ABSTRACT
The chapter traces pre-1900 GOI malaria control policy, and the failure of 1902–1908 vector control operations to substantially reduce post-monsoon malaria transmission or epidemic malaria severity at the Lahore (Mian Mir) rural military cantonment. It summarises the findings of the Malaria in the Duars (1909) report, an investigation into the extreme lethality of malaria amongst the labour populations on the northeastern Duars tea plantations, and its relationship to the incidence of blackwater fever amongst the European managerial staff, a syndrome believed triggered by repeated quinine consumption. It explores the larger implications for malaria policy of plantation labour conditions in undermining the reputation of quinine as a safe therapeutic, and in disseminating a peculiarly intense form of malaria: ‘malariogenic’ endemic destitution under indentured labour laws bearing much broader implications across the subcontinent (‘tropical aggregation of labour’).
