CLIMATE

361

Farther south again, though the Madras jungles still
retain their reputation for a special breed of malarial
microbe which renders existence in them most precarious,
the narrowing of the continent and the culmination of
Eastern and Western Ghats in the plateaux and peaks of the
Nilgiris and other groups of hills largely reduces the feverstricken
 area, and introduces the healthy influences of seabreezes
 and high altitudes. This, with the equable temperature
 of the province, which enjoys a climate which is
described as “ eternally hot,” no doubt tends to maintain
the credit of the Madras province as the healthiest in
India. Into a disquisition on the varieties of Indian
malarial fevers this is no place to enter. It is enough to
say that there are so many different types that it is difficult
lo grasp the idea of a common origin for them all. From
a close approximation to cholera symptoms, through
those of intermittent “ague and fever ” to enteric, and even
to the oriental form of influenza known as “ dengue,” we
have probably nothing to thank except the malarial germ
and the ubiquitous mosquito. The latter deserves the very
closest attention from our medical biologists and investigators
 ; for the whole question of European acclimatisation
and the future of India as a British colony is very closely
~onnected with his suppression.

 Bartholomew’s Physical Atlas” is a mine of wealth for information
of a general character on the phenomena of climate in India. Excellent
-harts are also published in Calcutta, and the Reports of the Meteorological
 Department are full of instruction. Personal experience in many
parts of the continent and the border countries, combined with the results
 of personal observations of a scientific nature, have also assisted
iargely in the compilation of this chapter.