Marriage and Birth Rates.

THE current member of the Indian Journal of Medical Research contains a number of valuable contributions by eminent medical men, but the contributions by Major W.F. Harvey on some aspects of marriage and birth rates among Brahmins and some fighting races of India attract general attention. Major Harvey collected the data at the Pasteur Institute at Kasauli by personal interrogation of Brahmin patients who went to the Institute for treatment. And as regards the facts relating to the fighting communities of India, they were collected by direct interrogation of wounded Indians who were admitted to the Kitchener Indian Hospital at Brighton. The object of this investigation is described thus: “My reason for taking up the subject of fertility was that considerable work has been done on that subject in England. The comparison of results obtained in a definite section of an Oriental race with those certain English communities might be of great interest, considering the very different marriage customs prevailing in the two races.”