OFFICE OF SANITARY COMMISSIONER,
Madras, June 23rd, 1868.
From
W. MACKENZIE, Esq., C.B., C.S.I., President,
Colonel A. C. SILVER, } Cholera Committee ;
Surgeon-Major J. L. RANKING, }Members.
To
The Honorable R. S. ELLIS, C.B.,
Chief Secretary to Government,
Fort Saint George.
Subject of Report.
SIR,-In compliance with the instructions of Government as conveyed in
their Order No. 216, dated the 27th February 1867, the
subject of the arrangements which should be made for
giving practical effect in this Presidency to the recommen-
dations and suggestions of the International Sanitary Conference, has received our
careful attention, and we have the honor to submit the following observations thereon.
Result of enquiries.
2. We may premise that the result of our enquiries leads us to believe that
it is possible, by the enforcement of such regulations as we
propose, in some instances to prevent the origination, and
in others to check the dissemination, of epidemics of Cholera
similar to those which have, in past years, been such a fruitful source of the loss of
life among Civil and Military communities.
Cause of delay.
3. The very extended field of enquiry which presented itself to us will, we
trust, sufficiently excuse the unavoidable delay which has
occurred in the submission of the following remarks.
4. Before entering upon any considerations of the many circumstances
under which epidemic cholera is originated and caused to spread in India, we consider
it advisable to submit briefly to Government the various questions investigated by
the Constantinople International Sanitary Commission, as the conclusions arrived at are
the bases upon which our several recommendations are founded.
Dr. Leith's Abstract
5. The catechetical abstract of the labors of the Cholera Commission given
below is copied almost verbatim from an abstract of their
proceedings and reports, compiled by Dr. A. H. Leith, then
President of the Sanitary Commission, Bombay. We gladly
avail ourselves of the opportunity of recording our high sense of the value of his work,
in which is contained, in a small compass, all the most valuable conclusions arrived at
by the Conference, with the principal arguments and statements of facts upon which
those conclusions are based.