Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/772

752 and in the drinking-water theory, speaks as follows: "On the night of April 11th and on the following day a severe storm burst upon the unsheltered multitude. Only those who know what a storm on the mountains in the tropics is can have any conception what a night of misery these three millions of people suffered on the open plains of Hardwar. This fall of rain must have washed the contents of the closets and the filth on the surface of the earth into the Ganges." And Macnamara believes that on April 12th the pilgrims drank cholera from the Ganges; but Macnamara is wrong. Granted that the storm had really washed the cholera-stools into the Ganges, then the stools must have remained either in the river itself or else in the holy fort, just as was the case in Koch's water-tank. It is true I can find no numerical observations concerning the rapidity of the flow of the Ganges in Hardwar; but if we suppose that its i-ate is like that of the Seine in Paris at low water—i. e., half a foot per second—then the water would move at the rate of 1,800 feet an hour. The railed-off fort in which the pilgrims bathed is 650 feet long by thirty feet wide, and if the bathing lasted twelve hours, and if only a third part of the pilgrims had bathed, then more than 83,000 persons must have hourly passed through the water; this was impossible, so that only a small proportion of the pilgrims could have bathed on April 12th. These places of pilgrimage are also colossal markets and great places of business. It does not support the drinking-water theory to assume that, during the bathing of the 12th, cholera bacilli did not get into the holy fort from cases of cholera which would hardly be in a condition to bathe, but from cases of diarrhœa. Either a few of the bathers were, to start with, infected, and so large numbers could not be infected until the bacilli had become distributed, or, if a large number were infected at the outset, we naturally inquire where the infection was taken, and whether there was no possibility of their having been infected before going to the bath. While I do not believe that the pilgrims drank death from the holy stream, yet I shall not maintain that the stormy weather had nothing to do with the cause of the epidemic. Cases of this kind have occurred outside India, as in Malta and Spezia in Italy, v/here a sudden storm has sent up the death-rate in an explosive fashion. But if a weather-storm can create a "cholera-storm," then the cholera must be existent in the soil. One is reminded by this invasion of cholera of the clouds of dust which the watering-carts raise in summer. If the earth is very dry, the water not only lays but makes dust. I can conceive how a sudden heavy fall of rain may rapidly drive out the infective stuff contained in the soil. But Hardwar had experienced bad weather in other years on the same days in April without being followed by such evil consequences.

How does the journey of the pilgrim act in the spread of cholera? That infection can occur in a short space of time is witnessed in soldiers on the march. A case from Bryden's work may be quoted. In