104
Slow movement of
cholera in some por-
tions of the Salem Dis-
trict.
17. From the figures it may be surmised that cholera moves but slowly in
this district, for the intensity of the epidemic which occurred
in the Salem Talook in January, did not take place in Namcul
until December. Whether the configuration of the district
aids, or not, in retarding the movement of cholera, is a point of some interest.
Any one who will take the trouble to examine a map of Southern India, in which
the mountain ranges are defined, will be able to satisfy himself that the district is
mainly surrounded by high mountains or table-lands ; and that it contains
within it a number of hill ranges, many of them from 4,000 to 5,000 feet in
altitude.
A portion of the district drains eastward to the Palaar, and another portion
to the Cauvery valley, to the west and south. The highest point of table-land
crossed by the railway in the section of the district, is at the northern base of
the Shevaroy mountains, where the elevation is about 1,900 feet above the sea.
Shevaroy Hills and
their cholera immu-
nity.
118. The Shevaroy range of mountains, to the north of the valley in which
the town of Salem stands, may be taken as a type of the hill
ranges of the district. They are composed of metamorphic
rocks, which, if not bare and exposed, are clothed with but a
scanty surface soil and stunted jungle. Water is got from streams, or wells sunk
in ravines, and is usually very pure as regards organic matter. The summits of
these hills, of 4,000 feet elevation or more, are not subjected to cholera invasion at
all. The indigenous inhabitants have very little intercourse with the low country,
and in regard to the European settlements on these hills, it is a well ascer-
tained fact, that cholera, however severe and fatal it may be in the valley at the
foot of the hills, does not prevail. An occasional case has occurred in persons
who have lately arrived from the low country, but I have ascertained by
reference to residents of twenty-five years' experience, that they have never
known an outbreak amongst the hill people, or their own native servants, though,
occasionally, persons in returning from Salem, or the low country, have died of
cholera on the hills. In regard to malarious fevers the mountainous regions
Salem hills liable to
malaria.
of the Salem District have no exemption, and when the hot
season has been unusually prolonged, and the south-west
monsoon has been delayed beyond its usual time, remittent and intermittent
fevers of a very severe and fatal type have been known to occur. Some of
the lower slopes of the Shevaroy Hills, and of the other hill ranges, are, I have
reason to think, within the field of cholera invasion. Only in the last year Mr.
Overbury records that, the outbreak at Tripatore spread to adjoining villages,
and invaded the Javady Hills, at the northern base of which the town of Tripatore
stands. This range is of less elevation than the Shevaroys. But in regard to
the plateau of the Shevaroy range, I think it may be affirmed beyond question
that no " air-borne " cholera has ever fructified in that locality. Besides the
testimony of living residents to that effect, I have consulted the recorded experi-
ence of every Medical Officer of the district, who has known the hills from 1823,
down to the present time, and the result is conclusive, that cholera has never been
known there, except in the form of isolated cases in arrivals from the low
country.
119. Now the southern edge of the plateau, on which the sanitarium of
Yercaud stands, is not more than five or six miles, as the crow flies, from the
town and valley of Salem, in which cholera has always been noted for its great