72
EXTENSION OF CHOLERA TO TRAVANCORE.
83. I have already alluded to the circumstance that the cholera epidemic
passed into Travancore, and that its progress in this direction was arrested by the
mountain barrier existing between Tinnevelly and Travancore-a barrier rising
in some parts to 4,000 or 5,000 feet in height, the higher plateaus consisting of
dense forests, some portions of which are not only uninhabited, but, to this day,
have never been explored.
Report of Physician
to the Maharajah of
Travancore.
It bears strongly on the question of the movement of cholera, that a barrier
of this nature should cut off cholera completely from an adjoining district, and
that invasion should occur only in places where the barrier is weak (i. e., by a
mountainous pass, or highway for human intercourse) or altogether wanting, as
at the extreme south of the district where the coast lines of Travancore and
Tinnevelly are continuous. I have received no detailed account of the general
progress of cholera in Travancore, though such has been
promised by the Physician to His Highness the Maharajah of
Travancore, who meanwhile has favoured me with the following
"conclusions" from the facts before him:-
"1st.-The disease invaded Travancore from Tinnevelly through the Aram-
booli Pass, and by the plain to the south of the end of the ghaut line, and lying
between it and the sea."
"2nd.-It spread following the streams of human intercourse." [With
reference to this I may remark that it pursued generally a northward course
up the Western Coast. It only reached the latitude of Cannanore in any force
about the end of January 1871.]
"3rd.-In almost every case occurring in Trevandrum, the origin of the
disease was traced to contact or approach either to infected persons, or persons
who had been in contact with, or in the neighbourhood of, persons suffering from
the disease.
"4th.-It was in no way affected by the aerial currents, by the weight of
the column of air, nor (in Trevandrum) by the occurrence of heavy rain."
"5th.-The presence of abundant organic matter intensified the disease
greatly."
CHOLERA IN MALABAR.
Fish diet & Cholera.
84. By the end of the year cholera had advanced through the Travancore
and Cochin States, and had become prevalent on the banks of the Ponnany river,
and had extended up the coast so far north as Cannanore. In some few villages
the epidemic caused considerable mortality, but it was not very fatal to the
general population. The Palghaut Talook lying under the mountains of the
Western Ghauts suffered more than any other part of the district and here the
disease became active early in the year. A report from the Collector of Malabar
on an outbreak in a fishing village near Quilandy is appended. The question as
to the influence of a fish diet in the production of a choleraic
type of diarrhœa, and the connexion between the mortality of
fish on the coast and the ordinary coast cholera, is here opened up, but the
facts are still under investigation, and I shall defer commenting upon them until
another opportunity.
The following table will show the particulars of cholera mortality in each
talook of Malabar:-