79
they live much with their cattle, tending them in the fields and often drinking
water from the same sources with them.
282. On the point of the influence of age our statistics also fail, through
not being sufficiently miaute, they do not afford any satisfactory data. I believe,
however, that children suffer in a large proportion, but that the young and able-
bodied adults are not less amenable to -the disease than the old and feeble. With
regard to the relative liability to cholera of the two sexes, our statistics are not
I think sufficiently accurate to allow of any reliable deduction being drawn.
Taking the whole Provinces, in our annual statistics the rate of mortality in the
two sexes stands in the relation of 45 and 55 per cent for the district of Seonee
for 1868 ; the female mortality was 47 for Muudla, but for Jubbulpore it was only
43 per cent of the total deaths. 1 believe, however, that these figures are very
far from a correct representation of the relative death-rates in the two sexes. The
remarkable excess of mortality among females over that among males that has
occurred in two successive epidemics in the city of Nagpore, I believe to be of
common occurrence. From enquiries made on the spot from 27 villages I obtain-
ed the following results :—
Total
Excess of
No. of villages, mortality. Males.
Females. Females over Males.
27
453
206
247
41
These figures give a proportion of 45 . 5 males and 54 . 5 females in every
100 deaths, thus reversing the proportion shown in the district returns. In a
large proportion of the 27 villages the mortality among males was the highest;
the excessive mortality among the females occurred where the water-supply
was derived chiefly from wells, but where there was also tank or river to which
the women resorted for washing clothes.
283. On the question of the contagiousness of cholera, there is I think
abundant evidence that the disease is eminently contagious; that in respect oí per-
.sons predisposed to the reception of the "contagion" it isas contagious as small-pox:
but while the predisposition to small-pox is innate and common to all persons, until
it has been neutralised by an attack of the disease itself or by vaccination, the
predisposition to cholera is acquired, and the proportion of persons in whom it
can be induced is limited, and depending chiefly on the intensity of the predis-
posing causes. It is probable that the predisposition to the disease may be
rapidly acquired and as rapidly lost, all that is necessary being the presence
in the system of animal organic matter in a septic condition. As an instance of
the dependence for effect of the choleraic poison on the predisposition of the
individuals exposed to its influence, I may refer to the account given of the
out-break at Dunwahi (para. 126). Here, out of five persons employed in burying
the bodies of the Gonds, two had come from a locality in which the water was
fairly pure; three had been habitually using water of the foulest description;—the
first escaped, the latter all contracted the disease and died. They were not, how-
ever, the first to be attacked among the population to winch they conveyed the
infection, but two women, who it may be supposed had intensified the predispo-
sition produced by the use of foul water, by a meal of fish in which (it being the
hottest time of the year) decomposition had most probably commenced.*
* The account of the out-break of cholera at Theydon Bois in Essex in 1865, referred to in the 8th and 9th
Reports of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, affords a remarkable instance of the effect of impure water
in rendering the system susceptible to the choleraic influence. The out-break occurred at an isolated farm-house.
The head oí the family and lus wife after a fortnight's absence had returned home from Weymouth on the 25th
September by way of Southampton. Cholera having appeared in the latter town, eight days before, (the first ap-
pearance of cholera in the country) they had travelled to London lay express train, and did not stop at Southampton,
except during the ordinary halt of the train at the station. The day after reaching home the wife was seized with
diarrhea, the husband also suffered more or less from looseness of bowels left after an attack of vomiting and purging,
which he had undergone 36 hours before leaving Weymouth. From the 28th September to the 6th October inclusive
eight members of the family, including the head of the family and his wife, were attacked with cholera ; of these
five died. Within the same period the family medical attendant and a labourer employed about the house were
both seized, and both died. On the 10th October a woman who had asssisted in laying the corpse of the labourer
was attacked, and died the next day ; finally a grand-child of this woman was seized on the 31st October and died
in 36 hours. Subsequently it was discovered that the water of the well used by the family had been polluted by