51
others, and halted for three days at Trichinopoly at a time when cholera
was rife in the town. The party then proceeded by marches to Madura
en route to Palamcottah. Cholera was present at Madura also when they passed
through. At Satur, the chief town of one of the northern talooks of Tinnevelly,
this gentleman was taken ill with diarrhoea, and remained behind, while the friends
travelled on to Palamcottah. On the 14th February he felt himself well enough to
proceed on his journey, and arrived at Palamcottah on the 15th. Here he par-
took of a hearty breakfast of indigestible food, which appears to have brought on
a relapse, for at 2 P.M. the same day he was seized with violent vomiting and
purging and died within twelve hours of the second seizure, in the Palamcottah
Hospital, on the early morning of the 16th February.
According to the Civil Surgeon, the clothes used by the deceased in his last
illness were destroyed by fire, but previous to his fatal seizure he had given out
to a washerman the linen he had used at Satur, and on the journey from Satur
to Palamcottah.
Extension of cholera
to the dhobies' village
•where the linen of the
first case was washed.
71. The next cases of cholera, coming specially to the notice of the authorities,
occurred in the hamlet of Subramoniapoorum, close by the town
of Palamcottah, a place inhabited by dhobies (washermen).
It was to this village that the linen of the deceased Engineer had
been taken to be washed. The Tahsildar, however, states that " a child about ten
years of age, living in the vicinity of the hospital, died of cholera the day following
the death of the Engineer," but no record of this death is to be found. The third
person who died was a dhoby living at Subramoniapoorum in a hut opposite to
the hut of the Engineer's dhoby. This death occurred on the 5th March, or
sixteen days after the supposed infected linen had been taken away by the dhoby.
Early history of cho-
lera in Tinnevelly ob-
scure.
The early history of this cholera outbreak in the town of Palamcottah
is obscure, and the evidence somewhat conflicting. Dr.
Thompson, the Civil Surgeon, only heard of the existence of
cholera in the dhobies' village on the 18th March, when it
First case in Tinne-
velly town on 18th
March.
was too late to trace satisfactorily the connexion (if any) between the dirty-
linen used by a cholera patient and the individual cases of
cholera subsequently occurring. The disease appeared for
the first time in the town of Tinnevelly four miles distant from
Palamcottab on the 18th March.
Communication
traced between the
dhobies.
The Tahsildar says that cholera spread itself "unnoticed about the dhobies
huts" from the 5th to the 18th March, and he states, as the
result of his inquiries, that the dhoby of the man who was the
first to die in the town, was related to the dhobies at Subramoniapoorum, and
that they lived in the same neighbourhood.
Cholera deaths in dho-
bies' village.
March
April
May
...
...
...
5
6
2
June
July
...
...
3
2
Up to the date of Dr. Thompson's inspection of the dhobies' village on the
18th March, it is certain that five persons had already died of cholera, and two
were lying ill at the time of his visit. The Civil Surgeon declares he fully satisfied
himself that the clothes of the deceased Engineer were taken to the dhobies'
village, and washed by the dhobies. But there is no evidence, apparently,
connecting the cholera with the particular dhoby who washed the clothes, and
probably the time had gone by for the attainment of more precise evidence when
Dr. Thompson commenced to make his inquiries.
This washerman's village appears to have suffered
considerably from cholera. The deaths are as noted in the
margin.