288
EPIDEMIC CHOLERA OF INDIA OF 1875 AND 1876.
[ Section IV.
Chanda registered its first case on 1st August, and Warora, the circle of Chanda, which
lost in the month 127 out of 167 cases, showed cholera first on 6th August.
It was in this week—his letter is dated 4th August—that the Sanitary Commissioner for
the Central Provinces, finding cholera springing up suddenly in so many districts, wrote thus to
the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India
—
"The western epidemic which was in April confined to the district of Nimar and the
western division of Hoshungabad, spread eastward up the Nerbudda Valley during May, and on
the beginning of June had reached the confines of
Nursingpore. But with the setting in of
the rains extension in this direction ceased, and cholera has now almost died out in Hoshung-
abad. Up to date, the greater part of the Nursingpore district, and the whole of Jubbulpore,
have remained free. The Vindhya districts also, with the exception of a few cases in Mur-
wara, have escaped. In Nimar, however, the prevalence of cholera has somewhat increased
during the last fortnight, and the same epidemic, which, during the months of May and June,
spread eastward from Khandeish through Berar, has reached the districts of Nagpore and
Wardah. The Satpura districts, with the exception of three villages of Baitool, have hitherto
remained free."
This description agrees in its details almost identically with the registration of 1872. The
eastern limit of the epidemic province is the same shown on our map of the epidemic of 1872;
and from this eastern limit the cholera of 1875 was universal to the west as far as Kurrachee,
and south to the southern confines of the Bombay Presidency.
This last sentence was written in August 1875, two days before receipt of the telegram
What was in progress over the
Central Provinces but a portion of a
far wider movement.
telling of the arrival of cholera in Madras City, on which I
based the exceedingly wide generalisation, which proved true,
that within a fortnight the whole country between the western
coast and the eastern coast of India had become involved in a
general invasion.
Out of what fields did this cholera of the monsoon season, invading the Berars, the
Central Provinces, the entire south of the Bombay Presidency and Hyderabad, and extending
across India to the eastern coast, come?
The answer is given by studying the behaviour of the cholera then occupying Western
India; and therefore I take up now the natural history of the cholera of 1875 in the Bombay
Presidency.
I find it necessary to re-arrange the deaths of the Bombay Presidency in order to
The cholera deaths of the Bombay
Presidency of 1875, re-arranged ac-
cording to a natural method; the
beautiful phenomenon displayed.
discriminate what is in a great measure concealed in any
tabulation founded on a theory which does not apprehend the
truth that cholera tells its own history, and that this
history is independent of the chances of distribution afforded
to cholera by human agency.
This re-arrangement brings prominently before our eyes one of the most perfect illustra-
tions ever afforded in the natural history of cholera.
I have already given the dates of the first cases in the districts affected in April. In the
districts invaded in April and May the cholera is shown as disappearing in August over an
enormous extent of country. But the sea-coast districts below the Ghats continue the cholera
of the spring even into the last quarter of the year; and certain circles of Poona, Ahmednagar,
and Nasik retain cholera up to October, although these last show rapid and continuous decline
from August.
In the second statement C. the picture is reversed. Over a vast and defined area spring
cholera is unrepresented. Suddenly, from the 18th June onwards (as the rule), invasion occurs,
whole districts being occupied within a few days, and the descent of the north-east monsoon is
seen pushing the same cholera down to the south and west through October, November and
December, until we see it, as it were, driven into the sea at Honawar, the most southerly
town of the Bombay Presidency, on 21st December; but, in reality, leaving behind it over the
districts invaded, the seed destined to spring in the early months of 1876 into a general epidemic
This is but a repetition of the phenomenon so conspicuous on Scot's map of 1818; over the
same tract the dates of 1875 are almost identical, as well as the aspect showing the invasion of
the Malabar coast districts with the setting-in of the north-east monsoon:
A.— The Area of Spring cholera of 1875 in Bombay within which Cholera died in August.
(Five circles of Surat first invaded in august and September are for convenience retained in this statement. In the
Kaira and Kurrachee districts cholera again showed itself in November and December.)
D i s t r i c t .
C I R C L E .
M a r c h .
A p r i l .
M a y .
J u n e .
J u l y .
A u g u s t .
S e p t e m b e r .
O c t o b e r .
N o v e m b e r .
D e c e m b e r .
T o t a l d e a t h s o f 1 8 7 5 .
K H A N D E S H .
Seven Circles of Nasik.
10
270
240
171
191
100
...
...
...
...
982
Jammer
.
.
.
.
...
...
16
370
695
132
...
...
...
...
1,213
Erandol
.
.
.
.
..
..
151
109
253
136
...
...
...
...
649
Bhusawal .
.
.
.
...
...
...
214
304
59
...
...
...
...
577
Sanda
.
.
.
. . .
...
9
159
276
7
...
...
...
451
Nasirabad
...
...
64
102
154
44
...
...
...
...
364
"
Town
...
2
6
45
45
...
...
...
...
98
Edalabad
...
...
36
65
183
10
.,.
...
...
...
294
Parola
...
49
33
107
93
...
...
...
282