08
Here we see that cholera, after a disappearance of eight months, suddenly
lights up again in May coincidently with the dispersion of persons from an
affected pilgrim site. Cuddapah having suffered from a slight invasion of cholera
in 1869 was this year comparatively free. The district moreover was largely
suffering from the presence of malaria, and I believe it to be a fact that cholera
influences cannot lay hold of a locality that is at the time under some other
morbific influence, such as fever or small-pox.
Communication be-
tween Tripatty and
Conjeeveram.
111. The great stream of human intercourse during the first ten days of May
was from Tripatty to Conjeeveram, and places to the south-
ward, and we shall see that Conjeeveram, distant about sixty-
five miles from Tripatty, and reached by railway in a few
hours, was not long behind Tripatty in giving evidence of cholera.
Outbreak in Conjee-
veram during the great
festival.
Particulars
of early cases.
The first case in Conjeeveram occurred on the 6th of May, five days before
the feast commenced, but not before the pilgrims had begun
to arrive at the town. Mr. Chadwick, the Medical Officer of
the station, thus describes the advent of cholera :—
"On the evening of the 8th May 1870, private information reached me of the existence of
cholera in a suburban hamlet, a mile distant from the town on the south-east. Almost immediately with
this information came a letter from the Town Sub-Magistrate, apprising of the death by cholera of
two persons in this village. Next day I proceeded to the village and inspected the dwelling where
the cases occurred. The information I elicited on the spot was as follows :—
" On the morning of Friday the 6th of May, a man of the Gentoo Pollicar caste, aged about forty
years, was attacked and died about 2 o'clock the same afternoon. His son, aged four years, was
attacked between 11 and 12 o'clock the same day and succumbed within an hour after the death of
the father. Neither parent nor child had gone out of the village anywhere. There was no cholera
about the surrounding villages, no fresh arrival of any person ; in short, nothing that could afford the
impression of the importation of the disease. The village does not lie in the line of traffic, and is
accessible by carts with some little difficulty.
" Almost every villager was questioned by me as to the existence of loose-bowels among them,
and their replies induced me to conclude that these were but sporadic cases."
Mr. Chadwick notes that the village was very dirty, a mass of refuse and
manure, and the hut in which the cholera cases occurred was horribly offensive,
surrounded by cess-pools, seething from the heat of the weather.
The village was vigorously cleansed under Mr. Chadwick's direction, and
not another case of cholera occurred in it.
11th of May, date of
outbreak amongst pil-
grims in the town.
112. On the 11th of May cholera appeared within the town, in the person of
a woman who was a visitor to the feast, from a place called
Siddamburam in the Cuddalore District. She arrived about
a week previous to the above date, in company with a gang
of mendicants, of whom she formed one. On the same day a case of choleraic
diarrhoea presented itself in the person of another visitor to the feast from
Chittoor. On the 13th May a pilgrim from Chittoor died of cholera. This man
had come in company with the preceding case. The festival actually began on
the 12th of May, and from the 11th of May to 1st July cholera continued to
prevail in the town.
Incidence of the out-
break at Conjeeveram.
Mortality trifling.
There were 160 cases coming under the Medical Officer's observation and
forty-nine deaths. Mr. Chadwick in his report speaks highly
of the value of acetic acid in the treatment of cholera. From
the Mortuary Register I observe that fifty-three deaths
occurred in May, thirty-six in June, and three in July, or in