77
Kutiaghat (para. 132), 16 bodies had been thrown into the Gour river above the
point where the villagers drew their water between the end of June and 6th
July. No case of cholera, however, occurred among the latter till the 8th July, after
the arrival from the village of Tilheri of a woman suffering from the disease.
Again, in the account given of the prevalence of cholera along the Hirun, subse-
quent to the pollution of the river by bodies thrown into it from Moorai, the
same course of events is observable. At Dahnee and Kujooree, on the same
bank of the river with Moorai, and in frequent communication with that village,
the disease broke out within three or four days after the pollution of the water
had been effected; but the villages on the opposite bank of the river were not
attacked in consecutive order, and remained free for periods varying from one
to three or four weeks. In the course of the 1st and 2nd weeks of July, as cho-
lera broke out in the villages, on or near the banks, and the dead from each vil-
lage were thrown into the river, the water in the portion below Kymore must
have reached a horrible state of pollution. But here again the villages on the
banks of the river did not suffer simultaneously. On the left bank, which bounds
the populous tract of country of which Patun (where cholera had already ap-
peared) is the centre, all the villages as far as Mala Khoord were attacked in
the course of the 1st week of July. Lower down, among the villages of which Pe-
puria-Khas is the bazaar town, the disease did not spread till later ; and in certain
villages on the right bank of the river, shut in between the unfordable river and
the precipitous Bhanner range, and approachable only by the gerry at Bhyron-
ghat, the appearance of the disease was delayed till quite the end of the month.
276. It would appear then, that however impure the water used by a popu-
lation may be, the communication of a special contagion is necessary before
cholera will manifest itself ; that in fact an impure water is a predisposing cause,
and not the exciting cause of cholera; and that in respect of the means by which
it spreads, cholera does not differ from other infectious diseases;—that as small-pox
manifests itself in persons in whom, the susceptibility to the disease has not been
modified by a previous attack or by vaccination, or as typhus fever attacks those in
whom a predisposition to it has been induced by famine and over-crowding, so
the contagion of cholera takes effect in individuals rendered susceptible to its
influence by the reception into, or retention in the blood of excretal or other de-
composed animal matter.
277. With respect to the general population of this country, water impreg-
nated with sewage or other animal matter in a state of decomposition is appa-
rently the medium through which this predisposition to cholera is most commonly
produced. It does not follow from, this, however, that when cholera is epidemic
we must expect to trace every case that occurs or even every out-break in a
locality to the use of impure water. What is intended to be asserted is, that
impure water is the most common predisposing cause, and that cholera will not
prevail epidemically among the population of a tract of country where the water-
supply is abundant and fairly protected from pollution. In individual cases and
in bodies of men placed under peculiar and what may be called unnatural cir-
cumstances, other predisposing causes may be in operation. The great suscepti-
bility to cholera of prisoners in former years appears to have been diminished by
the improved sanitary condition of the jails, especially by the more strict appli-
cation of the dry earth system of conservancy. The immunity from cholera
enjoyed
Native troops, compared with European soldiers serving in the same
station, so clearly shown in Dr. Bryden's Tables, can only be due to some parti-
cular condition in the life of the European soldier that renders him more suscept-
ible of the choleraic influence. One of the most essential conditions of life in
which the two classes differ is that of diet, and it is possible that the greater
susceptibility of the Europeans to cholera may be induced by a too exclusive use
of animal food in the season of the year when decomposition is most rapid, when
ress exercise is taken, and when the elimination of excretal material from the
blood is less perfect.