

PLAGUE, CHOLERA, & INFLUENZA. 1 NATIVES PUFFER SEVERELY. | News received bv the Union Company's freighter Wa i hora." which arrived at Duncdin vesterdav from Calcutta via Albany and Bluff, states that India, like many other countries, was ravaged by such diseases as plague, cholera, and influenza in, the earlv part of this year. The officers of the " Waihora stated that when tha vessel was at Calcutta, at the end of January, the whole of the eastern coast of India was being ravaged by cholera. v Tha disease was very severe in Bombay, and the natives were dving at the rate of between 200 and 500 a day. Plague and influenza had also been raging throughout g the country, and the death.rate had. been J very heavy. The influenza wave, however, ■ appeared to have abated considerably when W the Waihora arrived, but there were a ■ number of deaths daily from the disease- ~ A Midnapore correspondent, writing to the '.Statesman,' Calcutta, under date January 25, reported that returning piiprims had been the cause of a serious outbreak of cholera in the Conta-i sub-division. The death rate was reported to be very hidi in the villages on the Rasulpur river. The ' Statesman ' of January 26 reports that the. mortality figures for the City of Bombay showed a. f urtheT rise on January J 25. when the total mortality on that date 1 was 641—an increase of 39 over that of J the previous day, and 556 over that of the M •corresponding day of last year. There J wore 426 deaths from cholera on January i 2.s—an increase of 44 on the preceding day. 1 The epidemic is making ravages in the northern part of the city ajnong the laboring classes and was gradually Epreadinsr in the central parts. 'The Fort Southern and upper Colaba were at> that time free from it. Burin? the week ending January 11 tha mortality from the plague in India was 1,964 seizures and 1.460 deaths. Although this was an appreciable increase in the plague, mortality over the figures for th» I previous week the incidence of the disI ease was relatively insignificant for tha I time of the year. The lowest plague 1 mortality recorded in the month of January" during tho last 20 years was 7,689, 'in 1900. The plague mortality in January. 1903. amounted to 129,/06, On i this occasion Madras wa*> more heavily infected than any other Indian Province— I an unusual state of affairs.