EPIDEMIC CHOLERA OF INDIA OF 1875 AND 1876.
[Section IV
302
Contrast with this statement the registration of 1872 and 1873 in the preceding epidemic
In this epidemic, as in 1869, natural influences determined that there should be no aerial wal
in the north-west; and, accordingly, the cholera swept the Punjab in the year from Delhi to
the frontier. The material was taken up and removed beyond the frontier as completely as if a
flight of locusts or of birds, had taken their departure from their resting place of the previous
year. In 1873, there was no rise behind an aërial wall, no reappearance of cholera in Lahore,
Sialkot and Gujranwala as a base of departure. As in 1876, the seed sown in the canal
districts west of Delhi, tried abortively to come forward into life. But the whole of the
Punjab failed to register more than 149 deaths in 1873, of which these Delhi districts
gave 112.
Whence came the cholera of the spring of the last week of March 1876, which attacked
our men with such severity in the Bolan Pass on 9th April?
Beyond the Jhelum, only a single cholera death was registered
in the first five months of 1876; throughout Scinde not a case
of cholera was registered in 1876. The practical mind naturally
enquires, if cholera advances by human agency how can we have cholera widely epidemic over
Central Asia, which we know to have come from India, when it is certain that there is no con
-necting link and a vacant gap many hundreds of miles wide between. In a case like this,
no one can assume that a cholera dormant for a long series of years has come to life. New
distribution has taken place, whatever be the theory employed to account for the fact.
My belief is, that this, which was certainly a cholera of re-vitalisation, was distributed
late in 1875. In the very week to which I have so often alluded, and after cholera had died
out almost entirely over Northern India, our indices called upon us to recognise that something
new was happening.
Meean Meer, as I have said, had not a single case of cholera throughout the monsoon
season; but on 20th October cholera appeared, and between the 20th and 24th, 7 cases occurred
in the European regiment. And this is to be noted, that no such occurrence had happened
since Meean Meer was made a cantonment.
I have said that the general population of the Ferozepore district registered only one death
in 1875, and that, notwithstanding this, our cantonment gave 3 admissions in August. On
October 7th, a fourth case showed itself. And then, coincidently with the outbreak at Meean
Meer, cholera appeared in the regiment and battery, and among the native population of the
Cantonment. In the regiment it appeared on 27th October, among the natives on 1st Novem
-ber, and in the battery on 6th November.
After the great epidemic of the monsoon season of 1856, a case occurred illustrating the
same phenomenon of advance beyond the epidemic limit of the year in Northern India, in
the last week of October. In this week a Sikh Regiment, marching from Hazara to Dera
Ismael Khan was attacked; and neither before nor after was cholera reported north of the
Jhelum.
It was probably at this time that movement into Cashmere occurred; and here the cholera
was fostered into life very early in the low-lying tracts, cases
having appeared even in the last days of December. This
cholera lasted throughout 1876 up to October, and the registra
-tion by the native authorities gave 5,580 deaths.
On 15th April, Major Henderson wrote, reporting that cholera was epidemic in the
valley of Cashmere. Up to the 7th, 5 deaths had occurred in Srinagar; and on that day 13
seizures occurred. And beyond the city also cholera was appearing, and 121 deaths had been
reported from outlying districts.
Major Henderson continues: "It appears to be a bad feature in the present outbreak
that the disease has appeared in all parts of the valley almost simultaneously." He adds: "There
has been a good deal of rain all over Cashmere till within the last three or four days."
Afterwards followed the interval preceding the monsoon burst. Dr. Bellew writes: "In
Srinagar it raged till May, when it gradually declined, and it seems to have remained quies
- c e n t d u r i n g J u n e . I n J u l y i t b u r s t o u t f r e s h , a n d c o n t i n u e d w i t h u n a b a t e d d e a d l i n e s s u p t o
the middle of October."
With the monsoon revitalisation, extension occurred. Dr. Cunningham, of the 15th
Sikhs, deputed to Jummoo to assist during the cholera, writes: "The first decided case of
cholera occurred on 4th August, and the epidemic reached its maximum about the middle of the
month. Previous to this outbreak there was no cholera in the surrounding villages, or on the
route between Srinagar and Jummoo. In Jummoo 600 people were attacked. On 23rd
August, with a change of wind from east to west, and a change in the atmosphere quite
appreciable even at Sialkot, a sudden and great diminution of this cholera of Jummoo took
place."
This movement subsequent to 20th October resulting in re-vitalisation in the first week of
April in the year following, I take to be the homologue of the
phenomena attending the movement of cholera from the east
upon Western India between 20th October and 10th November
studied in the previous chapters, which is revitalised before the
middle of April. In this light, I reckon that the cholera of Candahar of 9th April, and of
Cashmere of 7th April, was the homological equivalent of the cholera of the same day of 1875,
amongst the railway labourers at Indore, a true re-vitalisation of a cholera distributed months
before.
Cholera of the Bolan Pass of 9th
April 1876. Probably an invading
cholera of November 1875.
Parallel of the Cashmere cholera
of April 1876, invading in the end of
1875.
The significance of the April cho
-lera of the frontier of 1876, illustrat
- e d b y t h e e p i d e m i c p h e n o m e n a o f
April 1875.