Note on the epidemic connection of the cholera of Madras and Bombay with the cholera epidemics of the Bengal Presidency. / By James L. Bryden.

  • Bryden, James L. (James Lumsdaine), 1833-1880.
Date:
1871
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Note on the epidemic connection of the cholera of Madras and Bombay with the cholera epidemics of the Bengal Presidency. / By James L. Bryden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    (Proceedings of the Sanitary Commissioner uith tJie Government of India, Decemher 1871 •y' NOTE EPIDEMIC CONNECTION OF THE CHOLERA OF MADRAS & BOMBAY WITH THE CHOLERA EPIDEMICS OF THE BENGAL PRESIDENCY. Letter from the Secretary to the Government of India, in the Department of Agiicul- ture, Revenue and Commerce, to the Sanitary Commissioner with the Government of India, No. 70, dated 7th August 1871, transmits for remark copy of Report by the Sanitary Com- missioner for Madras on Cholera in Southern India.* 2. Mr. Cornish has professedly based his study of Aspect from which the cholera of cholera in Southern India on the principles laid down in my the Madras Presidency is studied in j-gports on the cholera of the Bengal Presidency, of 1868 and this report. 1869 3. His general conclusions substantially coincide with those which I have offered, as far as relates to the origin of the cholera which appears in the Madras _ Conclusions arrived at and summa- presidency, the life-period normal for each epidemic and the rised in the report. • ij.- ■ i - xi i-n successive reproductions occurring during the liie-period of the epidemic, the control of these successive manifestations by conditions of locality, the early appearance or retardation of these manifestations in obedience to the prevailing meteorological phenomena, and even the general phenomena observed during epidemic advance. These conclusions are expressed in the following terms:— When we come to examine into the life-history of cholera, we shall find that no condi- tions of soil or climate in this part of India are capable of perpetually renewing the contagion of the disease, and that, except in very rare instances, an invading (3holera never survives beyond four years, and in most instances is extinct in a much briefer period. It is affected more or less by seasonal changes during the natural course of its life ; active and deadly in its destructive powers at one period of the year under peculiar meteorologi- cal or climatic conditions, and dormant or inoperative at other periods, jvhen a different order of meteorological phenomena prevails. Some localities harbour and reproduce the contagion for a longer period than others. There are certain districts in which a reproduction of an invading cholera will go on for three or even four years after the primary invasion; and there are other places in which the repro- duction either does not occur at all or lasts for one season only, leaving a long interval of two or three years of complete rest between one invasion and the next following it. The history of epidemic advance in 1818 is the history for all time of the mode in which the Peninsula and Southern India are invaded. In every new invasion there are sure to be some minor differences as to the rapidity of movement of, and the extent of country covered by cholera, but the main facts are unalterable. In the movement of cholera from its endemic home, there are other agents than human intercourse at work. The broad truth in regard to invasion to be borne in view is, that the great body of cholera which invades Southern India leaves its natural territory in Lower Bengal by what Dr. Bryden terms ' the southern epidemic highway* across the Central Provinces, and south- ward through the Deccan and Bombay Presidencies towards the Madras territory, which in a longer or shorter space of time is occupied. Cholera does move in accordance with its own laws. Cholera is often manifested in extreme virulence, along the bases of natural barriers to its advance, and in the river basins and ravines that lie in between great mountains. * Cholera in Southern India: A record of the progress of cholera in 1870, and resum^ of the records of former epidemic invasions of the Madras Presidency. By Surgeon VV. 11. Cornish, F. R. C. S., Sanitary Commissioner for Madras.