78
towards making the people carry out the instructions issued. He had to be reminded of his duty to
visit infected houses and to set a good example to the Adigaris.
The Dresser at the spot, Ramaswami Naidoo, is an Eastern Coast man, unacquainted with the
people of the district. The people don't understand him, and he very foolishly, though perhaps
naturally enough, supposes that every Moplah with a pisankhutti in his waist would kill him if he
only had a chance. He has not been so useful as your Dresser was at Quilandy.
The disease has nowhere else become local ; sporadic cases have occurred in many amsboms.
The three other Dressers are stationed at present—one at Mowral at bridge, on the coast road,
examining travellers and treating cases in that neighbourhood ; one at Badagerra ; and the third at
Kiyur, near Payally, where the cattle fair is being held. In fact, they, as it were, form a circle round
Maniyur ready to go to any place where the disease shows a tendency to become local. I am thoroughly
persuaded the disease can be stamped out in a place in a short time by vigorous action on the part of
the Sub-Magistrates and Adigaris ; the mere visiting of the infected houses gives the people courage.
When at Payally Dr. McAllum and myself visited Kiyur, and drew up certain rules for the
guidance of the Quilandy Sub-Magistrate, whom I have ordered to remain at that place till the cattle
fair is over. Notices have been posted at all the bridges and ferries in my division and other places
warning people who intend going to the fair that cholera prevails in the neighbourhood.
The disease has disappeared from Kollam where it first broke out, as reported in my last letter,
and this, I think, is in no small degree due to the sanitary measures taken.
Importance of human
intercourse in the dis-
tribution of cholera not
sufficiently estimated
in present day.
CHOLERA IN THE GODAVERY AND KISTNA DISTRICTS.
85. It seems to be the fashion now-a-day, in treating of the mode of progres-
sion of cholera, to attach a primary importance to the moist air
of monsoon winds as a carrier of the germs of the disease, and
to under-estimate the importance of human intercourse in its
diffusion. Such at least appear to be the guiding principles
of the sanitary advisers of the Government of India, and, as these views do not
seem to me to be warranted by the facts coming under my own observation, I feel
bound to request that the circumstances to be narrated in connexion with the
appearance of cholera in the Northern Districts of this Presidency may be care-
fully weighed, as they do not seem to me to be explicable on any aerial theory of
invasion.
Physical features
of the Godavery and
Kistna Districts.
86. The Godavery and Kistna Districts of the Madras Presidency occupy a
tract on the sea-board of the Coramandel Coast from 15·45° to
17·45° N. L. These districts, from thirty to forty miles inland,
are composed of flat, sandy, alluvial plains, and the whole sea-
board is irrigated by canals taken off from the "anicuts" at Dowlaishweram
on the Godavery, and Bezwada or the Kistna rivers. The western portion of
the districts is hilly and jungly, and include the Golcondah chain of hills, which
constitute the so called Eastern " Ghauts," and these hills divide the districts
from the table-lands of the Deccan and Jeypoor.
Cholera history in
1859 and 1865.
87. The cholera history of this tract in the invasion of 1859 shows that the
wave of cholera overflowing the Deccan in that year, over-
stepped the Eastern Ghauts, and extended down to the sea-
board, affecting the Godavery and Kistna Districts. In the next year of invasion,
1865, the same thing happened. Cholera prevailed in all of the stations of
both districts, of which records have been kept, except Masulipatam on the coast.
Exemption of the
districts in the inva-
sion of 1868-69.
In the cholera invasion of 1868, which reached Hyderabad in November
1868, during the north-east monsoon winds, it is an undoubted
fact that cholera was not pushed on in an easterly direction,
so as to overlap the Godavery and Kistna Districts. Theorists