36
Exempted tract-Cholera of 1869.
Districts.
Population
for which returns were received.
January.
February.
March.
April.
May.
June.
July.
August.
September.
October.
November.
December.
Total.
Madura
19,01,774
4
10
2
8
4
7
5
8
6
2
3
13
72
Tinnevelly
10,82,301
5
7
12
4
5
9
7
5
5
3
9
9
80
When we find the total of deaths in a district like Madura to be 18,688,
and cholera returned as the cause of death (and that too by unprofessional
reporters) in only 72 instances, we may fairly conclude that any epidemic
invasion of former years had died out, and that the so-called cholera deaths
were due, if correctly reported, to the ordinary cholera of the coast. And the
same observation holds good in regard to Tinnevelly District, in which only 80
out of 21,808 registered deaths are noted as due to cholera.
The Madura and Tinnevelly Districts with the Western Coast Districts
(including the Native territories of Travancore and Cochin) may be safely declared
an "exempted tract," so far as the cholera invasion of 1868-69 was concerned.
Salem and Coimba-
tore.
57. The districts of Coimbatore and Salem suffered in 1869 to a very limited
degree from an importation of cholera from the North
Arcot District to the eastward, in the month of September.
The particulars of the importation, so far as they could be ascertained, are
recorded at page 17 in the Cholera Report of 1869, and the following table shows
the monthly distribution of cholera in 1869:-
Districts.
Population
for which returns were received.
January.
February.
March.
April.
May.
June.
July.
August.
September.
October.
November.
December.
Total.
Coimbatore
13,93,582
2
...
...
1
1
1
4
3
8
64
60
60
204
Salem
16,19,233
4
3
3
17
...
2
2
...
20
36
129
81
297
It will be seen that the mortality began to increase in these districts in the
month of September, and it has been distinctly ascertained that the deaths were
confined chiefly to the villages in the neighbourhood of the Railway stations, to
which the first cases were traced.
Northern Districts.
58. We have yet to take cognizance of the condition of the northern districts
on the Eastern Coast in regard to cholera, and then the survey
will be complete up to the beginning of 1870.
Ganjam.
The Ganjam District abuts on the area mapped out by Bryden as the district
of endemic cholera, and it is undoubtedly true that it suffers
in common with the endemic district, as regards time and
season, but although invasion of the southern districts along the Eastern Coast
appears to have taken place in the epidemic of 1818, it has not been so, accord-
ing to my knowledge, on any other occasion of an invasion. During 1869, it is a
remarkable fact, that the influences invading from Ganjam southward, stopped
abruptly somewhere in the Vizagapatam District, the southern boundary of
which was not overstepped as will be seen in the following table:-