17
Table VI.—Showing the number of villages attacked and the mortality in
the several Sub-divisions of the epidemic area.
Table VII.—Showing rates of mortality in relation to population of
towns and villages.
55. The statistics of the mortality in the several districts, and the dates
on which the different towns and villages were attacked, are derived from the
weekly reports furnished by the Police ; these cannot be relied on as strictly
accurate, and their degree of accuracy varies in different circles. Probably in all
districts the number of villages that suffered from the disease, and the amount of
mortality it occasioned, was somewhat greater than appears in the returns. The
dates also on which the first cases occurred in each village are probably in many
instances incorrect. Efforts, however, have been made to render the returns as
complete as possible ; and in this work much assistance has been afforded by the
several District officers. The statistics of the Seonee district, supplied by
Colonel Dennys, have been verified as far as possible, and have been most care-
fully tabulated. The reports of the Mundlah district were also verified at a
large proportion of the villages by Captain Ward.
56. As soon after the epidemic as weather permitted I went into camp,
and in the months of November, December and January inspected a large number
of villages in the districts of Seonee, Mundlah, Jubbulpore and Nursingpore.
Although my enquiries were chiefly directed to the nature of the soil, the water-
supply, and general sanitary condition of the villages in which the disease
prevailed, I at the same time gathered from the people themselves the parti-
culars of the first appearance of cholera and the mortality it occasioned among
them. On these points I almost always found the people willing to communicate
information, and I believe the accounts they gave me are on the whole reliable.
When I entered a village a considerable number of the population would collect,
and from the Malgoozar, the Kotwal, and the relatives of those who died, I was
generally able to gather all the details that I required. In many villages the
calamity had reached such terrible proportions, that the circumstances attending
it would not be readily forgotten by the inhabitants, and they had no motive for
wilfully misstating facts. Indeed the Gonds, among whom the disease prevailed
with the greatest intensity, are considered by those who know them best a
singularly truthful race.
57. At first the disease showed but little disposition to spread beyond
the coolies employed on the road ; from its first appearance on the 16th April to the
middle of May only four villages near the road had been attacked. On the 15th
and 16th May it broke out almost simultaneously in the towns of Jubbulpore,
Lucknadown, and Seonee, and in one or two villages; but even after this it
remained confined almost to the vicinity of the road till the end of the month.
In the first week of June, however, it extended itself more rapidly ; by the 4th
it had reached Moorwarra in the north of Jubbulpore, north of which place it did
not afterwards spread. On the 1st of June the first case occurred in Mundlah ;
on the same date it reached Nagpore, and from hence it was soon conveyed to
Ellichpore in Berar. On the 14th June a case occurred at Chindwara in the
Nursingpore district, and a few days later the disease appeared in the town of
Gadurwara, beyond which it did not extend westward ; but though the limits
beyond which the disease did not afterwards spread were thus reached early
in June, Table IV. shows that it was hot until the middle of July that the
disease reached its maximum of prevalence within the epidemic area.
58. It will be observed in Table VI that the greatest mortality occurred
in the districts of Seonee, Mundlah, and Jubbulpore ; and it was in those districts,