66
same period the numbers are as follows :—
Females... ..
Males ... ..
Females in excess of Males
...
...
...
Attacked.
342
239
103
Died.
175
121
54
231. To fully appreciate the significance of this great excess of mortality
from cholera among women, it must be borne in mind that the female population
in these Provinces, as in the rest of India, is less than the male population, and
that in our statistics hitherto, the mortality of the two sexes has been in the pro-
portion of 80 females to every 100 males. Secondly, that the domestic duty of draw-
ing water and washing clothes almost invariably falls on the women. The
crowds drawing water of a morning at the principal wells, or washing clothes in
the tanks or streams, are composed almost entirely of women and girls of all ages;
boys sometimes accompany their mothers; but, excepting those of the washer-
man caste or water-carriers, men are seldom so employed.
232. Next to the 3rd, 4th, and 5th divisions of the city, Cholera
broke out most severely in the 6th division, which is traversed by the main drain
of the city; along this drain, which is simply paved with rough stones, are
numerous wells, the water of which is used for drinking. Between the 4th and
8th August 11 deaths were reported in this division, on the 6th the wells along
the drain were all closed, and after the 8th only 4 deaths from cholera at long
intervals occurred. In other seasons some influential people living in the
division had derived their water from a cistern supplied by the pipes from the
Ambajerry lake, and in the former epidemic none of them had suffered; this year
the supply from the lake has failed, and these people have suffered; three persons
living in one of the best houses in the division were carried off. During the
prevalence of cholera the level of the water in the wells in the 4th and 5th
divisions when cholera chiefly prevailed, was from 50 to 55 feet from the surface
of the ground; in the 6th division the depth was from 25 to 35 feet.
SECTION III.
Review of the history of the epidemic, and conclusions with reference to the con-
ditions that appear to favour the spread of the disease among the people, and
the measures that are required to remove those conditions.
233. I have now described the localities in which cholera prevailed
with seventy in 18.68, and have also given the details of its appearance and sab-
sequent prevalence among the populations of a large number of towns and vil-
lages. It remains to be considered what light the facts detailed afford regarding
the means by which the choleraic influence is diffused, and the conditions, atmos-
pheric, local, and personal, that promote the manifestation of the disease.
234. In a former part of this report, when reviewing the evidence bearing
on the origin of the epidemic, it was shown that although there was no actual
proof of the choleraic influence or infecting matter having been imported from
elsewhere, yet the fact of the first manifestations of the disease having occurred
in bodies of men located close by a road daily thronged with passengers from a
part of the country in which the disease had previously appeared, afforded strong
support to the supposition, that the infecting matter may have been imported,
rather than generated locally ; and the account given of the subsequent spread
of the disease, and of its appearance in the different towns and villages scattered
over the epidemic area, appears to me to favour the opinion that the choleraic
influence is diffused by means of human intercourse, and by that means alone.
235. The diffusion of the epidemic was at first very slow, and for the first
month it made but little progress from its first focus ; that this was probably due
to the circumstance of the local conditions necessary for the manifestation of the
disease being not generally present at the time, will be shown hereafter. When