19
to prevent it, appeared in the Regimental Lines in the beginning of March."
About the 20th February in this year the enormous crowd of pilgrims, assembled
at Mahadeo in the Putchamaree Hills, was struck by cholera, and, in their
dispersion, they scattered the disease far and wide. The city of Nagpore was
affected about the 1st March, but the Military Cantonment of Kamptee had
presented isolated cases of cholera so early as January. Some marching corps of
General Whitlock's Saugor Field Force in returning to the Madras Presidency
were attacked, two days after coming in contact with a body of cholera-stricken
pilgrims. It is unnecessary in this place to quote the details of the cholera
diffusion north of Nagpore in 1860, but no one can read the report of Dr. W. A. Smith
(quoted at p, 410, Madras Med. Journal Vol. I., 1870) without being impressed
with the importance of the dispersion of the Mahadeo pilgrims in spreading
cholera through the Central Provinces.
The cholera of 1860
in Central Provinces
a cholera of reproduc-
tion, the invasion hav-
ing occurred in 1859.
17. That the cholera of 1860, in the Central Provinces, was a reproduced,
rather- than a newly invading cholera, is confirmed by the
condition of the town of Bombay during 1860. An invading
cholera of the Central Provinces is almost certain to reach
the town of Bombay in the course of a year from the time of
its movement out of the endemic area, but in looking to the Bombay Mortuary
Reports for 1860, we find evidence that the invading cholera of the former year
(1859) was dying out, but no evidence of fresh invasion.
Table showing Cholera Deaths in Bombay, 1860.
Year.
1860 ...
January.
289
February.
332
March.
396
April.
321
May.
163
Jun.
107
July.
89
August.
128
September.
51
October.
47
November.
29
December.
9
Here we see a steady failing of vitality of the epidemic going on all through
the season of the south-west monsoon, and cholera still fading out when the
monsoon season was past. If this cholera of the Central Provinces in 1860 had
been a cholera of a new invasion, it would have reached Bombay in October or
November after the south-west monsoon influences had ceased, supposing the
theories in regard to monsoon influences to be true.
18. I have not at hand the Army Returns of the Bombay Presidency for
1860, but the point is of less importance, as we know the history of the northern
stations of the Madras Presidency, and of Hyderabad in the Deccan, the dis-
tricts in fact, which are always the first to be attacked by a cholera invad-
ing from the Central Provinces. In the Hyderabad country many of the troops
returning from Whitlock's Column got cholera badly on the march in the early
months of 1860, H. M.'s 17th Lancers especially. After the arrival of these troops
at Secunderabad some cholera cases occurred, but there was no general epidemic.
The year 1860 was one of great heat, drought, and scarcity of water. At Secun-
derabad many European soldiers suffered from sun stroke, but there was no
return of the epidemic of cholera with the south-west monsoon. In one native
corps a few cases did occur in June and July. There was but one " cholera"
death amongst the Civil Dispensary patients, which is significant as to the
absence of the disease in an epidemic or reproduced form among the Civil
population.
p