18
February 1859, and evidently belonged to a reproduced cholera of the 1857 inva-
sion. The Military returns show two admissions, but no death, in November 1859.
Tinnevelly District.—" No epidemic prevailed during the year."
These brief statements have been verified by reference to the Dispensary
Returns of sick treated, which show an absence of cholera generally in the south-
ern districts.
Coimbatore and Salem.
The districts of Coimbatore and Salem were not, I think, invaded by the new
cholera 01 1859. There were thirteen cases treated at each
of the Civil Dispensaries at Salem and Coimbatore during the
year, but these occurred in the early months, and belonged, I infer, to the former
epidemic.
15. Such is a brief outline of the course of the cholera invasion of the Bom-
bay and Madras Presidencies in 1859. The Army and Jail Returns for the Madras
Presidency will illustrate still further the movement, and they will be found in
another place. For the general outline I have in preference chosen the returns
of the Civil Dispensaries as giving a more faithful picture of the condition of the
population generally. To conclude then this brief summary of the 1859 inva-
sion, we have found cholera pushing on from the Bombay territory, overlapping
the whole of the Deccan, some portions of the Mysore Plateau, and Eastern Coast
above the 14th degree of N. Latitude, and occupying the whole of the country
below the ghauts on the Western Coast of India, from Kurrachee to Travancore.
The "Western Ghauts did, on this occasion, cut off the cholera almost completely
from the districts to the-eastward. From some miles to the north of Madras to
Cape Comorin,the Eastern Coast districts presented an "exempted tract" in 1859.
I have attempted to depict the cholera invasion of this year in a map. For
the south-eastern extension of cholera towards Burmah, I refer the reader to the
tables showing the cholera mortality in the Madras troops serving in that
Province. It remains now to ascertain what happened to the exempted tract in
1860, and to the districts invaded in 1859, and under what circumstances the
epidemic was, or was not, reproduced.
THE CHOLERA OF 1860.
Reproduction
of
cholera in Central
Provinces in 1860.
16. The year 1860 has been spoken of as a year of invasion, in force, of
the Central Provinces and of "Western India. It is true that
during the early months of this year cholera manifested itself
in tremendous force in the Central Provinces, but it would
seem, from the most recent evidence, that the invasion actually occurred during
the former year 1859, when the western shores of India and the Deccan were
attacked in so marked a manner, and that the cholera of 1860 in the Central
Provinces was a reproduction of the invading cholera of the former year. Dr.
Bryden shows cholera to have attacked the Jail at Hooshungabad in May
1860, but the truth is that cholera appeared in that town, and was prevalent
in the Nerbudda valley, early in February, and probably even before that. Dr.
Webster, of the 1st Madras Native Infantry, then stationed at Hooshungabad,
thus records the facts:—" Cholera appeared in the station about the beginning of
February. There was a large fair at the time in the station, the people form-
ing the fair had come from a place where the cholera was, and there can be
little doubt that they brought it with them. It raged violently in the city
during the month of February, and notwithstanding every precaution was taken