The steady increase of population, however, except perhaps in the remotest districts, which education in any form has not yet reached, inclines me to believe that schools, whether conducted on the native or English systems, have proved an unqualified benefit to the people, and that, instead of inducing or extending disease of any kind, many of those enumerated in Miss Nightingale’s list being unknown in Ceylon, they have, by even temporarily withdrawing those who by reason of their tender age are most subject to the injurious consequences of bad habits and premature exertion, secured for them a remarkable immunity from the prevailing diseases of the country for the remainder of their lives.
C. P. LAYARD,
Govt. Agent.
See Tables V. and W., pp. [50] and 51.
The principal civil medical officer has prepared returns to show the diseases of the Singhalese and mixed races, and of the Malabars. The deaths among the latter are in the proportion of 20 per cent. against 8 per cent. among the former. This remarkable disproportion in the mortality may be accounted for by the starving condition in which the Malabar coolies generally arrive in this colony; their uncleanly habits; their abstinence from animal food, and, as a consequence, the low standard of their vital organization; and exposure without sufficient clothing in the cold climate of the hills. They sink rapidly under attacks of diarrhœa, dysentery, and anasarca.
The diseases which are most prevalent and fatal among the native races are such as are incidental to this climate, viz., fever, chiefly of the intermittent type, bowel complaints, and anasarca, while cases of scrofula and consumption, to which Miss Nightingale alludes as prevalent “among those converted to Christian civilization,” are happily seldom met with.
The Commission states, in reply to Miss Nightingale’s question, “Can we civilize these people without killing them?” that those diseases which are supposed to be attendant on European civilization are not common among the native inhabitants of the colony, and that, so far from the natives dying out before the march of civilization, the native population is on the increase in the neighbourhood of the larger towns, while it is only in the remote and less civilized districts that the population is decreasing, and this from causes which are being gradually removed by the spread of education.
C. J. MAC CARTHY
It will doubtless be satisfactory to Miss Nightingale to learn that scrofula and consumption are not common diseases among the native inhabitants of the colony, and that, so far from the efforts made to civilize the people having the effect of causing the extinction of the native races in this colony, the natives in the neighbourhood of the larger towns are rapidly increasing in numbers, while in some of the remoter districts where schools are as yet unknown the population is decreasing. Amongst the causes of this decrease may be mentioned the hateful practice of polyandry, now happily forbidden by law, and the want of proper sustenance, the result partly of imperfect means of cultivation. A better state of things is gradually being brought about by {65} the spread of education, and by this very civilization which is said to be likely to cause the extinction of the native races.