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maps attached to the diary and the position of each place where cholera appeared as well as of other
places to which reference is made in the diary being shown by certain marks.*
5. I communicated also on the several points of this inquiry with the medical practitioners
employed by Government on this line of road.
6. It appears that the first cases of cholera, on the Central and Mannar Matakachchee roads,
all occurred on the same day, the 3rd of June last, in three individuals, namely, two immigrants
and one patrol. It seems that a party of four coolies coming from Pudoocotta, on the coast of
India, took shelter in the cooly shed at Periacatto, on the Mannar Matakachchee road, twenty-nine
miles from Mannar, on the day referred to, on which day the patrol of the shed was attacked with
cholera in the morning, as also one of the four coolies, a woman who had come from Pudoocotta,
named Camachy, who was discovered having cholera symptoms on her while cooking her breakfast, and
who died at 5 P.M. of the same day. The patrol, Periatamby, also died about the same time.
7. Before the arrival of the coolies no cholera had existed in the place since the beginning of
the year, and the only conclusion to be drawn is that they had communicated the infection, a conclu-
sion which is strengthened by the following fact.
8. The first case on the central road occurred on the same day and in the same month, the 3rd
of June, at Marudenheedaveli, 136 miles from Jaffna, in the person of a female immigrant who was
one of a gang of in-coming coolies. This leads me to believe that these immigrants, as well as those
referred to in the preceding paragraph, had all come from one and the same infected locality, one
party being in advance of the other.
9. Cholera next appeared at Teempanne, 128½ miles from Jaffna (intermediate between the two
last stations), on the 4th of June. The patient in this case also was an in-coming immigrant, a mason,
and a native of the same place in India, Pudoocotta. It would thus seem decisive that the
disease was imported in all the foregoing cases from the locality above-mentioned, namely, Pudoo-
cotta.†
10. On the 7th June an in-coming cooly from Salaputty, near Trichinopoly, and another
belonging to the same gang were attacked with cholera at Allagamowa, 146 miles from Jaffna, but
they both recovered, and were able to proceed to Kandy on the 11th of the month. The appearance
of cholera at this station led to the infection being communicated, first, to the patrol who attended on
the sick coolies, and next to a little girl who lived in the patrol's house, and then to his wife. In
all these three cases the disease proved fatal.
11. The next appearance of cholera was at Matakachchee, 106½ miles from Jaffna, a principal
station where the in-coming and out-going coolies meet. The first case here was that of a Moorish
girl, who lived in the bazaar and who had sold certain articles the night preceding to immigrant
coolies who had then arrived. She was attacked on the 11th June and died on the same day.
Another case occurred on the 13th in the bazaar at the station, that of a dhoby who was living near
the bazaar where the first fatal case appeared. A third fatal case occurred on the 13th in a road
cooly, who also lived in the bazaar.
12. The bazaar people and the immigrants who halt at Matakachchee, resort to a stream which
issues from the tank in the place, and which runs close to the road, for the purposes of bathing,
washing their clothes, and for providing themselves with water for drinking and cooking. It is,
therefore, most probable that the contagious poison was communicated, in these instances, either by
the water so indiscriminately used, or by intercourse with the coolies.
13. Another instance of infection appeared, on the 13th June, in a party of three Telegraph
coolies. They were employed for some time on the central road where cholera had broken out since
the 3rd instant, lodging in the bungalows occupied by the coolies. They had been in perfect health,
till two of them were attacked with the disease when returning to Mannar, at a place called Cally-
cattocaddo, which is about eight miles distant from that station.
14. One died, and the other recovered.
15. On the 14th of June a case occurred at Osylancolom, 8½ miles from Mannar, in the person
of a woman named Cavenpay, an out-going cooly, who died in the night. She was accompanied by
about six coolies, who had been travelling through the infected cooly stations.
* These maps are not printed.
† I have no information as to the progress of Cholera in the Independent State of Pudoocottah, but as the
Trichinopoly, Madura, and Tanjore Districts surrounding it suffered from the invasion, I infer that Pudoocottah
suffered too—(W. R. C.)