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during the feast. 33,000 persons attended the festival. The dispersion of pilgrims
from this site, and from Tripatty, was followed by a wide development of cholera
over the North Arcot, Madras, Salem, and South Arcot Districts; sanitary
measures carefully supervised at Conjeeveram ; water-supply during the feast
scanty and of doubtful quality. The temple tanks are used for washing and
bathing, and the people drink freely of the same water.
Tanjore—Nagore.—August. Slight cholera in the district. No outbreak
during Mussulman festival.
Upper Godavery—Budrachellum.—April. No cholera (none at the time in the
district, except in a village where it had been introduced).
Tinnevelly—Adi Tirunal.—No cholera.
Madura—Mattcaalunnen.—No disease.
North Arcot—Tripathy.—September and October. Two cases of cholera only
noted at this festival. The invading wave had passed to the southward. Sani-
tary precautions taken, as regards Lower Trippatty.
Trichinopoly—Sreerungum.—Cholera appeared in the district in November ;
feast began in December. About 20,000 persons attended ; the public being
warned of the danger of cholera outbreak. Sanitary precautions taken. Medi-
cal aid provided. About 100 cases of choleraic diarrhoea were seen by medical
attendant, and five of cholera. Cholera present in the town and cantonment of
Trichinopoly before the feast began. A party of pilgrims from Hyderabad, about
100 in number, in returning home, took it with them to the Kurnool District, and
several villagers (eighteen) who had been in contact with the pilgrims died. The
disease was confined to a few villages where the pilgrims had halted. These
pilgrims travelled from Trichinopoly to Ghooty by rail, and cholera appeared
amongst them only after they had left the Railway. *
204. I am afraid that the list of places, where sanitary measures were
adopted to avert or arrest cholera, is incomplete ; but I have incorporated here
all the places of which I have received reports. These reports I think sufficiently
indicate the fact that, in districts where cholera is in activity, either by invasion
or reproduction, the assemblage of pilgrims is usually attended with great risk ;
but that, in districts free of cholera, as were Bellary and Kurnool in 1870, the
assemblage of pilgrims does no harm whatever. The practical lesson to be learnt
in regard to this question is that, in the seasons of new invasion, or reproduction
of cholera, every effort should be made either to forbid such assemblies, or to
dissuade the people from attending them.
205. That the pilgrim sites are very important secondary foci of cholera, must,
I think, be unquestioned by anybody who will take the trouble to make himself
familiar with the past history of such places, or to read even the facts in con-
nexion with the Tripatty and Conjeeveram outbreaks in the present year.
206. With all deference to those who have argued on the simplicity of
abolishing cholera at these festivals, I think too much has been made of the
introduction of necessary (though at present inadequate) sanitary precau-
tions to prevent outbreaks of cholera.+ The present system of conservancy
* I have lately been informed that the deaths amongst the Hyderabad pilgrims were supposed by the local
authorities of Hyderabad to be due to intentional poisoning, but this theory would not account for the deaths of
villagers in the Kurnool District, in places where these people had halted.—(W. R. O.)
t " The Madras Commission has had the greater honour of showing, by a number of years' experience, that
pilgrims can bo preserved from cholera by easily executed and inexpensive sanitary measures."—(Army Sanitary
Commission, 5th August 1870.)