REPORT ON THE CHOLERA EPIDEMIC OF 1868.
______:O:___________ INTRODUCTORY.
1. A general description of the epidemic of cholera that prevailed in
the districts of Seonee, Mundla and Jubbulpore in 1868 has been given in my
Annual Report for that year. The chief object in this report is to show in more
minute detail the manner in which the disease became diffused among the popula-
tion contained within the limits of the epidemic area, and to describe the
circumstances of position, soil, water-supply, and general sanitary condition of
those towns and villages in which the disease prevailed, at the same time
noting the circumstances of other villages in the same localities that experienced
comparative or complete immunity. To render the subject clear, however, it will
be necessary to repeat the general facts regarding the outbreak and spread of
the disease which have been elsewhere given.
2. Regarding the prevalence of cholera in the Central Provinces in
former years, the information that exists is scanty and imperfect, but there is
sufficient evidence that from 1860 to 1866 inclusive, no year passed by in which
cholera did not become epidemic over a more or less extensive portion of the
Province. In no locality, however, has cholera hitherto been considered endemic ;
the origin of every epidemic has been attributed either to a fair or other assem-
blage of persons held within the Provinces, or to importation of the disease by
pilgrims or travellers from other parts of the country. The fair formerly held
annually in February at the Mahadeo cave in the Puchmurree hills, formed
the most frequent focus of the disease within the Provinces. The cave is held
in groat sanctity through all the surrounding country, the stream of pilgrims is
constant throughout the year, and from 100,000 to 120,000 people assembled
annually on the Denwa river in the valley below the hill. Cholera broke out at
this fair in 1860 and in 1865, and the most wide-spread epidemics of which there are
any records followed, not a single district having escaped in either year. On the
island of Unkarjee Mandata on the Nerbudda in the Nimar district fairs are
held annually in February and October, and there is a constant stream of votaries
at the shrine throughout the year. It is to these pilgrims and to pilgrims to a
temple at Indore that the frequent occurrence of cholera along the main road
from Bombay through the Nimar district to Indore and Mhow has been attri-
buted. In 1864 cholera invaded the Provinces from the south, and it was
supposed to have been imported by pilgrims returning from Punderpore in the
Deccan. The epidemics that annually, from 1860 to 1866, ravaged the eastern
districts were considered to owe their origin to importation of the disease by
pilgrims returning from the temple of Juggernath at Pooree, and there is ground
for believing that in 1865 and in 1866 the disease was carried westward from
Chuteesgurh by the carts that annually convey the grain produce of that tract of
country to the markets of Nagpore and Kamptee.
3. So frequent and wide-spread had the visitations of this scourge become
that in 1865 the attention of the Administration was earnestly turned towards
measures calculated to check and mitigate its ravages. The spread of the disease
over the country in 1865 was so manifestly connected with the dispersion of the
pilgrims from the Mahadeo fair, that to prevent its assemblage for the future
appeared to be the measure most urgently called for. Orders prohibiting the
fair were accordingly issued by Sir R. Temple, and the reasons for the measure
were so obvious and good that it was received by the mass of the people with