Report on the attack of epidemic cholera in Agra and central India during the year 1861 / by John Murray.

  • Murray, John, 1809-1898.
Date:
[1861]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the attack of epidemic cholera in Agra and central India during the year 1861 / by John Murray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    REPORT ON TIIE ATTACK OF EPIDEMIC CHOLERA IN AGRA AND CENTRAL INDIA DURING THE YEAR 1861. BY JOHN MURRAY, M. £)., DEPUTY INSPECTOR GENERAL OF HOSPITALS, AGRA CIRCLE. There was great deficiency of rain, during the rainy, season, last year ,• and a consequent very scanty crop of the heavier grains ; and the “ Mahawut” or rain which usually falls at the end of the year, was wanting. This last is required, in addition to irrigation to secure a good crop of wheat, barley and gram in the cold season, which form the staple food of the people. The consequence of the deficiency of rain in both seasons, was famine over N. \V. Province^ and part of the Punjab. During famine seasons stores of grain are opened by the natives, which have been kept closed for many years. I saw one of these “ khoes” or grain pits that contained 20,000 maunds of wheat, which had been stored in the centre of the Fort at Bhurtpore for^25 years ; the contents of which were distributed to the people. The grain had a disagreeable smell ; but with the exception of the lower stratum, which was black, it was eaten eagerly. Numerous pits of old stand- ing viz.;: from 7 to 15 years, were opened at Agra, and in other parts of the country, and the contents readily consumed by the people, mixed with fresh grain ; some pits were also opened in Cantonments, of 23 years standing, in which, however, the contents were so rotten that they were ordered by the authorities to be thrown into the river. This condemned grain was collected, by the starving people from the river, or plundered from the carta that conveyed it there. Wheat keeps well in dry places for from 3 to 5 years only. But barley, jowar and gram keep for 10 years without injury. The immediate effect attributed by the people to using this damaged grain, was wasting of the body, with a tendency to purging, when wholesome food was resumed. The weather, as in 1856, also a cholera year, was variable with easterly winds, and clouds in the earlier part of the hot season, and there was very little of the regular hot west wind. The rains commenced on the 18th of June, and continued, with few intervals of clear weather, until the middle of September. The fall of rain has been greater, and the crops have been rnorj luxuriant, than in any year since I have been in India. The bajra cr^ usually from 5 to 6 feet high, were in many places from 12 to 14 leet big with grain heads from 14 to 16 inches long. It was unusually clour during the rainy season. There was much lightning and thunder, and falls of rain were frequently very heavy and partial ; for instance, there w a heavy fall of between two and three inches in Cantonments on the 30th May, and the 26th July, and only a slight shower at the Central Jail, where the meteoi'ological registers, that accompany this report, were kept by