17
organic matter, was nob satisfactory. The muddy deposits, in fact, at the bottom
of the wells, were every day shaken up, when water was drawn.
75. I entertain a strong opinion that if the Hussar Regiment had received
its water-supply solely from the old well within the Secunderabad barracks, this
remarkable outbreak would never have occurred. Still, as I have said before, the
evidence in regard to the actual pollution of the water-supply is not sufficient to
convince those who decline to accept the view that water is the most common
medium by which cholera is communicated from man to man. To me it is a very
suggestive fact that a small body of men drinking water from a public well should
be suddenly seized with a most violent form of cholera poisoning, while much
larger bodies of men at Trimulgherry and in the cantonment generally, drinking
from wells not accessible to the public, should have escaped. Supposing the public
well to have been directly contaminated by accidental circumstances with cholera
matter, it is quite possible that the Regimental supply was drawn soon after
contamination, and the men may have thus got the poison in a concentrated form.
It is worthy of note, in connection with this view of the question, that cholera
appeared almost simultaneously in the Regimental Hospital, in the Barracks and
ranges of family quarters. The family quarters stand high, and are well above
the Barracks, but their drinking water, and that used in the Hospital was brought
from the same source. The Regimental Apothecary and his family, residing
close to the Hospital, drank the water from the old “condemned" well in the
Barracks, and they had no symptoms of
cholera.
No
difference
in
food
or
drink
of
the
Hussar
and
other
Corps
except
76. Beyond the water-supply, the conditions of existence
of the Hussars did not differ from those of other European
troops in the commmand. The food drink, canteen supplies,
&c., were of precisely the same nature.
77. If the atmosphere had been generally infected with the germs of the
disease, these would naturally have been deposited at Trimulgherry and other parts
of the cantonment, quite as readily as in the Hussar Barracks and native bazaar ;
but, as a matter of fact, we know that cholera was brought along the eastern coast
road into the native bazaar, and to a village close to the Hussar Barracks, and
that it was in these localities only that the disease assumed epidemic proportions.
The outbreak in the Hussars, however, was out of all proportion more severe
than anything that occurred in the bazaar.
78. It is, I think, very significant of the character of the cholera outbreak,
Character
of
outbreck
suggestive
of
infection
at
one
time
and
from
some
comman
cause.
in relation to the simultaneous poisoning of the whole Corps,
that the largest number of cases should have occurred within
the first twenty-four hours, and that the virulence of the out-
burst should have declined after the third day. This is just
what might have been expected to occur when a number of persons had been
exposed to the cholera influence for a limited period only. They would not all
fall sick precisely at the same instant, but at varying intervals of time, according
to their individual constitutional powers of resisting the causes of disease. That
a few persons were secondarily affected in the camp is, I think, but too probable,
and it may be that this was especially the case as regards the residents of the
married quarters, who had shown but slight evidence of cholera poisoning before
their removal to camp.
79. That the stress of the disease, however, fell upon those who were
Disease most severe
in
those
who
were
first
attacked.
attacked
within the first two days is evident from the fact
that of fifty-four admissions thirty- two died, or in the ratio of