Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/145

 ;

BARD WAN. at

Besides these, there were in the same year six primary

428.

containing

schools,

girls’

135

there were altogether 15 ii

On the 31st March 1882, 97 pupils. inspected schools of all classes, with an

For administrative purposes Bardwan attendance of 45,442 pupils. District is divided into 4 Sub-divisions and 1 7 police circles (thdnds) as follows,

namely;— (i)

the

prising

Sadr or head-quarters

the

police circles

8

of Bardwan,

Raona, Gangur, Selimabad, Bud-Bud, and Ausgram

(2)



police circles of Raniganj, Asansol,

comprising the 3

comKhandghosh,

Sub-division,

Sahibganj,

Raniganj,

and Kaksa

Katwa (Cutwa), comprising the three police circles of Katwa, and (4) Kalna (Culna), with the three These, again, police circles of Kalna, Purbasthali, and Mantreswar. (3)

Ketugram, and Mangalkot



are sub-divided into 71 fiscal divisions {pargatids).

The

gross municipal

5 municipalities in the District in 1881-82 was ;:^j^8683 ; expenditure, ;,^842o ; average rate of municipal taxation, 2s. 6|d. per

income of the head.

—

The average annual temperature of Bardwan is Medical Aspects 81° F., and the annual rainfall, 60 '31 inches. Since 1866, the District .

has suffered very seriously from the ravages of malarious endemic fever.

The

disease seems to have

District,

whence

it

first

attracted notice about 1824 in Jessor

has gradually extended in a north-westerly direction

through Nadiya, the Twenty-four Parganas, and Hugh',

made

until, in 1863,

it

In appearance in the south-east of Bardwan District. 1866 and the three following years it raged with great severity, but with its first

varying intensity in different parts of the District.

northern fever,

tracts,

where the formation

is

laterite,

In the high-lying

there has been very

little

but in the lower and purely alluvial tracts, there has been an

enormous decrease

in the population

the ravages of this fever.

It is

between 1872 and 1881, due to an exaggerated and con-

described as

‘

most frequently of the intermittent type, generally assuming the most intense and asthenic character in localities where the recognised predisposing causes of the disease preponderate

gestive form of malarious fever,

The

most.’

nature of the country, namely, a badly-drained, water-logged

and the character and sequel of the fever, leave no room doubt as to its malarious origin. For six months of the year, from February to July, when the soil is dry, the District is healthy and fever uncommon. During the rainy season from June to September, the country is submerged, and with the drying up of the water, which com-

alluvial tract, for

mences

in

February.

October, the fever breaks out and

The

lasts

until the following

insanitary habits of the people, their spare diet,

water-supply and scanty clothing, combine to

bad

render them liable to

attacks of fever.

In some years, the disease prevails in a virulent epidemic form.

Many

different causes

have been assigned

for the increased severity