Litchfield enquirer., 1831-10-13
From the Journal of Health.

hASTOhX OF THE INDIAN CHOLERA
 The epidemic cholera, W hich is now pre- vailing throughout the north of Europe, adding the horrors of pestiIence to those of war, has become subject of deep inte- rest to every portion of the civilized world. However remotely situated from the pres- ent theatre of its ravages, there is no coun- try the inhabitants of which can flatter l themselves that they are perfectly secure from its visitation. Travelling as it does, with an unexampled rapidity unarrested 1 in its progress by mountains or seas pre- vailing alike in the driest weather and dur ing the deluge of periodical rains; in storms and in caln,s; under the scorching sun of Arabia and amid the frosts of Russia, to determine the point or period atswhich it's further extension will be stayed, defes all human calculation. Commencing at a 1 point almost the farthest removed from our-i selves, it has already traversed nearly half of the mighty interval, andshowever im-
 probable it may appear to some, that the
 disease will ever extend across the Atlan-. tic; yet judging from its progress hereto fore, and the space over which it has al- ready passed, this is by no means impossi-
 ble. The only certain means of prevent ing the cholera from extending itself to ] this country, are timely resort to correct precautionary measures founded on the na- ture of the disease and the general princi- pIes ofhygiene. With this fact in view, we have conceived it to be our duty to lay be- fore our readers, brief sketch of the rise and progress of the pestilence, and, so far as we are able from the documents in our possession, some account of its character and causes, together with the proper means for its prevention.
 The terrible epidemic which is now rav- aging the immense districts of the Russian empire. commenced is ;:s aestructive career in various parts of the Delta formed by the Ganges, during the summer of 1917. In 1913, it had reached as far north as Zaha- runpore high up on the Jumma, and exten- ded itself fsorth to Cape Cormorin, it's wes- tern-most limit being at Bombay and Surat, its eas,ern-most at Sylhet; spreading to- wards the interior, from the mouth of the Ganges to its confluence with the Jumma, it extended itself over space including four hundred and fifty square miles. In 1879, it attacked the isles of France and Bourbon, in twenty-one degrees of south latitude. In the latter island. it began ear ly in December. Of two hundred andsff- " seven persons seized withathe disteuper one hundred and seventy-eight died. In 1920, it ravaged Siam, Malacca, Java, the Philippine Islands, the southern provinces of China, and Guzzerat, in India. In 1921 it is said to have destroyed sixty thousand subjects of the Prince of Omau, round Muscat; during this year it reached Bah- rein, Bassora, Bagdad, Bushre, and Shiraz. In this latter city, the population of which is forty thousand. there died sixteen thou sand in the first few days. In Bassora, eighteen thousand individuals perished, of whom fourteen thousand died in two weeks.
 During the succeeding winter, the disease became dormant, both in Persia in Syria.
 In 1922, it spread to Ispahan, Teherann, and Tabriz, to Diarbeker and Moussul, and reached in 1923, the island of Amboy-
 na, in one hundred and twenty seven de- grees of east longitude, extending also to
 Antioch, distance of thirty-six degrees,
 and to Astrachan, in Asiatic Russia, ln lat-
 itude forty-sx degrees north. Having
 spread, in seven years, over ninety-one de- srees of longitude, from Antioch to Am boyna, and sixty seven degrees of latitude. ] from the Isle of Bourbon to Astrachan, and destroyed, in its course, not less than six millions of human beings.
 The disease is generally understood to have broken out first at Jessore, city eighty or ninety miles northeast from Call cntta, in the middle of August, 1877; but it appears to have prevailed to consider able extent in the district of Nuddea, west of the Hoogly, as early as May and June. Tn July, it appeared also at Patna, near three hundred miles directly northeast of Calcutta. In the first week of August, at Calcutta, at Dacca, and Dinapore; on the 17th, at Sylhet and Jessore; by the end of August, at Boglipoor aud Monghyr; Sep- tember 18th, at Balasore; 17th, at Buxar 18th, at Chnpra and Ghazeepoor. and, by the end of November at Kewah and Cut tach; the two last places being separated by at least four hundred miles. The cau- ses of the disease appeared to be in lan- gushing or quiescent state during the win ter of 1877; but in the months of APrl' and May, 1slS, they were manifested agaIn with extreme violence, not only in many of the places where the disease had already | appeared. but also at Ougein, Hoosbunga- bad. Nagpore, (with numerous intervening | districts,1 and Gangam; all these being nearly on a line of six hundred and forty l miles from northwest to southeast. In various other places on line, north and sovth for six hundred miles, from Goruck- |