Page:A treatise on Asiatic cholera.djvu/47

 DECLINE OF CHOLERA IN INDIA IN 1820-21. 31

and Berhampore. From Madras we have similar evidence of reproduced cliolera, more or less severe, over tlie whole Presidency, and here and there it was generated with great virulence.* At the close of the year 1820, we hear of the disease at Mhow,t a station north of the Yindhya Mountains, and well to the west of India.

The history of the cholera of 1821 points distinctly to the fact of its becoming more localised in its in- fluence in India than it had been at any period sub- sequent to 1817 ; it was generated, however, with con- siderable activity throughout its endemic area in Lower Bengal, Ganjam,J Bombay, and, from time to time, at almost every station throughout the Madras Presidency, but the cases were by no means so numerous or severe as in 1820. The Nerbudda field force again suffered severely from cholera, the disease evidently still re- taining much of its former energy in the western part of the peninsula ; for not only do we hear of it at Mhow and along the valley ' of the Nerbudda, but also in Bombay, where, from the 28rd to the 28th of May, 235 deaths occurred from cholera, and, as usual in this part of India, the disease " increased in severity during August and September." §

In the mean time, cholera had extended both south- ward and eastward of India, — Ceylon, Arracan, and the Burmese empire being under its influence in 1819. During the following year the country of Siam was absolutely devastated by cholera; it appeared about the same time in Malacca and Singapore. It broke


 * ' Madras Cholera Report,' p. vii.

t ' MS. rroceeding of the Bengal Medical Board ' for the year 1820, vol. ii.

X ' Madras Cholera Report.' § ' Calcutta Journal ' for 1821.