72
was confined within a comparatively narrow area. The monsoon rains of 1868.
however, fell short, and the mean rain-fall for the year throughout the Province*
was nearly 20 inches below the average. In many districts, especially Jubbul-
pore, Dumoh, and Nursingpore, it was even more scanty. Moreover, throughout
the whole country not an inch of rain fell between September 1868 and the
third week in June 1869. This year, compared with previous years, cholera
appeared unusually early ; slight out-breaks occurred here and there as early as
December and January. In April it had begun to spread in the greater number
of the districts of the Provinces, and by the end of May in Jubbulpore alone
232 villages had been attacked, in Nursingpore 188, in Seonee 100, and in
Dumoh 106. By the second week oí June the epidemic had reached its greatest
height, and in some districts had already begun to decline.
256. It occurs, moreover, in all epidemics, that when the supply of water
in the rivers, tanks, and wells have been replenished by the periodical ruins,
cholera ceases to prevail, and an out-break between the middle of September and
the commencement of the hot weather is unusual.
257. Comparing the tracts of country which experienced comparative
immunity from cholera with those which suffered severely, we find that they
differed greatly in the character of their water system; thus in Kuttunghee, the
southern portion of the Seonee district, and again in Sleemanabad and Moor-
warra, the northern sub-divisions of Jubbulpore, the water-supply is chierly drawn
from deep wells, in which in ordinary seasons the quantity is plentiful throughout
the year; and in both these tracts oí country the proportionate number of villages
attacked and the percentage of mortality were alike comparatively small. On
the other hand, cholera fell with the greatest severity in the villages in the trap
formation, where the water-supply is derived either from shallow surface wells,
sunk in porous material, and in situations where the water is especially liable to
be contaminated with sewage matter, or from streams which in the hot weather
contain water that is nearly stagnant. Again, the disease prevailed severely in
the alluvial plain of the Jubbulpore district, where a large proportion of the
villages are dependent for their water-supply on rivers which had been polluted
by dead bodies thrown into them, on smaller streams the banks of which are
habitually fouled, or on tanks that receive the surface drainage of the village
area.
258. Even in those tracts, however, in which the disease most widely pre-
vailed, the rate of mortality in the different towns and villages attacked varied
greatly ; as a rule, it was low in towns and large villages having several sources
of water; severe in those confined to one only. Moreover, a large proportion of
the towns and villages were not visited at all, and in many in which persons suf-
fering from cholera had arrived, the disease did not spread among the inhabitants.
A large number of these were inspected, and in all it was found that, compared
with the villages that suffered, the water was plentiful and fairly safe from pollu-
tion. It was derived either from deep wells with a good supply of water, from a
tank not receiving the surface drainage of the village, or from a stream with a
rapid current.
Further, if we consider the instances given everywhere in the report of
towns and villages that escaped the disease while others in close proximity suf-
fered severely, it seems impossible to explain the immunity of Khapa, close to
Kuladehi (para. 74); of the Hoolkee bazaar and Dhoomah (paras. 75, 76), along the
main road so infected with cholera; of the hamlet of Soonwarra (para. 102), com-
pared with the main village of Kymore, compared with Kuttunghee; of the line
of villages on the Moturria river, running parallel with the Hirun at a short dis-
tance from it; of Belkera, adjoining Kuttra;— if this immunity, is not attributable