(109)
Cholera in Bengal Proper in 1876.
The high mortality reached in November and December this year is
not usual in Bengal, and is attributed to the effects of the cyclone in
the Eastern Bengal. These diagrams show that in Bengal and Orissa,
consisting of flat low-lying, muddy plains, the former intersected by the
lower course of the Ganges and Brahmaputra, and the latter by the Maha-
naddi-there are two periods in which cholera prevails with great severity, viz.,
from March to May in Bengal and March to July in Orissa, during which it
attains maximum intensity; and again from October to December in both
Bengal and Orissa, when it prevails with diminished severity, and that the
remaining months are months of subsidence after each period of its seasonal
activity. That in Bihar and Chota Nagpur, both of which are comparatively
high and dry, there is only one period of intense prevalence of cholera; viz.,
from March to July in Bihar and March to August in Chota Nagpur; and
that during the remaining months the prevalence of the disease is com-
paratively mild. That, as a general rule, the disease prevails least when the
rainfall is heaviest, and has submerged or is moving on through the
country, particularly in Bengal. "Whether cholera has a special poison
of its own, has not yet been demonstrated. If there be one, it is not
communicable ordinarily from the living subject, first, because inoculation
with fresh cholera secretions or excretions does not induce it; second,
because those who rub cholera patients' skins, wash their clothes, scrape up,
clean, carry, and bury their excreta, or dissect, carry, and bury the cholera
corpses, do not get it; and lastly, cholera-collapsed mothers do not com-
municate the disease to their sucking infants; though the latter pull at
their breasts, lie on their sweat-covered arms, and on their soiled clothes
and bedding. That cholera evacuations, whether in clothes, soil, water,
food, &c., do become virulent, and do, especially when taken into the
system by the mouth, give rise to cholera, I have no manner of doubt;
but I am equally satisfied that cholera constantly arises de novo, and that in
both cases the disease is intimately connected with the changes that occur in
decaying organic matters. The most ready entrance of the disease into the
system is by water impregnated with decaying organic matters. This water
soon loses this power when the decaying changes are completed, and re-acquires
it when fresh decaying matters find their way into it. I do not know of any
of the phenomena associated with the origin and spread, the seasonal and
local prevalence of, and the persons affected with the disease, with which the