Notes on the origin, nature, prevention, and treatment of Asiatic cholera / by John C. Peters.

  • Peters, John C. (John Charles), 1819-1893.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on the origin, nature, prevention, and treatment of Asiatic cholera / by John C. Peters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    37/256 (page 19)
    from the Himalayas, is equally with Oonjeiveram and Eamiese- weram, a source of annual danger. From these centres, cholera almost always accompanies the homeward-bound pilgrims or traders, and the gradual dispersion of the travellers is the im- mediate means of distributing and propagating the disease, if it has seized them. The villages on then- route are visited, and as free intercourse with the villagers and frequent access to the crowded and imhealthy bazaars are inevitable and cannot be controlled, great diffusion of cholera results. The public roads and thoroughfares become saturated with elements of disease, and dangerous to troops or private travellers who are exposed to their emanations. We have but to recollect the numberless instances of cholera imported into moving camj s or attacking private individuals to recognize the facility with which passers-by are often found to succumb under this con- tagion. Supplies have to be obtained from villages already infected by the pilgrims, and even the slight amoimt of inter- course thus arising may implicate the safety of a whole com- mand. But, in addition to this explanation of seizures of cholera among soldiers, and independent of the predisposing causes which traveUing itself originates, it is no fancied con- clusion to infer that if troops pass near or even rest for a short time upon tainted camping grounds, they become the victims of disease. Of this latter point a sad proof was given within the hmits of the Madras presidency, at least as affecting some of its army, for, on the breaking up of the Sangar divis- ion in 1860, many of the regiments, returning to their own stations, crossed the route of the pUgrims who had gone to and returned from Ramieseweram, and in numerous instances they were attacked with cholera. This was no rare coinci- dence, but occurred with such frequency and precision