Anticholeraic inoculation during an outbreak of cholera in the Darbhanga Jail / by E. Harold Brown.

  • Brown, Edwin Harold, 1861-
Date:
[1896]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anticholeraic inoculation during an outbreak of cholera in the Darbhanga Jail / by E. Harold Brown. 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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    chance of propagation by contact in cases 1 and 2, 2 and 3, or 1 and 3 ; these prisoners were as far apart as they could be, occupying different wards at night, and being in no way associated during the day. Case No. 1 had been employed in the outside garden ; No. 2 had been making string in the B class yard, and No. 3 had been an in- side mehter in the A class. Case No. 1 occurred on the 31st of March, No. 2 on the 3rd, and No. 3 on the 6th of April. On the evening of the last-named day a fourth case occurred from Ward No. 3, in the B class barracks, and here, again, no connection could be established between that and the previous cases. After this the admissions for cholera became numerous, there being one on the 7th, another on the 8th, and two on the 9th. There were thus eight cases up to the 9th of April; and, of these, the first seven had occurred in as many different wards in the jail. This seemed to clearly indicate not a general contamination of the food or the drink- ing water, but a dissemination of the poison by some agency in such amanner as to infect separate individuals or localised spots; and this dissemi- nation, as Dr. Macrae of Gaya suggested not long ago, might have been caused by flies which, having come in contact with a cholera evacuation, happened, subsequently, to aligbt either on a plate of food or a vessel of water, contaminating it. As so many of the buildings had furnished cases, it seemed probable that there might be a general outburst of the disease at any moment, so it was decided to evacuate the jail, and, on the 10th of April, 172 prisoners were moved into camp twelve miles away, 53 being left behind, these being the sick in the jail hospital, the patients in the cholera huts, with their attend- ants, the old and infirm and a few cooks and sweepers.