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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    heavy showers. In some of the more elevated tracts, though the sun be vertical, the air is cold during the rains, especially where the wind blows fresh; but in lower situations, and where the soil is inundated, the air is often extremely hot and oppressive, and is surcharged with moistui-e. 17. From this description we have no difficulty in recognising, that in the north and ,. ^ , ,. , • east of the tract described we have the history of a The distance to which monsoon in- , . . „ _ , , , i i j t fluences having the south-western coast dying monsoon mfiuence. 1 have shown how towards the as their base reach in the north and north-western desert, mile by mile, the rainfall coming from the north-east. ga^y of Bengal diminishes, until it finally and totally disap- pears, and, as a consequence, the tract is a barren waste. The tract along the Eastern Coast holds the same relation to the monsoon blowing from the Malabar Coast across the conti- nent towards the north-east. It may be reached, or it may not. As Scott expresses it above : the northern division feels the occasional influence of the south-west rains.^'' When it is not reached, eastern influences step in to take the place of those due from the south-west. The year 1868 was such a year, the monsoon from the south-west having from weakness failed to come up so far. Thus, the Civil Surgeon of Raipore wi-ites— The early cessation of the monsoon seems to have had a considerable influence for good on the health of the people. The wind blow- ing principally from the north-east, we have had none of the watery vapours generally brought up from the western coast duriug the autumn months. The atmosphere was therefore much drier than is usual at this time, and we had much less malarious influence at work than usual.''^ 18. I shall do nothing more than call attention to the fact, that the invasion of the tract The movement of July 1818 ia marked Bl occurred in 1818 in the very weeks, and in the very Madras coincident with movement iu days, in which SO many of our great epidemics, such as those of the same weeks in the Bengal Presi- iQ^Q qj, ^ggi^ occupied Central and Northern India in the track of the monsoon blowing from the south-east, and I need not repeat here how these were limited in their distribution to a mile by the limitation of these monsoon influences, and by no other cause. 19. Or again, if I take the area marked B 2, our map of 1868 will furnish us with a most perfect and wonderful parallel. On the west, it was on the 14th August that Bombay was reached; on the east, it was on the 14th August that Ungool on the opposite coast was reached; in the centre, Darwar and Badamy were struck on the 13th. This happened in 1818. Fifty years afterwards, and without the knowledge of these facts, Movement of 14th August in Madras ^ ^^^^ ^ have recorded a precise parallel, and all the more general fi'om sea to sea, and absolutely precise because the age of the epidemic was the same to a day, homologous with the cholera of the dated from the time of leaving its endemic home. In 18C8, same days of 1868. Malligaum, within a short distance of the Bombay Coast, was struck on 14th August;* and on the opposite margin of the field under my observation, Chanda first showed its cholera on the 15th. Akola and Ellichpore, in the middle, were suffering from the invasion on the 18th. Here, then, are two sets of parallel phenomena, which are fitted to suggest to us how and why these two divisions of Province B. were covered. One glance at the map shows the fact that here there was no marginal extension of this cholera. One and all of the provincial definitions with nof''mar''iLl°^ as^^Vcf^sted^r M^^ ^^^^^ assigned, call for the recognition of the truth, Cornish.'^^'^' ^ ^^Soes e y i. -(jy^at the occupation was by a succession of sudden and decided epidemic leaps. 20. All the coast line south of Darwar and reaching a little to the south of Mangalore was invaded, probably when the monsoon died away, in the first week of September. The latest dates of invasion within this tract given in the map are Hurryhur, 12th Septem- ber, and Chittledroog, 15th September ; this is a very beautiful parallel with the fact that with us in Northern India within the limits of the monsoon area epidemic progress ceases in the same week. 21. But in Southern and Western India new influences, parallel to those which in . . ^Eastern Bengal determine the epidemic presence of a ereat Phenomena in the province of the , . i n r\ i. x. l-i i • n ,^ north-east monsoon in the south of cholera lasting from October until the beginning of the year the Peninsula, corresponding to those following, develop a cholera province which has limits and of the^ natural cholera area iu Eastern characteristics of its own, an area in which cholera is developed ■ and flourishes throughout the prevalence of the north-east monsoon. This province, as defined by the invading cholera of 1818, is marked C. on the map. 22. These are, as I read them in the history of cholera in 1818 and 1868, the natural I . . ,o^o A areas upon which the cholera of these years fell. Lines The areas mapped out in 1818 and . .„ i i i i r> t ^ ^i^ivcj 1868 are natural areas; and the of retrogression Will probably be found less constant to a parallel phenomena observed in both fixed geography than lines of epidemic advance ; while years are strictly homologous. in 1818 we find three zones indicative of successive reces- sions, we find in 1868 but one, representing the two first leaps of the monsoon cholera of 1818. The area invaded in the last three months of 1818 is a distinct cholera province. But the parallel of 1868 teaches that it is not a tract rigidly defined. It may be of any extent; * On the map the 18th is given as the date. On the 18th the Bengal Cavalry stationed at Malligaum were .at- tacked, and cholera had appeared in the neighbourhood four days before—(Note to p. 154, Cholera Report}.