no
Immunity of the
Central Jail.
Central Jail on higher ground, built on clean surface soil, and
obtaining its water from wells sunk 40 or 50 feet in the rock,
which water gave evidence of much purity as regards changeable organic matter,
was unaffected by the cholera wave.
Water-supply.
126, And in regard to the connexion between water-supply and cholera, I
may state here that no fact has come to my notice during these
inquiries, which would indicate that cholera can spread
amongst a people who consume a water practically free of organic particles in a
state of decay. In all the instances of outbreaks I have investigated, there have
been good grounds for believing that the water-supply was far from pure. This
was the case in Fort Saint George, Perambore, Madura, Salem, and Coimbatore.
Where the water-supply has been practically pure, I have not found that cholera
affected the people using such water, although the disease may have been
epidemic in the locality. •
In making these observations I do not wish to commit myself to any theory
as to water being the only, or the most general, medium of cholera communica-
tion. So far as I can judge, impure water is but one of the channels by which
cholera may be ramified, though it is, no doubt, an important one.
THE NEILGHERRY HILLS.
Inquiry as to the fact
of the Neilgherry Hills
being exempted from
cholera invasions.
127. In all the years since our occupation of the elevated
plateau of the highest portion of the Western Ghauts, there is
no record of a cholera wave affecting the resident population.
128. The hill tribes hold but little intercourse with the low country, but the
European settlements have attracted a numerous semi-resident population of
pariahs, and other classes from the plains, and a considerable traffic goes on
between the Coimbatore District and the Neilgherries on one side, and the Mysore
country on the other. The approaches to the hill stations by both roads are
practicable for wheeled conveyances. With such an amount of traffic as there
is between the hill stations and the low country, it may reasonably be thought
that cholera would find its way occasionally to the cool and temperate region of
the mountain plateau, and practically this is the case. As a portion of the general
inquiry regarding cholera, I have thought it right to examine the records in the
office of the Inspector-General, Indian Medical Department, from the epidemic
invasion of Southern India in 1859, down to the present time, to see upon what
basis of fact the often repeated assertion rests, that cholera is unknown on the
Neilgherries. The facts, I believe, are of the same order as those noticed in
regard to the Shervaroy Hills. The disease has been often imported by
travellers, but there is nothing in the accumulated evidence to lead us to imagine
that cholera has sprung up from an aerially conveyed " germ." The sanitary
condition of the native bazaars at the hill stations has been, and still is, far from
satisfactory, and the wonder is that cholera has not, on many occasions of impor-
tation, taken firm root in them. Practically it has not done so, except for a
very limited period during the year 1866. In a matter of this kind, I shall
appeal only to recorded testimony of the Medical Officers who have served tours
of duty on the hills,
Particulars of cholera
pases, seen on the hills.
129. Dr. Gr. Mackay in his paper on the " Climate of the Neilgherry Hills"
(Madras Medical Journal, volume III., p. 13) summarizes his
four years' experience of Ootacamund (1856-60) as follows :—
" A severe form of diarrhoea, which often proves fatal, is not uncommon among