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prevailed pretty widely over the district. The other, the most disastrous of any
on record, followed in the train of the cyclone inundation which hurst upon
this district on the night of the 31st October. The rains which were unprece-
dentedly excessive during June and July 1876 culminated during the first week
of August in a serious inundation which deluged the half of the north-east of
the district. This was followed by a season of unusual dryness, and the soil
which during the rains became over-saturated now became abnormally dried
up by the sinking of the sub-soil water.* * * Moreover, the rays of the sun
acting upon the inundated ground caused the evaporation of malaria, and so
the general unhealthiness caused by the other factors, such as bad food, unsuit-
able dwellings, bad or absence of all conservancy, was increased. " A notable fact
mentioned by the Magistrate is that the Maghs down Cox's Bazar, who eat
putrid fish habitually, and whose houses are raised on piles, and all the offices
of nature performed through the floor, and the ground beneath never cleaned
for generations, had no cholera." The second epidemic broke out suddenly in
November, almost immediately after the cyclone and storm wave which swept
over the eastern portion of this district on the 1st of that month, extending
inland from three to six miles along the coast. The deaths in November were
2,101 and in December 5,261. The high military road from Dhaka to Chitta-
gaon was the inland boundary of the wave in the north of this district. The
inundation lasted only a few hours. Cholera was severest and soonest in inci-
dence in the north, later and less intense in the south which was farthest from
the centre of the cyclone (the inundation came from the west and south-west
gathering force and volume as it passed to the east). The whole district was
affected, Cox's Bazar excepted. Where the storm wave did not encroach, there
was a comparatively little cholera. Europeans who are careful about sanitary
arrangements, and who, in the Sadr station, live upon the hills and elevated dry
ground, suffered little. Besides prevailing extensively, this epidemic was very
fatal. Out of 8,464 persons specially reported by the police to have been
attacked in November and December, 7,362, or nearly 87 per cent., were said to
have died.
Naokhali.—Cholera in this district, as regards its endemic prevalence, epi-
demic intensity, and seasonal subsidence, does not differ from that of the other
districts in Eastern Bengal. The summer prevalence of the disease in 1876 was
not generally severe or epidemic in character, but during April and May it was
prevalent in every circle, and those parts of the district which are near the
large rivers, particularly to the south and south-east, suffered most. Dr. Lyons,
the Civil Surgeon, says :—" Both the disease and its cause are never absent, being
aggravated by atmospheric and other conditions which are not yet sufficiently
understood. One of the conditions I have noticed lately and wish to convey is
that a very perceptible heat is felt from the earth upwards for several feet,
accompanied in parts by unpleasant smells noticeable along the roads and over
ground apparently dry and well formed. These are forced on the attention
only in such places where the sun is acting powerfully, so that when it rains
heaviest and the country is under water, the active causes, whatever they may
be, are kept in check." He adds that not any of the Europeans, native officials,
or other well-to-do people suffered from the disease, notwithstanding that the
epidemic raged with extreme severity in Sadharam. The inundation caused by
the cyclone, and which was pretty much, if not-entirely, of salt water, involved
the whole of the southern portion of the district, and affected all its registering
circles, except those of Ramganj and Begumganj. Early in November (the
third or fourth) cholera broke out epidemically throughout the inundated
tracts, and caused very severe mortality, the deaths in November and
December in these tracts being no less than 16,125 out of a total of 18,461 deaths
in the same area during the whole year.
Patna.—The character of cholera in this as well as the other districts
of the western division of Bihar differs in point of seasonal prevalence from that
of the disease in the districts of Lower Bengal. In the western Bihar districts
there is no second or winter epidemic, nor continued prevalence of cholera
from the close of one year to the opening of the next, both the earlier and
later months of the year being markedly free from the disease; the period
of maximum intensity being from April to June. In 1876 cholera prevailed
very severely and fatally in the Bihar sub-division in June; in Dehree there