SECTION IV.
THE CHOLERA HISTORY OF 1875 AND 1876, ILLUSTRATING HOW THE AREA OF
HINDOSTAN WHEN UNOCCUPIED IS RE-INVADED BY EPIDEMIC CHOLERA.
CHAPTER I.
THE DYING OUT OF CHOLERA OVER HINDOSTAN IN 1873 AND 1874, AND THE MINIMUM REACHED.
The history of cholera in India is written naturally in the record of individual epidemics,
which come on in succession at intervals of years. The cholera
of one epidemic is not the cholera of the epidemic which suc
-ceeds. This is the conclusion to which every careful observer
in India has arrived; and in the case of every appearance of
cholera beyond the boundaries of Hindostan, it is essential that the local recorder should recog
-nise each successive epidemic as it shows itself in India as a possible origin of the mani-
festation. All statements which tell of cholera beyond India being prolonged for an indefinite
number of years must be weighed with reference to the results of observation in India continued.
year by year; for no foreign observer is in a position, from his personal experience alone or
from local tradition, to form a just estimate of the epidemic. relations of a cholera which has
sprung up around him. Individual opinions formed from inadequate data cannot be entertained
when antagonistic to a universally accepted generalisation based on the widest knowledge of
facts; and no one would venture to say that the laws regulating successive manifestations of
cholera have been more carefully studied and appreciated in the semi-barbarous countries to
which these remarks chiefly refer, than. by the large staff of highly educated officers who in
this country are ever on the watch for the first traces of a threatened epidemic. The succession
of epidemics in India is not caused by the local re-development of a dormant cholera, revived by
the recurrence of physical conditions favourable to life and growth. The re-appearance of
cholera after several successive seasons of decay or disappearance implies in Northern and
Western and Southern India, the movement of a new body of cholera, out of Eastern Bengal, pro-
gressing on aërial highways, and occupying, in obedience to definite laws, the geographical areas
into which the great continent of India is subdivided by natural characteristics. Secondary
manifestations, subsequent to the occupation of natural areas, follow also known parallels, and
are controlled by the influences proper to the area within which the cholera of invasion finds
itself.
The rapid recurrence of epidemics is one of the characteristics of the cholera of our
times.
The succession of epidemics is in
India a recognised fact. The fact
should be recognised in countries in
- v a d e d f r o m I n d i a .
Geography of the successive epi
-demics of the past eleven years, and
its significance in each case.
In the past eleven years five new epidemics have moved on.
Northern India, namely, the cholera of 1864-65, 1866-67,
1868-69. 1872 and 1875.
Every one of these epidemics has had some distinguishing geographical feature. The first,
which desolated the Central Provinces and Western India, was in Northern India a shadow
merely. The second, abandoning the route leading to the Central Provinces and Western.
India, was diverted entirely into Northern India, leaving the area occupied by the epidemic of
1864-65 untouched. The third, pursuing both routes, occupied Central, Western, and Northern.
India, from the mountains to the Indian Ocean. The epidemic of 1872 covered Northern
India and a great part of Western India, and left the eastern districts of the Central
Provinces untouched. All of this has been mapped out definitely and clearly. The facts of
distribution are absolute, and cannot be set aside. The legitimate deduction seems to be, that the
materies of any epidemic is at the disposal of natural meteorological agencies which cause it to
play the part which it does in relation to space. Assuming the presence of a body of cholera
in the East, we cannot predict its future course. It may occupy the southern epidemic highway
alone; it may show itself solely on the northern epidemic highway; or both may be occupied at
the same or different dates, during the progress of epidemic invasion. The phenomena of
a d v a n c e t h e s e d i f f e r e n t r o u t e s h a v e L e e n c a r e f u l l y s t u d i e d i n m y p r e v i o u s r e p o r t s .
The year 1873 passed over without any indication of renewed invasion; and throughout
the year the invading cholera of 1872 was rapidly going to
decay. A large proportion of the material of the epidemic of
1872 had. also been removed out of the area of Hindostan, as we
know by the circumstance that the cholera of that year prevailed simultaneously over Northern.
India and in distant provinces of Central Asia.
In August 1873, replying to an enquiry from the Government of India as to the chance of
our cantonments in Upper India becoming affected by cholera before the close of the year,
I made the following remarks:—
" The experience of 1868 and 1870 suggests that cholera will not prevail epidemically in
Northern India in 1873. The grounds for this anticipation are these. In each of the two
preceding epidemics cholera broke out beyond the frontier of Hindostan, in Caubul and the
Caspian Provinces, simultaneously with its epidemic appearance in Northern India. The practi
-cal inference we drew from the fact at the time was, that the main body of the cholera had.
passed over India on its onward course, and that, therefore, localisation and revitalisation in
force (or epidemic vigour) was not to be looked for in the year succeeding; a contingency
Decay of cholera throughout 1873
and 1874.
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