This book is the outcome of a Wellcome Trust (London) funded documentation projet on 'Western Medicine and Indigeous Society: History of Disease, Medicine and Public Health Policy in Colonial Eastern India, 1757-1947"--Introduction.

Includes statistical tables.

Dreadful Diseases in Colonial Bengal is the third volume produced under the aegis of the Wellcome Trust (London) funded documentation project ‘Western Medicine and Indigenous Society: History of Disease, Medicine and Public Health Policy in Colonial Eastern India, (1757–1947)’. While the first volume documented the context in which hospitals were established in Calcutta during the rule of the British East India Company, and the second analysed the trauma caused by tuberculosis in the public health system of twentieth-century India, the present volume brings together selections from official reports on cholera, malaria and smallpox—the three diseases which repeatedly struck colonial Bengal as epidemics. Its objective is to provide a useful resource for researchers, with ready entry points for reconstructing the incidence of these diseases, their mortality rates, social and economic effects as well as colonial medical interventions to contain them. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of studying epidemics that have struck human society in a historical continuum and the significance of the present collation needs to be viewed in this context. The book will be a welcome contribution to the rapidly developing field of History of Medicine. Table Of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Bengal Public Health Report by Dr C.A. Bentley: Reports of the Bengal Sanitary Board and the Chief Engineer Public Health Department for the year 1926 19 Extracts from Section VI of the original Report, pp. 22-52. 2. Bengal Public Health Report by Dr R.B. Khambata: Reports of the Bengal Sanitary Board and the Chief Engineer Public Health Department for the year 1930 75 Extracts from Section VI of the original Report, pp. 36-61 3. Bengal Public Health Report for the year 1932 by Dr R.B. Khambata Extracts from Chapter III of the original Report, pp. 29-53 4. Bengal Public Health Report for the year 1934 by Dr R.B. Khambata Extracts from Chapter III of the original Report, pp. 29-55 5. Bengal Public Health Report for the year 1935 by Dr S N Sur Extracts from the heading on Smallpox General Prevalence, pp. 40-58 of the original Report 6. Bengal Public Health Report for the year 1936 by Lt. Col. A C Chatterji Extracts from Chapter III of the original Report, pp. 31-59 7. Bengal Public Health Report for the year 1938 by Lt. Col. A C Chatterji Extracts from Chapter III of the original Report, pp. 35-73 8. Bengal Public Health Report for the year 1940 by Dr B Mukherji Extracts from the heading Cholera of the original Report, pp. 36-68 9. First Report on Malaria in Bengal by Major A B Fry Extracts from Chapter III of the original Report, pp. 10-26 10. Malaria and Agriculture in Bengal: How to Reduce Malaria in Bengal by Irrigation by Chas A. Bentley Extracts from Chapter I of the original Report, pp. 4-20 and Chapter IV, pp. 48-55 11. Malaria in Calcutta by Major G. Covell Extracts from Chapter II of the original Report, pp. 10-24 12. Report on the Working of the Anti-malaria Campaign in Rural Areas of Bengal with Quinine and Plasmochin for the first year 1933-1934 373 Extracts from the heading ‘The First Scheme for an Anti-Malaria Campaign in Rural Areas of Bengal by the use of Quinine and Plasmochin and the report on the Working of its Experiment during the first year 1933-34’, pp. 3-21 of the original Report