80
the Kistna, and yet the latter district had ten times as much cholera as
the Vizagapatam District to the north, over which the monsoon winds from
the Grodavery tract would naturally flow. The affection of the Grodavery
District appears indeed to be wholly inexplicable on any theory of aerial trans-
mission of the poison. At the very time cholera was extending in this district
both to the north and south, it was travelling on through Tinnevelly to the south,
against the current of wind, towards Ceylon, and having got to the extreme south
of the Peninsula, cholera not only passed over to Ceylon, but also turned round
by Cape Comorin and pursued a northerly direction along the strip of country
containing the Native States of Travancore and Cochin, but up to the end of the
year it had not extended in force so far north as Cannanore. So far as we can
judge, cholera was not beaten back by the south-west, nor was it hurried onward by
the north-east, monsoons. From the time of the irruption of the epidemic wave
in Lower Bengal in February and March 1868, it took exactly two years to reach
the southernmost district of Madras territory (Tinnevelly), and in this southern
progress it was neither advanced nor retarded by monsoon winds, though
undoubtedly monsoon moisture favoured its spread in the localities invaded.
Investigation of facts
by the Sub-Collector
& Police Superintend-
ent of the District.
For the main facts of the beginning of the Godavery outbreak I am indebted
to two gentlemen who pursued their inquiries independently
of each other—the Sub-Collector of the District, and the
Superintendent of Police. Their reports differ in minor parti-
culars only, and are perhaps the more valuable because of those minor differences.
First case of cholera
at Woongatla in Erna-
gudium Talook on 28th
March.
90. The history of the first fatal case then is briefly this :—A man was seized
with cholera in the village of Woongatla on the 28th March
while at field labour, and died in twelve hours. On the same
date, according to the Sub-Collector, two children in the village
were seized, both of whom recovered. (The Superintendent of Police, whose
investigations were confined to fatal cases, does not allude to this circumstance.)
Neither the man who died, nor the children who recovered, had left the
village, " nor had any strangers passed through." On these points both investi-
gators are agreed.
Return of pilgrims
from a cholera-stricken
locality four days pre-
vious to outbreak.
91. But on the 24th March, four days prior to the outbreak of cholera, an
unusual circumstance in the monotonous routine of Indian
village life had happened in Woongatla. Two families belong-
ing to the village had made a pilgrimage to the celebrated
shrine of Tripatti in the North Arcot District. The exact date
of their departure from Woongatla is not recorded, but it is certain that they
returned to their homes on the 24th March 1870. They must have been exposed
to choleraic influences both at the pilgrim's shrine and on the route home, a long-
and tedious land journey, vi<w> Nellore and Ellore. They passed through the
Cholera amongst the
pilgrims' families be-
fore reaching home.
town of Nellore on the 9th March at a time when cholera
was rife in the town. On arrival at Ellore on the 20th March
two children (according to the Sub-Collector, and one accord-
ing to the Superintendent of Police) were seized with cholera, or " choleraic
symptoms." The children, or child, recovered before the pilgrims reached Woon-
gatla.
Here then is the fact that persons exposed to cholera influences in their
homeward journey reach their village, and four days afterwards cholera is
produced in that identical village, and in none else. The advocates of the aerial