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vation has as yet not claimed so much of the country. Independent
colonisation by old tea-garden coolies also exists but the "bustee"
population, as it is termed, forms but a small item in comparison with
the garden labour,
Malaria is rife throughout the whole coolie population, and the
general impression that we have gathered is that it forms the one im-
portant disease influencing the tea industry in the Duars.
The condition as regards malaria among the aboriginals is
interesting, but cannot be considered as forming an important
part of the problem to be investigated. The interest attaches chiefly
to the question as to whether the Meches being the original inhabit-
ants of the country suffer from fever to the same extent as the immi-
grants. Briefly we may say that to a large extent they do. But the
Duars being malarious, apparently not so much because of its physical
features as by reason of the state of affairs brought about by the open-
ing up of the country, one must look upon the aboriginal Mech as now
quite as much a stranger to the existing intense malaria as any im-
migrant. The condition in the independent "bustee" colonised by
old tea-garden coolies we shall refer to later.
ESTIMATION OF THE AMOUNT OF MALARIA.
Since there are no hospitals, and the cases of sickness recorded on
the gardens do not. as we shall show, bear any real relation to the amount
of malarial disease, we are confined, if we wish to estimate the amount
of malaria, to such general methods of estimation as-
(a) The endemic index and the spleen-rate.
(b) The amount of infection and the degree to which enlarged
spleen prevails among the adult population.
(c) The effects of malaria as shown by the amount of sickness and
death and the general effect of the disease upon the com-
munity.
The endemic index and spleen-rate.-The percentage of infected
children was shown in 1901, on those gardens visited by the Royal