Reflections on the regional geography of disease in late colonial South Asia

Abstract

After a brief survey of the regional environments of mainland South Asia. the case is made for a retrospect to the medical geography of the late colonial period as a bench-mark survey against which may be measured both progress and problems since Independence. Examples of two-variable maps plotting both mean incidence and year-to-year variability of mortality from various causes are taken from a longer study of inter-war British India. The role of the three great epidemic diseases then—cholera, plague and smallpox—is contrasted with the more endemic patterns of malaria and dysentery, and a synthetic map of “disease regions” is presented and discussed. Development in the independent countries is likely to be crucial in future improvement in health conditions, and actual progress in disease prevention in India is discussed in relation to demographic and developmental problems.