THE SANITARY CONDITION OP DINAGEPORE, The

for

unhealthy

some

years

state of the station

past

of

Dinagepore

attracted the notice of the Govern-

Bengal, and a Committee was appointed in 1878, under the presidentship of Surgeon-Major R. Harvey, the Officiating Sanitary Commissioner, to report on the causes of and remedies for this. The ment of

March

results of the deliberations of the Committee are set a recent issu? of the Calcutta Gazette. The facts brought to light are eminently typical of circumstances causing excessive sickness in deltaic stations

forth in

and tracts.

It appears

that

Dinagepore

is

situated

upon the river Poornabhaba, which is joined to the south-west of the station by a small stream called the Ghogra. As happens with all deltaic l'ivers, the bed and banks of the Poornabhaba have been raised by deposit of silt above the level of the surrounding

country which

marshy

land

slopes situated

away

from

apparently

further side of the station.

it towards below and

Under

these

on

some

the

circum-

of the station is pi-obably always gradually been becoming more so. But when the Poornabhaba gets filled up during the stances the

imperfect,

drainage

and

has

THE INDIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE.

56

rains, its flood level "is considerably higher than the level of the Ghogra and of portions of the town." Dminage is then not only impeded but there is a back flow through the Ghogra and Kachai, an affluent of it. Seeing

that these streams

of the filth of the town

are as

relied

well

on

as

for the removal

the

drainage

of

its area, the effect of the state of matters depicted by the Committee on the health of its inhabitants

need

not excite

the

by

surprise.

committee

it imitates and

as

sooner

or

later

embankment

drainage

a new

remedy

proposed

the correct one, inasmuch anticipates what would happen

naturally,

across

The

is

namely, to throw Ghogra and

the mouth of the

channel for the town and

an

cut

the swamps

around and below it, which will join the Poornabhaba This work is calculated to seven miles lower down.

nearly 50,000 rupees, but, apart from the benefit the health of the station which it is intended to to cost

achieve, it will also render available for cultivation some marshy land now perfectly useless if not noxious. Changes such as these in the river system of the delta are constantly occurring, and we entertain no doubt

they contribute materially to the causation of periodical outbreaks of malarial fever which occur periodically throughout the Gangetic delta. The that

those

remedy

must

always be difficult drainage channels

and

costly, namely,

away from the raised opening river bed and bank to enter the river at a lower level out

or

another

same

new

convenient

advantage.

watercourse

presenting

the

[February 1,

1879.

The Sanitary Condition of Dinagepore.

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