Chapter II.
RE-OCCUPATION OF THE EPIDEMIC AREA IN THE SPRING OF 1875.
279
In the first quarter of 1875, 30 cholera deaths only were registered in the entire Presi-
dency of Madras. The deaths of April in the Tinnevelly and Tanjore districts, which furnished
74 out of the 84 cholera deaths of the Presidency, were the true indices of the commencing
epidemic.
Cholera broke out in Tinnevelly on 14th April, and in Tanjore on 17th April. Trichinopoly
was attacked in May, the cholera commencing on the 18th.
Cholera had been epidemic in the sea-coast districts of Ceylon for three months before, and
about 400 deaths had occurred-16 in January, 70 in February, and 281 in March, when this
cholera culminated, the numbers in April running down to 102.
The Officiating Sanitary Commissioner writes : "I do not intend to express any opinion
upon the origin of the epidemic which began in April 1875." In the next sentence, however,
he proceeds to make a very decided theoretical statement : " It is obvious," he says, " that our
epidemic of 1875 did not come from the north, but from the south-east 3 " and the inference
he leaves to be drawn is, that the cholera of the Madras Presidency, which cut off nearly
100,000 of the population in 1875, was imported from Ceylon into the districts affected in the
spring, having previously been imported from somewhere else into Ceylon.
Ceylon exempted in1874, as well
as the Continent of India.
The Island of Ceylon registered only two cholera deaths from September to December 1874,
and eleven in all during the year ; in short, Ceylon enjoyed in 1874
the same immunity from cholera as the Continent of India. I have
n no record to show or suggest where the cholera of Ceylon did come
from. Theoretically, when I trace as one and the same phenomenon the re-appearance of cholera
from the Himalayas to the extreme south-west of the Bombay Presidency, I look for the extension
of the margin of the fan, and I find its extremity in Ceylon, and I associate the appearance of
cholera in February and March with the homologous reproduction of. cholera in Oudh and the
eastern districts of our North-Western Provinces in the same weeks ; and the occurrence of the
first cholera in Madras on 14th and 17th April cannot be passed over without at least calling
attention to the fact that these very days saw the Bombay Presidency- covered simultaneously
in many districts.
In the face of the picture which I have drawn, I cannot adopt the suggestion unless
backed by the actual facts of importation. No do I find the statement that, from the districts
affected in the spring, cholera spread gradually into every district, borne out by the statistical
facts. The method of the filling-in of the area mapped out by the spring cholera of 1875,
is a subject which cannot be treated in so general a manner, and will again be reverted to in
.
studying the behaviour of the same cholera in Madras during the monsoon season of 1875.
First appearance of cholera in the
Berars.
Berars.—" Cholera had been unknown in Berar for two years. The first appearance of
the epidemic in 1875 was on the 9th of May in the village of
T
akli, on the banks of the Poorna, in the Buldana district.
During May it appeared in nine-villages in the Buldana district,
and in 28 in the Akola district. Within the following week or ten days, it had attacked the
inhabitants in a number of the neighbouring villages, and it soon became apparent that the
epidemic was about to become wide-spread, as not a post came in which did not bring reports
of more villages being affected."
Thus Dr. Abbott writes, and be continues :—" In April it was evident to me that cholera
would reach us from the west, as by this time it had appeared in many places in the Bombay
Presidency, and from newspaper reports I learned that it was marching towards us."
First
appearance
of cholera in the
Central Provinces.
But cholera bad already occupied Berhampore and Nimar and Western Malwa, and on the
t
theory of progression by human intercourse, the Sanitary Com-
missioner might equally have anticipated the invasion of his
area from the north.
In Nimar the first appearance of cholera was on 12th April at Dhangaon, and at Mundi
on 20th. Khimdwah got its first case on 5th May.
First appearance of cholera in
Western Malwa.
Berhampore adjoining, had thirteen deaths between 6th and 18th April.
Above the Vindhya, cholera appeared on 8th April, and
became epidemic in Indore on 11th and 12th.
Dr. Beaumont of Indore writes, dating 8th May :—" Previous to cholera breaking out
among the railway labourers 22 miles from Indore, there was not any evidence of its existence
nearer than Nassick, 300 miles distant. It does not seem to have been imported, as the first
eases were railway labourers, who had not been away from their work. Now the disease is
spreading throughout Malwa."
The Western Malwa Agency registered no death in January, February or March. In
April, 159 deaths occurred in four States :—
Jowrah
.
126 deaths; first death on 18th April,
Shahjapor
.
2 "
"
22nd April.
Rutlam
24
„
25th April.
Mundesor
7
"
"
26th April.
The Malwa Bheel Agency reports 61 deaths, commencing 27th April, in the Dhar State,
near Chiculda, on the Nerbudda; and in four other towns of the Dhar and Jabooa States there
was a simultaneous outbreak on 8th and 9th May, resulting in 84 deaths.
First appearance of cholera in
Bundelkhund.
The Bundelkhund Agency reported eight deaths in one village between 14th and 26th April,
the first of the year ; and 54 from 24th April to 14th May
in eight towns of Bundelkhund.