PARASITIC INFECTIONS IN THOSE OLD DAYS OF PRE-INDEPENDENT INDIA

What was the life style of an ordinary Indian in Pre-Independent India ? There is  literature in our historical books narrating India being "sone ki chiriya" prior british rajya and how we were deprived of the wealth by destroying our handicrafts. There is great literature about all the wars and battles fought against Mughals and Britons but there is no way to know how an ordinary person was living, travelling , educating, getting services etc. Therefore, it is much interesting to know about these facts even at the start of twentieth century- much later than ancient India . We can peeve those conditions by reading an autobiography written by Dr SS Prabhu as mentioned below :

Days of struggle and hope life and times of Dr S S Prabhu (kogan)

AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY DR S S PRABHU Ex head of Animal Genetics,IVRI,Izatnagar, Ex Dean College of Animal Sciences, ( H.A.U.Hissar, Haryana) Acknowledgement by Shri RS Prabhu (his son) ,Dated 15.05.2014 Mangalore

It may be said safely that in those days there was a great gap in our culture and those of English persons. Unlike to present days, we have not adopted their dress, living ,conditions etc. These were the days of second world war and living or getting service, even by graduates, was a difficult task- unemployment among educated persons was rampant.  The houses were mostly of mud, kitchen having great place and every house has a cattle shed.There was not many toys and  children were passing time by watching nature,  moving cycle tyre or playing where no toys are needed and  gossiping etc  Even going to schools/college   was either in half pant or pyajama and kurta/kameej and persons remained barefoot. Roads were not Tar coal and having many pots; the bus in those days took more than 4 hours to cover a distance of 16 miles. Mostly ,Persons were covering the distance either on foot or on the bullock cart. Importantly, persons were also using ferry ,water rout , to travel from Mangalore to Mumbai which was more comfortable than road rout. 

There was a great problem of diseases ; Ashma ,TB, typhoid were the conditions where it was difficult for the person to get rid of in his life time. 

Even parasitic diseases are a great problem. Malaria was a recurrent problem . Elephantiasis was causing deformities thereby creating marriage problems for young girls. 

There was an inferiority complex also among Indians and this is the reason why we have not tried to search  our home tried drugs as Dr Prabhu is mentioning how his aunt was able to cure him permanently by using a home grown plant.

I have taken out below material, related to parasitic infections from the autobiography  as described by Dr Prabhu. I am thankful to his son Shri RS Prabhu, an engineer by profession , settled at Mangalore, after retirement , who provided me hard copy of the autobiography.

MALARIA (page 29)

"When I think of the poor and indifferent health care present during my childhood, I often wonder how we at all survived. Malaria was a regular visitor so as to speak.Suddenly, one developed shivers and felt cold ,which failed to be relieved through use of any number of blankets. Then came high temperature that remained for 14 hours with sudden dropping at the end which left your body perspiring. It took couples of owels ( or towels) to dry you and then you felt weak. You felt hungry. The next day you are normal. The following day it started once again its depredations. I was a regular victim of malaria for a long time and consumed so much quinine that at time I nearly went deaf. I used to get fever in the school when the teacher will send me home with as escort. This fever bothered me so much that it was very much there when I went to Mangalore after the floods and joined Canara High School for my studies. A couple of times I got shivers in the class and came home. I was given the standard medicine which worked for a while and then it started again.

Then Shambakka,s mother in law took charge. She had contempt for allopathy. She told me to forget about the drug her son have given me to be taken. She would give me her medicine and it should drive away the disease for good. Then she went down and got hold of some leaves of some plants that grew in the compound and using liberal amount of garlic made a fine decoxation that I was to take for couple of days. This I did and the Malaria that bothered me for a long time disappeared for good and never visited me again.

I do not know whether this is just coincidence or whether there was real punch in the medicine. The plants, she used for preparation the potion (decoxation) used to be found in plenty round about the house compound earlier,but now they have disappeared.

The inferiority complex has taken such a deep root in our mind that we have no pride in our own ancient medicine,even when as in my case , it produced good results. They never bothered to take a second look at the native medicine ,analyse it scientifically and find what is the active principle in it that produce positive results" (autobiography page 29- I GET GYPOID)

ELEPHANTIASIS (page 53)

" Raman master was the kindergarten teacher of Canara High School. He was a deeply religious man and daily in the evening bhajans would go on for hours at his house..... At the time I knew them Raman master's mother had a mild attack of elephantiasis. His brother had a severe form that made his two legs swell. Swelling would increase each time he got fever and recovered. Under the stress of the fever she used to utter loud shouts that I would hear in my upstairs room in the Subba Shetty bungalow.

Sometime I too would take part in the bhajans which on certain auspicious days went on and on, and prevented me from concentrating on my studies. This teacher wanted to make me his son-in-law, but it got no encrouragement. Bhavaji used to visit Raman master's place and it will not be a surprise that it was from that place he got his infection of elephant legs that became a major problem for him in later life. His daughter Vasanthi too got it from him. Luckily for her Dr Kini's prompt treatment prevented it from growing furhter and only one foot was swollen a bit. That came in the way of her marriage as wherever they tried , the bridegroom party baulked at thegirl with the swollen leg ! Vaikunta Baliga too had a daughter with a similar problem. But he had enough money so that he could get rid of her by paying big dowry! Where will our poor school teacher get that kind of dough? One good thing for which we had to be thankful was that others who slept in the same house as Bhavaji and Vasanthi did not contract the disease ( but in above para, Dr Prabhu has mentioned that both Bhavaji and Vasanthi developed elephantiasis). Raman master too got the infection and so did Vishwanath master  who use to visit his place. Both got such swollen legs that they could not move properly .It was a horrible sight to see them"

BED BUG ( Page69,  70)

"....Respite came in the form of an offer to get me a seat  in the old hostel by Babli's husband Prof VD Dabholkar which I readily accepted and moved into the old hostel- a place made up of wood and full of bugs! They used to reside in the cot notches, come out at night as soon as the lights went off at 9.30 and start attacking people who were asleep. Some had got so much used to be bitten by the bugs that they never woke up and continued to sleep. One could see the bugs attacking their body and they were still fast asleep.

"One disadvantage that the old hostel possessed was the presence of bed bugs of which there was a huge supply. They could never be eradicated with the method followed then- namely to take out the cots ,shake them and put them in the sun. This I did regularly.I would then hunt for them and kill them by burning them or applying oil to the body.The problem is no one knew where they hid as they are invisible during the day. Once the lights were off they would emerge from their hideouts and attack their prey. I noticed that they would crawl up and stay on the roof of the rooms. The roof was made of wood and so one cannot detect hidden bugs there. But as the lights went off at night , they would drop onto the bed like bombs let loose from an airplane and proceed to attack their victims. In due course I too got used to getting bitten by the bugs same as other hostel mates and did not notice them. In the morning I would see the tiny bite marks. On summer days one simply took one's bedding, spread the same on the front lawn and went to sleep there. The hostel had no fans !"

I have observed with interest that there is no mention about havoc created by mosquitoes by Dr Prabhu in his autobiography. As we know now that both above parasitic diseases, malaria and elephantiasis, spread by the bite of mosquitoes but no mention of this fact is suggesting that transmission of these diseases was still not clear in those times. His mentioning of bed bugs and problems by them  and frequent recurrence of malaria further substantiates my contention.

It may not be out of place to mention that within this hundred years, a tremendous difference may be observed in treatment of above diseases. We have so many broad spectrum antibiotics , to fought TB and typhoid. You are well aware that this year the noble prize is awarded to one Chinese scientist for treatment of malaria and two other scientists for filariasis, - elephantiasis is a type of filariasis.