Burma: Census of India 1901 Vol. I - Khamkoo

102 REPORT ON THE CENSUS OF BURMA.
is in any case satisfactory to note that there is no rise in the latter age-periods,
such as that which was apparent in the Indian figures for 1891, and which Mr.
Baines then put down to the inclusion among the deaf and dumb from birth of those
who had actually lost their hearing during the closing years of life. As in the case
of insanity, the males among the deaf-mutes exceed the females in very nearly all
of the age-periods. In this regard subsidiary Table No. VI IB presents no features
of special interest.
151. There appear to be two main causes of blindness in Burma : the first of
these is the glare of the sun, the second is small-pox.
c
As regards the former Mr. Baines has, in his General
Report for 1891, pointed out that the axiom that drought and glare bear a direct
relation to eye affections does not always find support in India as a whole. For
all that, however, the conclusion that he arrives at after a careful weighing of the
matter is that," on the whole the statistics for different parts of the same province
" * * * seem to indicate that blindness is more prevalent, as a
" rule, in hot and dry tracts and less prevalent in mountain air and within the in-
" fluence of the heavier rain currents." The soundness of this conclusion would
seem to be amply borne out by the statistics of blindness provided by the recent
enumeration. On no other assumption can we explain why the ratios per hundred
thousand of each sex in the Upper Burma dry division should be 205 for males
and 230 for females, while in the Upper Burma wet division they are 109 and 108,
and in the Lower Burma littoral division 46 and 39 respectively. A perusal of
Subsidiary Table No. VILA will show that ordinarily the dryer the district the
larger the tale of blind. For the provincial maxima we have, as a rule, to go to arid
districts like Pakokku, Myingyan and the Lower Chindwin, while moist areas, such
as Salween, Thaton and Amherst, furnish the minima. I say " as a rule" in regard
to the maxima because, as a matter of fact, Northern Arakan, a wet area,
supplies the very highest figures for the province— 426 blind males and 326
blind females per 100,000 of each sex. The data for this district are at first
sight almost alarming. It must be borne in mind, however, that they are calculated
on so small a population that they are no adequate test of the extent of the affliction.
When it comes to examining the actuals, the figures give no cause for apprehension.
A total of 45 male and 33 female blind in a district numbering 20,682
souls all told is, on the face of it, almost as little a matter for concern as for congratulation,
even though when worked out proportionally it assumes the dimensions
referred to. After Northern Arakan and Thayetmyo (where conditions prevail
similar to those obtaining in the dry zone) the highest proportion of blind in any
Lower Burma district is in Prome, and this takes us to the second of the main
causes of blindness adverted to above. For many years prior to the 1891 enumeration
Prome enjoyed a somewhat unenviable reputation for small-pox, and I think
that it can be hardly doubted that the large proportion of blind in this district is a
legacy of successive epidemics in the past. Vaccinaction has done wonders during
the last decade in reducing the virulence of the disease in the Prome district,
and next census should see a substantial diminution in the total of blind.
Small-pox is doubtless responsible for a good deal of the blindness returned in
the other damp areas of the province. Reading subsidiary Table No. VIIC in the
light of the above remarks, there is nothing to surprise us in the fact that the Burmans
are more liable to blindness than any of the other indigenous races, and that
the Shan show the next highest figure in regard to the average of afflicted.
The figures contained in subsidiary Table No. VIIB show that, on the whole,
and especially in the latter years of life, females were in 1891 more liable to blindness
than males. The cause for this greater susceptibility of the weaker sex.
which was apparent also at the preceding enumeration, has been touched upon in
the 1 89 1 report, but Mr. Eales does not appear to have found any of the theories
that have been adduced to account for it particularly convincing. In view of the
fact that in 1881 the male blind exceeded the female blind in British Burma, the
proportion being 107 of the former to every 100 of the latter, it seems probable
that the. factors, physiological or otherwise, that determine the relative extent of
blindness in each sex have yet to be traced.