Page:A treatise on Asiatic cholera.djvu/317

Rh disseminated the material that causes cholera over the globe, it has been and is in her power, as ruling over the endemic area of the disease, to prevent her native subjects from extending this terrible pestilence beyond the confines of British India.

Some of the earliest records we possess upon the subject of cholera refer to the supposed influence of the wind over the disease. Era Bartolomeo in 1796 says, that the natives on the Malabar coast believed that cholera was caused by the cold winds from the Ghauts. In more precise accounts of the disease, as, for instance, that of Dr. MacRae in 1818 (Appendix A), we find great stress laid on the intimate connection between the east wind and cholera. The Bengal Medical Board, in their report on the cholera of 1817-18, confirmed this view, although they hesitated to express an opinion as to the nature of the apparent connection between cholera and the easterly wind; they supposed it might either be the vehicle of the poisonous matter, or act merely "from its superior moisture in the light of a strong exciting cause, eliciting the disorder in places where the virus had previously existed, although it were not yet brought into action." But the Board expressly stated their belief, that of all the predisposing causes to cholera, the one most frequently and unmistakably in operation