2
ready acquiescence. At the same time village conservancy rules were issued,
and the necessity of turning their attention to improving the sanitary condition
of the towns and villages of their districts was urged upon all District officers.
4. In the fol lowing year cholera spared the greater part of the Provinces,
but it again ravaged the eastern districts, having been again apparently imported
from Orissa; It was therefore resolved, in the event of the disease again threaten-
ing from that quarter, to attempt to arrest its progress by quarantine. Accord-
ingly when towards the end of 1867 it was reported that cholera had broken out
at Pooree, quarantine was established at the eastern border of the Provinces. The
fact of cholera having broken out at Pooree was at the same time proclaimed
through the eastern districts and efforts made to dissuade the people from
pilgrimages. That the immunity from the disease that followed was entirely
due to these measures cannot be confidently asserted, for there is no evidence as to
the number of pilgrims that visited Pooree or that any infected bodies were stopped
by the quarantine. We must be content with the fact that the disease did not
cross the border and that the eastern districts escaped. The other Divisions
were also again spared in 1867, and thus it happened that, for once in many years,
every district in the Provinces experienced immunity from cholera.
SECTION I.
Oriqin of the epidemic and its spread among the gargs of labourers employed on
the Northra Road.
5. In 1868 cholera first appeared in the district of Seonee ; neither this
district nor the district of Jubbulpore to which the disease quickly spread have
had the reputation of being particularly liable to visitations of cholera. In
the epidemic of 1865 they suffered in common with every other district in the
Provinces, but for 1866 and 1867 had remained entirely free.
6. Through the early part of 1868 there were no rumours of cholera
having appeared in any of the localities from which in former years it had spread
to these Provinces. Early in April a report reached the authorities at Jubbulpore
that chalera was prevalent in the neighbouring territory of Rewah, but tin-
Political Agent at Nagode. on being applied to for information, stated that there
was no foundation for the report. The opening of the East India Railroad to
Jubbulpore in 1867 had, however, exposed us to importation from the Ganges
valley, and a circumstance that will be related hereafter, having afforded ground
for a supposition that the disease might have been brought to the Nag-pore road,
where it first broke out, from Benares or Mirzapore, I addressed the Magistrates
of those districts on the subject, and they were good enough to favour mo with
the following information. In his letter dated 9th December 1868 the Magis-
trate of Benares writes :—The city and district of Benares never seem to be
altogether free of cholera, the natives however do not generally distinguish
between diarrhoæa, dysentery, and cholera, and therefore all the cases mentioned
in the comparative table given below for the first half of the years 1867 and 186S
are probably not true cases of cholera.