306
EPIDEMIC CHOLERA OF INDIA OF 1875 AND 1876.
[ Section IV.
Many stations, however, exhibited this increase of malarious fevers which gave no signofthe
presence of cholera. These are the fever admissions of the native troops :—
Fever Admissions of Native Troopsfor the weeks ending as below in September 1876—
Rajanpore
8th.
15th.
22nd.
29th.
8
6
13
26
Dera Ghazee Khan
25
40
62
72
Mool t an
82
50
248
137
Ferozepore
72
96
130
92
Jhelum
65
75
122
145
Peshawar
138
157
223
268
Kohat
60
58
136
156
Dera Ismail Khan
25
33
73
68
In contrast, the stations which follow showed no increase of fever at this date : Sialkot,
Amritsar, Meean Meer, Rawalpindi, Talagaon, Attock, Nowshera, Cherat, Murdan, and
Abbottabad.
I cannot too strongly urge the fact that cholera is a miasm of the samenatureasmal-
Cholera in its endemic home is aria ; and, therefore, I think it worth while to show here byway
purely a malarious miasm. Cholera of illustration, for the whole population of a districtinthe
registration of Jessore in 1871—76.
endemic province, what I formerly showed by taking a single
jail as typical.
Deaths from Cholera in the Jessore District, 1871—76.
1871-72
July. Aug. Sept. Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
Mar.
April. May. June.
1
7
. . .
7
466
1,265
755
251
212
178
92
36
1872-73 18
9
17
7
76
520
354
63
128
607
574
98
1873-74 29
5
17
8
23
327
110
28
140
359
356
123
1874-75 56
11
6
86
762
779
626
286
678
845
347
71
1875-76 27
8
11
232
2,208
2,139
579
229
1,412
3,399
674
188
1876
8 6
23
21
66
2,927
5,218
Every one recognises that cholera grows annually in Eastern Bengal, comingforwardas
soon as the floods subside. These, for example, are the deaths of Jessore arranged month by
month for 5 years. The table is typical, and precisely indicates to a weekthesamepheno-
menon tabulated for the prisoners of the Backergunge Jail in my original report. Every
natural subdivision of the administration of Bengal Proper produces or shows its cholera year
by year at the normal seasons, which are in each case special to the tract. This subject the
Sanitary Commissioner for Bengal has taken up in his annual report for 1876; and I need only
remark, that when tabulated for a series of years the results are even more perfect and con-
sistent, and display the truth that in its endemic home cholera is a miasm purely malarious in
type.
In my original report I have all through dwelt on the fact, that in reproduction the
In the epidemic area of Hindostan,
cholera is not a locally generated
miasm.
cholera already distributed over a specific tract comesforwardas
a provincial, and not as a local cholera. Asanapparentexcep-
tion to this wide general statement, and influenced, perhaps,
too much by the opinions current at home, I suggested (page 215) the possibility, on some
occasions, of the nidus from which a local cholera might arise in theyearsucceeding,being
formed in a cantonment. The facts of the years 1859, 1860, 1861 and 1862werethosepresent
to my mind in writing this sentence, when, in several instances, for four years in succession some
of our cantonments continued to suffer. But looking at morerecentexperience,itisprobable that
two epidemics, and not a single epidemic, were compressed into this period, and that the
phenomenon in question was subordinate to the general appearance of cholera, and independent
of any mere local cause of infection. As a fact, we know that no local reproduction takes place
after the very worst outbreaks. Take as typical the case of Peshawar, which retains its cholera
in a year of invasion up to the 7th November. The Peshawar valley was filled with cholera
in 1858, 1862, 1867, 1869, 1872 and 1876;and yet in a strength of upwards of 6,000 soldiers,
not a single case of cholera occurred in the years immediately succeeding-1859, 1863, 1868,
1870, 1873 or 1877. Had the local reproduction been due we know well that nothing would
have hindered its appearance on 20th April, or ten days earlier.
Since this report went to press, the report of Drs. Lewis and Cunningham, on the influ-
ence of the soil in the production Of cholera has been issued, and I consider it necessary to call
attention to a question which they ask in concluding their enquiry.
It is this :—Cholera being unquestionably a malarious miasm, will not local production
sufficiently account for the local and provincial phenomena, and is not controversy as to the
method of spread of cholera over areas misplaced, as based on an alleged phenomenon which has
no real existence ?
Such a deduction is not legitimately derived from a mere study of the nature of the
cholera miasm, such as they now present. In my opinion the question should not have been
raised in the paper, since it falls into position naturally after the termination of two studies
upon which these Observers have not yet entered—the laws of the succession of epidemics, and
the laws under which cholera appears over areas.
In every appearance of cholera the question must be asked whether it be the cholera of
a new invasion or a provincially reproduced cholera; and no report can proceed satisfactorily