POSTSCRIPT.
RENEWED MOVEMENT OF EPIDEMIC CHOLERA IN 1877-7S.
The issue of this Report having been unavoidably delayed, I am enabled once again to
illustrate the phenomenon of the diffusion of Cholera in the third quarter of the year, its
repression and its reappearance in spring over an extensive and defined area.
Since the close of the monsoon season of 1877, we have been anxiously watching the
progress of a cholera which began to move in the first week of October. Cholera indicated its
presence south of the Jumna as early as April, and culminated in July in Banda, Jalaon, and
Hamirpur, the districts to which I have so many times referred as affording the evidence that
invading cholera has moved westward out of the Gangetic tract. But I am not prepared to say
that this was the same cholera which moved on Central and Western India in October ; previous
history would suggest, that direct invasion from Lower Bengal may have occurred at the date
when general movement was observed.
There is nothing in the cholera registration of Upper India of the first nine months of
1877 to indicate the progress of a serious epidemic. The registration of Oudh and the North-
Western Provinces has a very normal facies ; and as regards the tract west of 80° East
Longitude, we may make the broad assertion that epidemic cholera had no existence before
October, and that then it was confined to the Agra and Muttra districts.
Cholera Death Registration of Upper India, 1877.
Oudh.
North-West Provinces,
from Cawnpore
eastwards.
North-West Provinces,
south of the
Jumna.
North-West Provinces,
west of
Cawnpore.
Punjab.
January .
. None.
11
None.
6
2
.
February. 13
40
1
9
2
March .
.
1,717
2,040
......
15
2
April
.
.
5,782
2,870
38
8
3
May
.
.
4,110
2,720
149
25
7
June
.
773
1,898
770
12
4
July.
360
2 , 2 6 0
871
31
2
August .
201
1,855
273
3 2
2
September
.
136
744
45
41
4
October .
133
514
151
322
1
November
64
304
8
73
2
December
.
52
141
None.
2 3
None.
The 31 deaths of the Punjab of 1877, may, probably without exception, be put down to
error in registration ; and it is specially to be noted, that in the fourth quarter, when cholera
covered so extensive a tract, three deaths only were registered in the province.
As in October 1874, Lullutpore was the first district that showed to us the new movement
of October 1877 ; and Agra, Muttra, and Gwalior were simultaneously affected. Jhausi did
not register a single cholera death from October to December; which shows that importation,
which was supposed to have carried the cholera from Lullutpore to Malwa and through Saugor
into the Nerbudda valley, had really no influence on the movement.
Nor was this cholera conveyed into the districts north of the Jumma. For from
October to December, Etah, Etawah, Allyghur, Mynpoorie, Meerut, Bolundshahr, Saharunpore,
Mozuffernuggur and Dehra returned for the entire area only three deaths which were
attributed to cholera.
Even at the time of movement it was evident that a geographical line drawn from the
Jumna westward to Western Malwa, was not transgressed; and I had no difficulty in identifying
this as a natural line parallel to that delineated on our map of 1868, and which has limited
many other epidemic movements, such as those of 1863-64 or 1859-60. As I write nearly
eight months after the occurrence, cholera has not yet appeared in any district to the north of
this line, which may possibly mean that, as in 1863, the cholera in motion was diverted as a body to
the south and west. In 1864, a deadly cholera year in the west and south, Upper India
entirely escaped; but should Northern India again suffer later on in 1878, we shall at least have
evidence of further movement antecedent to or accompanying the manifestation.
The enormous extent of the geographical area first affected in October, may be judged of
from these cases which appeared among our troops at a season when cholera has scarcely the
power to assert its existence. I refer now to the Bengal Presidency only ; but, in geographi-
cal continuation, the Panch Mahal, Kaira and Ahmedabad districts of Bombay simultaneously
exhibited the invasion of epidemic cholera :
Agra, October 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 25th. Four fatal cases in 4—60th Regiment.
20th. Fatal case in 8th Native Infantry.
Gwalior Fort 26th. A woman of the Battery attacked.
Morar
„
7th 15th and 18th. Three fatal cases in Artillery.
Saugor „
14th to 28th. Five cases in the Madras Native Infantry.
Seronj „
23rd. Fatal case in 1st Central India Horse.
Sehore „
15th. Case in sepoy of Bhopal Battalion.
Sadara, November 1st. Fatal ease in 2nd Central India Horse.
Even in November and December the manifestations of his cholera continued to appear.