EPIDEMIC CHOLERA OF INDIA OF 1875 AND 1876.
[Section IV.
278
two cholera deaths only had been registered, and in the same period two deaths only in the
Jhansi district adjoining. At Lullutpore, on the 28th October 1874, a native officer of the
28th Native Infantry was struck down with cholera in the morning, and he died in the after
-noon. There was no cholera reported in the district at the time, and none appeared throughout
the epidemic of 1875. This solitary case of cholera I consider to have been a true index of
movement, and this I represented to the Sanitary Commissioner as soon as I recorded the
death. And early in the spring, when the very first symptoms of the re-awakening of cholera
showed themselves, I represented to the Quarter Master General of the Army that the material of
an epidemic had already been distributed, against which it was necessary to be prepared,
seeing that manifestation was certain to occur at the proper date. What, under such conditions,
is the geographical area already covered no one but an empiric would profess to say; manifesta
-tion alone can declare the course followed and the limit reached.
Leaving out of consideration meantime the debateable points—whether the re-appearance
of cholera in the spring of 1875 was due to a new cholera leaving
the endemic area at this date, to the local development of a
cholera from the same source distributed during the last quarter
of 1874, or to a combination of influences which determined that the cholera distributed
late in 1874 should be re-distributed as soon as it proved its capacity for epidemic exist
-ence, these were the dates at which the spring cholera of 1875 became manifest in the various
Provinces.
In the Bombay Presidency, in the month of March, ten deaths from cholera were registered.
One death occurred in the town of Nasik between 22nd and 31st
March. The man had come from Dwarka, but no cholera was
known to exist anywhere in the Presidency at the time when
he was attacked. He was suffering from diarrhœa on his arrival, but this may have been only
the cause predisposing him to the cholera then about to appear.
This was not the date of the general appearance of cholera in the area within which the
spring cholera of the Presidency was destined to be confined. Cholera did not radiate from
Nasik. A proper apprehension of the meaning of the wide spread of cholera at a certain date
forbids us to entertain any such suggestion. And the illustrations which follow, taking up the
fact of the appearance of the same cholera from Dehra Dun to Tanjore in the same week, tell
of the operation of a general influence to which the effects of human intercourse are entirely
subsidiary.
The Sanitary Commissioner for Bombay remarks : "Taking Nasik as a centre of infection
or revival, it would be extremely interesting to trace the course of the disease through the
several districts in which it appeared, but the means are not forthcoming. Very excellent
reports have been received, but in these there is not the requisite precision as to dates."
From the Sanitary Commissioner's own record given below, the dates seem sufficiently pre
-cise. The difficulty is to reconcile these dates with the theory that the cholera radiated from
Nasik:—
Ahmedabad.—" Cholera broke out on 30th April at Purantej."
Panch Mahals.—"Cholera broke out on 17th April in the Godhra Rural Circle."
Kaira—" Cholera broke out on 16th April in the town of Kapadwanj."
Tanna.—" Cholera broke out on the 14th April in Khurdi village of Shaharpur Rural Circle."
Ratnagiri.—" Cholera broke out on 15th April in the Dapuli Rural Circle."
Sholapur.—" Cholera broke out in the town of Barsi on 24th April."
Ahmednagar.—" Cholera broke out on 15th April at Akola."
Khandesh.—" Cholera broke out at Chalisgaon on 16th April."
"In January 1875 there was one death recorded in Bombay City, and in February there
was another. With these exceptions, the year commenced without any reported cholera within
the limits of the Presidency."
The Officiating Sanitary Commissioner for Madras makes the suggestion that the cholera
of Southern India of 1875 may have been imported from Ceylon,
seeing that cholera first showed itself in 1875 in the southern
districts, while apparently the rest of the Presidency remained
uninvaded.
Now, it is of essential importance that this statement should be weighed, and the fact
viewed in its proper bearings. For such a proposition, if credited, would destroy the harmony of
the aspect in which the re-appearance of cholera over India was really exhibited.
To meet the suggestion, we have only to turn to the Sanitary Commissioner's Report
for 1873. The one evident deduction from the facts contained in the following quotation is that,
above all others, these districts of Southern India have the capability for retaining and locali
s - i n g a n i n v a d i n g e p i d e m i c .
Speaking of the few deaths, 165 in number, the total recorded in Southern India in 1873,
Mr. Cornish says: "These were mostly isolated cases of 'sporadic' cholera occurring in districts
where there was no tendency to the diffusion of the pest, such as is observed in the progress of
cholera as an epidemic. There is in Southern India an endemic form of cholera which seems to
differ from the epidemic variety only in not spreading; and it must be further remembered that
the deaths now and then registered as cholera in non-epidemic seasons may really be due to other
causes. In what particular respect the endemic cholera of Tanjore and other localities of the
south differs from the epidemic variety of the disease is a subject for investigation and report
when a sufficient number of facts have been accumulated."
Dates at which the spring cholera
of 1875 was manifested over India.
Bombay Presidency. The cholera
of April 1875 did not radiate from
Nasik.
Madras Presidency. The cholera of
April was not imported from Ceylon.