of India; in 1756 at Arcot, just west of Madras; in 1768 at Pondicherry, south of Madras; in 1777 at the mouth of the Ganges; in 1780 at Tranquebar, south of Madras; in 1781 at Juggernaut, south of Calcutta, and at Ganjam, near Juggernaut. It did not reach Calcutta, from Juggernaut, till 1782; nor Madras from Juggernaut till 1783, from whence it was carried to Trincomalee on the east coast of Ceylon also in 1783.

In 1783, too, it was at Hurdwar far up north at the foot of the Himalaya mountains at one of the great twelve-year festivals. In 1790 it was again at Juggernaut, near Chilka Lake, to which the idols of Juggernaut had been taken for safety against the Mohammedans who were besieging Juggernaut. It may be noticed here that the twelve-year Juggernaut festivals precede those of Hurd war and some other places by two years. The Juggernaut festivals fell in the year 1781; those of Hurdwar in 1783. The frequent outbreaks about Madras were connected with the festivals at Arcot, Vellore, Conjiveram, etc., near by, as we will see hereafter.

One of the earliest English accounts is by Dr. Paisley of Madras, in 1774. He writes to Dr. Curtis: "I am glad you caused the army to change its camping ground, for there is no doubt the soiled ground contributed to the frequency and violence of the attacks of this dangerous disease, true cholera, which is the same we had at Trincomalee. It is often epidemic among the natives: in our first campaign it was terribly fatal among them, and fifty European soldiers also died. I have met with many cases since." The only claim of Calcutta and Bengal to priority in cholera is that given by Macnamara who says, "there was a temple to Oola Beebee, or the Goddess of cholera, near Calcutta, in 1720, which is visited by pilgrims to this day every Tuesday and Saturday, especially from April to June, in cholera times. The pilgrims fast in the morning, dine at two o'clock, when they eat crushed rice and a preparation of milk, and pay the priests."

The most suggestive early outbreak, which should have attracted more attention long ago was among Colonel Pearse's 5,000 troops marching in March, 1781, at Ganjam, near Juggernaut. He reports that in addition to those who died, there were 500 in hospital, on March 22, and says: "Death raged in the camp, with a horror not to be described, and all expected to be destroyed by the pestilence. I first attributed it to poison, but soon found there had been a pestilential disease raging among the natives in the parts through which our marches lay, and that part of our camp was drinking in death and destruction. In a few days, 1143 men were in hospital; but on March 26th there were only 908, and on the first of April the army was able to march again, leaving 300 convalescents behind." The supreme government report adds: "the pestilence found its way to Calcutta, chiefly affecting the native inhabitants with great mortality, and is also pursuing its course to the northward." This is the first authentic account of a Juggernaut cholera carried to Calcutta. It has since been repeated so frequently that the words: "cholera raging at Juggernaut, and beginning in Calcutta," are almost stereotyped. This epidemic was carried far up to the north, reinforced by pilgrimages to Gaya, just below Benares, to Benares, and Allahabad at the junction of the Ganges and Jumna rivers; and so on to Hurdwar, which it reached in 1783, as before said, at the great twelfth-year pilgrimage, which takes place there two years after the great twelfth-year pilgrimages to Juggernaut: for among the Hindoo priests there is the same rivalry as among the opposing sects of Persians, Arabians, Mohammedans, and among Catholics and Protestants, and Mohammedans and Israelites. At Hurdwar in

April, 1783, in less than eight days, 20,000 pilgrims were cut off by cholera. How much further to the north it went no one knows.

But from Ganjam and Juggernaut it also went south with Col. Pearse's troops, and by infected natives to Madras. Dr. Girdlestone remarks: "Spasms of the bowels were the first disease which appeared among the European troops at Madras in October, 1782. More than fifty of these men were killed by them in the first three days after they arrived; and in less than three months upward of 1,000 had suffered from these complaints." He says there was coldness of the skin, especially of the hands; feebleness of the pulse, spasmodic contractions of the legs, coldness of the hands and feet, which were sodden with cold sweats, lividness of the nails, cold breath, insatiable thirst, and incessant vomitings, terminating in speedy death if not checked. By May, 1782, cholera had been carried to the English fleet at Trincomalee, on the east coast of Ceylon, and the Frenchman Sonnerat says it prevailed along the Coromandel, or east coast of India, especially in the neighborhood of Madras, from 1772 to 1782.'

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In 1796 Fra Paolino Bartholomeo published at Rome a curious account of cholera on the west or Malabar coast,and says it was there called Nircouben in the Malabar language, Mordexin in Sanscrit, and not Mort de Chien or dogs death," as it is called by Sonnerat. He says, "It is most frequent in October, November and December, when the cold winds come from the ocean loaded with salt and nitre: while on the east or Coromandel coast it is most common in April and May, when it often carries off thirty or forty persons in one village in one night. In 1782 it prevailed with terrible ferocity and destroyed an enormous number of people." None of these writers seemed to recognize the horrible filthiness of the Hindoo villages, but only talk about rains, winds, malaria, soil, heat and what not.

The Rev. Father Sangermano says it prevailed in Burmah far east of the Bay of Bengal in 1783.

It will be seen from the accompanying map that cholera did not originate in Bengal or Jessore in 1817, as is usually supposed.

It was noticed on the west coast of India long before it was seen on the east coast. It was felt at Calicut, Goa, Bombay and Surat, on the west coast, nearly two hundred years before it was recorded at Calcutta, Jessore, or Madras, on the east coast.

The same holds true to-day: Calcutta and Bengal unfortunately have not a monopoly of cholera, but all India is possessed with it. The Bengal official reports and maps indicate that there was no cholera in Bombay except occasionally, and then only when derived from Bengal previous to 1855. (See table of mortality for Bombay.)

The whole of this great epidemic of 1781 to 1783 was a great twelve-year festival outbreak, such as we will see was supplemented in 1817, or three times twelve years afterward; and extended from Juggernaut on the middle east coast to Calcutta and Hurdwar in the north; down to Madras and Ceylon in the southeast, and also over to the west or Bombay coast. The details of this epidemic are almost the counterparts of those which will now be given of the great out

break in 1817.

CHAPTER II.

THE GREAT EPIDEMIC OF 1817.

IN 1808 there were only five cases among the European troops; in 1811, 1812, and 1813, no less than twenty-nine cases at Chunar; and in 1814 there were deaths at Cawnpore, Nagpore, Benares, and finally at Dinapore near Calcutta-in all forty-six cases. In 1815 and 1816 there were no cases reported among the English soldiers. In short, from 1503 to 1817 there were no less than ten epidemic outbursts in India, so that it was no new thing for cholera to spread wide over the country; but there were so few Europeans dwelling there that they were not made public. Besides, no medical board was established till 1786, and its reports were not published till 1818.

The great epidemic of 1817 is usually supposed to have commenced in August at Jessore in the Sunderbunds, northeast of Calcutta and near the great city of Dacca, at the confluence of the Ganges and large Brahmapootra rivers. But it was only more severe at Jessore, and they were more frightened and made a greater outcry. Cholera was at Patna and Mymensing, far above Calcutta, in July; and was so severe in Calcutta itself in July that the government board returned word to the Jessore authorities that their pestilence was only the usual epidemic of the season, which had already been more fatal in the native or "black" town of Calcutta than at any former period in the recollection of the oldest inhabitants. And it was probable that no considerable town in the low and humid climate of Bengal was entirely exempt from it (Macnamara).

Still Dr. Barnes of Jessore threw much light upon the causes of the outbreak. He says:

"They are not to be mistaken, although they are too extensive to be brought under human control. Putrid exhalations from the constant and rapid decomposition of animal and vegetable matter and the use of unwholesome water, are the sole causes. The atmosphere of Bengal is close, heavy, and moist; and the thermometer never lower than 75° F. from March to November." "In such a climate," continues Barnes, "any person acquainted with the materials that accumulate in Hindoo towns and villages, and with the crowded, filthy and unventilated state of the houses and streets, must be satisfied that these, of all others, are the conditions most favorable for the infection and at times even contagion. The huts of the poorer natives were surrounded with every kind of nastiness as well as stagnant water, and the exhalations from them were at times almost insupportable."

Dr. Barnes did not place much stress upon mere swamp malaria, but much upon what is now called "civic malaria." While he had so much filth directly under his eyes and nose, he troubled himself little about east winds, subsoil water, the barometer, or the so-called epidemic constitution

of the air. He found enough on the surface of the earth without digging deeper or soaring higher.

The pestilence advanced so rapidly up the Ganges and over Bengal that by October, 1817, it had covered 195,935 square miles, and within this vast area the inhabitants of scarcely a single village or town had escaped its deadly influence. It had passed Benares, and reached the great distributing city of Mirzapore, near Allahabad, to the south of which the Marquis of Hastings' army of 10,000 men and 70,000 camp followers was moving still further south. Cholera commenced among the native camp followers with 97 deaths on November 13th, and the Marquis then said: "There is an opinion that the water of the tanks, the only water we have, is unwholesome; therefore I will move to the river Pohooj, though I have 1,000 sick." Nov. 15 he writes: "We crossed the river this morning. The march was terrible from the number of poor creatures falling sick from sudden attacks; and the quantities of those who have died in the wagons, whose bodies had to be thrown out without burial to make room for the new-comers; 500 died since sunset yesterday, ten of my body servants among them. The ground is sandy and porous, and there is an abatement of the contagion. Still numbers of dead and dying meet the eye in every direction. Nov. 17: The surgeons wish me to remain another day, but the stream is too small for our wants, and is muddy. I think of moving to the river Betwah, which is large and limpid. Nov. 19: we marched fifteen miles to this broad, clear stream which has lofty banks, and there is a favorable change. Nov. 21 there is an unquestionable improvement; no one can comprehend my sensations on hearing laughter in the camp this morning for the first time." The disease disappeared like magic; but not before over 12,000 had died.

The Marquis's account is one of the most graphic and touching that has ever been given. He says, after creeping about, as usual, for some time among the lower classes of camp followers, it suddenly burst forth with irresistible violence in every direction. The natives deserted in great numbers, and the highways and fields for many miles around were strewn with their dead bodies. The line of march of the white troops soon presented a most deplorable spectacle. The greater part of the sick were left behind, although all the baggage and ammunition were thrown away and the carts taken to swell the number of ambulances. Many who left the wagons, pressed by the sudden calls of the disease, were unable to rise again, and were necessarily abandoned. Hundreds dropped down at every day's advance, and more were left behind at every night's halt. The places of encampment and lines of route presented the appearance of a deadly battle-field and the track of an army retreating under every circumstance of defeat and discomfiture. He gave instructions, if he should die himself, that his body should be buried privately in his own tent to prevent a panic among his troops. Some of his own table servants had dropped down while waiting upon him and his staff. We are here reminded of the sudden outbreak in Col. Pearse's army, near Juggernaut, in 1781, and in Col. Crockett's force near the same place in 1790.

A considerable force of Madras troops was marching up from the south to join the Marquis of Hastings. It had suffered many privations and much fatigue and excessive heat, but had had no cholera until it got to Nagpore in central India, where we have seen cholera had been in 1666. Col. Adams had scarcely heard that the pestilence was in his vicinity before his troops, which were in high health, were attacked, especially while loitering for

water at the neighboring rivulets; seventy were seized the first day and more than twenty died the first night.

From Nagpore the great high-road southwest to Bombay, by way of Jaulnah, Aurungabad and Poonah, was soon involved by the troops, in spite of a strong southwest monsoon which was blowing directly from the Arabian sea.

In the meantime troops were also being sent up from Bombay toward central India, and pilgrims going to the great festival at Punderpoor, below Bombay, crossed their line of march. A great outbreak took place and 3,000 pilgrims died in the course of a few days, and the rest on their dispersion carried the pestilence in every direction. Punderpoor has often since played a great part in the Bombay epidemics.

The progress of cholera from Nagpore, in central India, down to Bombay had been carefully watched and traced from city to city and village to village, creeping or even jumping along by the arrival of persons from places known to be infected. Some towns escaped for months where this sort of communication was not frequent, or the water supply was good. It was pronounced capable of transportation from place to place. It was regarded as infectious, but only under some peculiarities of the constitution of the patient, or of the local conditions of the place, or of its water supply. Surgeon Coats thought if it was occasioned by some general distemperature of the air it would have spread over the country with more regularity, and have attacked all parts of a town more equally. But it seemed only to travel over roads, and when the population was scanty and the intercourse slight its progress was slow.

The Presidency of Bengal contains much more than one-half of the whole population of India. The valley of the Ganges is perhaps the most populous in the world and has the greatest number of large towns, cities and villages. The pilgrimages to every part of the Ganges are numerous and even almost incessant. Hence the progress of cholera in Bengal seemed confused and indeterminate. But as soon as it reached central India, where the population is sparser and the roads fewer, and every objective point was watched by intelligent and responsible army surgeons, the more or less regular and progressive advance of the pestilence was at once noted, and that it marched even against the most powerful monsoons and winds.

Cholera prevailed in the Bombay Presidency in 1818, 1819, 1820 and 1821, and over 150,000 town and country people died of it. During these years it also traversed almost the whole of India. From Allahabad, a somewhat central city toward the north, it was carried up to Lucknow, Oude, Delhi, Hurdwar, Lodiana, Lahore, and even to Peshawur in the extreme northwest.

From Nagpore, in the very center of India, it went directly south to Hyderabad, Bejapoor, Gooty, Bangalore, Seringapatam, Mysore, Bellary, Madura, and down nearly to Cape Cormorin, the southernmost point of India.

From Juggernaut it traveled down the east coast to Madras against the heaviest winds and the southeast monsoon, and was carried in ships over to Trincomalee in Ceylon, and from thence in ships to Mauritius and Madagascar.

From Calcutta it was sent northeast by land toward Burmah and China, and southeast to Batavia, Java, and the Philippine Islands and to China in ships. No winds could have carried it throughout the Eastern Archipel