48
REPLIES TO QUERIES ON THE TREATMENT OF EPIDEMIC CHOLERA. [Appendix
Query No. 12,—continued.
Among the prisoners in jail, there have been 44 admissions from cholera, 24 of which
were fatal. The cases occurred in four jails only out of 12, viz., at Umritsur, Dhurmsalla,
Goojranwalla, and in the female jail at Lahore.
Taking into consideration the general features of the disease of 1867, as it occurred in the
Punjab, and also of individual instances, of which an indefinite number might be adduced, it
appears impossible to arrive at any other conclusion regarding cholera than that it is a conta-
gious and infectious disease.
Norgate, Captain, Cantonment Magistrate, Sealkote.—Whatever may have been the course
of the disease in other years, in this year (1867), its track was easily discoverable; wherever it
occurred it was traced either to some pilgrims having stayed at the villages, or to some one who
had come from an infected village. Nowhere did it seem to appear sooner than a human being
could move from one place to another.
O'Donel, F. H., Surgeon, Ben. I.—Cholera first broke out in a village close to the regi-
mental hospital. Green wood fires were burnt between the village and hospital ; a guard was
stationed to prevent communication, and the men were directed to remain in their lines. No
person was attacked with that dire disease within the cantonments.
Peterkin, J., Surgeon Major, Mad. I.—When I first went to Cuddapah, the disease appeared
to have an almost endemic character there. The people of the town, or inmates of the jail,
seemed never entirely free from attacks. During my residence there of seven years, great
attention was paid to the introduction of improved sanitary measures generally, apparently with
the best results ; especially it was considered advisable to prevent pilgrims from Iriputty and
Kurnool from entering the town, as they always seemed to bring with them some cases of
cholera, and to leave the seed of it behind. Preventing these pilgrims from entering the town
greatly lessened the attacks, and during the last two years of my residence, attacks by cholera
were rare, and hardly even to be heard of, either in the town or jail. The clothes of the pri-
soners were always taken from them on incarceration.
Rajkissen Mookerjee, Sub-Assistant Surgeon, Ben. I,—No indigenous case arose except from
contact with a pilgrim.
Tulloch, J., Surgeon, Ben. B.—I would observe that a considerable number of the medical
profession, and a large proportion of those out of it, still hold to the opinion that cholera is not
contagious, infectious, or in any way communicable from one person to another, or of being-
conveyed by means of clothing, &c. I may be allowed here to relate one or two of the
circumstances which led me to believe in the commuuicability of the disease. In 1857, the year
of the mutiny, I was stationed with a detachment of my regiment, the 10th Foot, at Benares.
We arrived there 011 the 29th May. On 4th June, the mutiny occurred there ; and after this
the troops and inhabitants were confined to such limited space and accommodation as could be
best defended by a small body of troops. A small staff barrack was set apart as a hospital,
and it soon became crowded from various sources.
Towards the end of June (I cannot now give precise dates), a man of the detachment
was seized with cholera, and was brought into the hospital verandah ; further isolation was,
under the circumstances, impossible. Two of the patients nearest to the cholera patient were
seized with cholera and died. This of itself made no great impression at the time ; but after
six weeks, there being no cholera in the station during that time, when men were being hurried
up the country by bullock train, some of them happened to be attacked with the disease when
near Benares, and were sent into our small hospital, and again the disease broke out among the
patients in hospital. These facts were noted as remarkable, but were attributed to local
causes.
In course of time greater security was felt at the station, and other buildings were occu-
pied. A large airy bungalow was given over as another hospital, so as to relieve the small
barrack of all but the sick of our own detachment. Into this new hospital, where no cholera
patient had ever been, men passing up country affected with the disease were received, and here
also it spread among the patients in hospital. These accumulated facts afforded to my mind
convincing evidence that the disease is communicable.
I will now refer briefly to an outbreak of cholera on board ship at sea 24 days after
leaving port, which I conceive to be illustrative of the opinion that cholera poison may be
conveyed otherwise than by personal communication. On 21st May 1859, I embarked at
Calcutta on the ship Gertrude in medical charge of a party of wounded and other invalid
soldiers for England. Cholera was then universally prevalent in Calcutta, and in several troop
ships that had sailed earlier in the season the disease broke out when they were in the river—
a circumstance which caused serious apprehension for our safety at this advanced season, and, I
may add, led to our using every available sanitary precaution. Having reached the equator
without any signs of cholera, we congratulated ourselves on what we believed to be our escape.
But it was not so : for, on the 15th of June, when in the 4th degree of south latitude, and 24·
days from all communication with the shore, hundreds of miles from land, the weather hot and
steamy, but not unusual for that latitude, a soldier, invalided for ophthalmia (then convalescent
from dysentery contracted on board), was seized in the morning and died next day. On the
same morning, the chief officer of the ship, perhaps the strongest aud healthiest man on
board, was seized and died in 3½ hours. In the afternoon, a soldier's child, a boy 6 years of