Chapter II.]
RE-OCCUPATION OF THE EPIDEMIC AREA IN THE SPRING OF 1875.
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CHAPTER II.
THE RE-APPEARANCE OF CHOLERA WITHIN THE UNOCCUPIED AREA IN THE SPRING OF 1875.
Whether human intercourse was the cause of the first appearance of the new epidemic from
the Himalayas to Southern India in the spring of 1875, need
not be discussed. The local observers are content to admit that
it did not appear by any such agency, and local reports only sug
-gest the possible effects of human agency subsequent to the
re-appearance of cholera in their districts.
Three propositions may be offered as explanatory of the phenomena of re-appearance
— f i r s t , t h a t t h e c h o l e r a w a s d i s s e m i n a t e d o v e r t h e u n o c c u p i e d a r e a s b y s o m e g e n e r a l l y p r e v a i l i n g
agency at the dates on which it showed itself; second, that the material of an epidemic was
distributed over the same areas at a season when the miasm was incapable of manifesting itself
by the affection of the population; or, third, that the germs of previous epidemics remaining,
some unknown influence quickened these germs simultaneously from one extremity of India to
the other.
Scientifically considered, these propositions come before us in this shape: Is it consistent with
the experience of previous epidemics that cholera may be aërially distributed almost imperceptibly,
and that cholera so distributed shall manifest itself at a date on which its appearance in vital
manifestation is due? And the alternative remains: Does any occurrence, accurately recorded in
epidemic history, give colour to the suggestion, that a cholera which has once died within what
we know to be the invaded area in Hindostan, may recover vitality?
No fact with which we are acquainted would suggest that the latter proposition is
tenable; while it is consistent with experience, that an epidemic may be thrown over India at a
season when the cholera so distributed is incapable of showing itself in the human system. The
phenomenon of dormancy and re-vitalisation we are well acquainted with, and the phenomenon of
the advance over provinces of a cholera in full epidemic vigour is a fact in epidemic history
constantly repeated; but that a population should be living amidst the material of a cholera
epidemic which has already made its invasion unperceived and is certain to blaze up in a known
week, and in the meantime lies absolutely innocuous, is at first sight a startling assertion.
In Northern India scarcely a single epidemic has appeared in the spring which has not
been heralded in November and December by the occurrence of
individual cases of true cholera in the districts in which mani
-festation is about to take place subsequent to 20th April. In
a previous report I have followed out the phenomenon as it
preceded the different invasions from 1855 onwards.* In 1871
the whole area of the Central Provinces, from Orissa to the
Berars, registered but nineteen cholera deaths; and yet two cases occurring among prisoners in the
last ten days of October impressed me with the belief that the epidemic was in motion, which
culminated over Western and Northern India in the spring of 1872 (Report of 1872, page 13).
In relation to the Central Provinces, I have had occasion three times already to call attention
to the phenomenon, as explaining the fact of the reproduction of cholera in the early spring far
to the west, in Nimar and beyond; evidently and recognisably in connection with our cholera
of the Gangetic Valley and Northern India, while the intermediate area, known to be free from
pre-existing cholera, showed not a case for months and until the date normal for reproduction
or invasion came round.
The presumption, then, deduced from observation extending over many epidemics, is, that
if distributed at a season which is not the season proper for the appearance of cholera in the
province, which we know from all past experience to vary within definite limits, there may
be no indications of the presence of such a cholera, or the manifestations may appear in the
most sporadic manner and be so trifling as to be altogether overlooked and ignored. And
yet not the less is the cholera seed latent over the province ready to affect the population
in the week in which it should burst into vitality,—a week as predetermined and fixed for the
vitalised manifestation of cholera as the date is fixed for the budding of trees or the flowering
of plants.
Several times, since recognising the true import and value of the phenomenon, I have
striven, months in advance of the appearance of epidemic cholera under such circumstances, to
impress the truth that the epidemic was imminent.
It was not the gravity of any individual outbreak or the occurrence of any series of out
- b r e a k s , t h a t l e d m e t o a n t i c i p a t e t h e c o m i n g e v i l . B u t k n o w i n g t h i s , t h a t n o t a s i n g l e c a s e o f
cholera occurs in the invaded area of India which has not its place in an epidemic in progress,
I have not hesitated to assume that a sporadic case of cholera may prove the index of an
epidemic about to desolate not necessarily the locality where it occurs, but the natural area
within which it has shown itself.
And this it was which induced me to attach, what some would have deemed undue import
-ance to a single but undoubted case of cholera, which warned
me that movement towards the west was in progress. In the
Lullutpore district throughout three years preceding 1874
* R e p o r t o n t h e C h o l e r a o f 1 8 7 2 , p p . 1 8 t o 2 0 .
The cholera of the spring of 1875
did not re-appear over India follow
-ing human intercourse. How it did
appear, and parallel occurrences as
illustrative of the phenomena.
The occupation of great areas of
Hindustan by an epidemic cholera
in motion, but unable to show its
presence because distributed at a
season when it is incapable of mani
-festation, a fact.
The first case which gave warning
that in the spring of 1875 cholera
might appear over Western India.
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