24
Report of the Sani-
tary Commissioner of
Bombay.
28. Turning to the report of the Bombay Sanitary Commission for that year,
we learn that no division of the Army (except Scinde) escaped
cholera in 1864, and that the outbreak amongst the assembled
pilgrims at Purunderpoor was most disastrous in its results.
Invasion of Hydera-
bad in August and Sep-
tember.
29. Coming down to the Madras Presidency and its Military forces, we see
that Hyderabad in the Deccan was again struck by cholera in
August and September of 1864, but on this occasion the
number of attacks and mortality was but small.
Bellary District not
invaded.
The Kurnool District was next attacked and then Cuddapah ; the Bellary
District to the south-west of the main line of invasion escaped
altogether in this year.
Severe invasion of
Western Coast Dis-
tricts.
The invasion of the Western Coast was markedly severe. As early as February
1864 cases appeared in Cochin, and it next broke out in that town in September,
on both occasions after the arrival of infected crews from the
northern ports. In the Malabar District there were reported
9,535 cases and 7,118 deaths. In Calicut alone there were 370
deaths. The invasion this year occupied not only the sea-board of the Western
Coast but overswept the hilly districts of Wynaad, Coorg, and Western Mysore.
Wynaad and Coorg
invaded, and signifi-
cance thereof.
The occupation of these high lands in the year of a new invasion is, I have
reason to suppose, significant of great strength in the cholera
movement. The appearance of cholera, therefore, in Wynaad
and Coorg, in 1864 boded ill for the inhabitants of the low
country to the south and east in the following years.
Limits of the inva
sion in 1864.
30. The southern limit of invasion in 1864, so far as I can make out, was the
North. Arcot District. Although cholera had fairly invaded
Malabar before the end of the year, the epidemic did not pass
up through the gap in the ghauts to Coimbatore and Salem.
Both of these districts, which had suffered severely from reproduced cholera
in 1863, and in the beginning of 1864, were left untouched by the progressing
invasion of 1864. The prisoners in the Coimbatore Jail were attacked severely
in December 1863, and continued to suffer through the early months of 1864.
The Madras District, South Arcot, Tanjore, and Tinnevelly had no cholera of this
new invasion. The Nellore District had a few cases, but whether of the old
or new cholera is uncertain. The Kistna, Godavery, and
Vizagapatam Districts were absolutely free of cholera. It is
possible, therefore, to show by a shaded map the nearly exact
course of the cholera invasion of 1864. The year on the whole, but for the new
invasion, would have been a minimum year of cholera in Southern India.
Exemption of the
Kistna, Godavery, and
Vizagapatam Districts.
THE CHOLERA OF 18G5.
Reproduction
in
great force over West-
ern, and many districts
of Southern India.
31. The cholera of the Central Provinces of 1864 and of Western Indian
was almost universally reproduced in great force in 1865.
For the first time, the death registers of the Civil popu-
lation are available to trace the progress of the movement or
reproduction in Bombay.
Population statistics
of Bombay.
The following table will show the total mortality and months of chief
prevalence of cholera among the population of the Bombay
Presidency in 1865 :—