2
dryness of site are therefore shown to be no protection against the invasion of the
disease: and in your words-" it would appear that the infecting matter of
cholera cannot be always developed in the soil, for in the sites of these villages
(those on a trap formation) generally, moisture and sub-soil water and even soil
are non-existent." You go on to state and support your opinion that a water
supply containing organic impurities is the chief if not the sole condition under
which cholera manifests itself."
5. The Officiating Chief Commissioner thinks that you make out a very strong
case in support of your views. Impure water you consider predisposes persons-
who imbibe it-to cholera ; but in order to produce cholera a special contagion is
necessary. What you assert is this, that " cholera will not prevail epidemically
among the population of a tract of country where the water-supply is abundant
and fairly protected from pollution."
6. In therefore remarking on the measures which should be taken to prevent
the diffusion of the contagion, and remove the conditions under which per-
sonal susceptibility to contagion is induced, you lay by far the most stress on
measures tending to produce the latter result, and above all on the procuring a
sufficient and pure supply of water for every village and town. The diffusion of
contagion can only be prevented by quarantine, and the impossibility of estab-
lishing and maintaining a strict quarantine is admitted by you. Anything less
than strict quarantine is of no avail.
7. A pure water-supply everywhere is then the great desideratum. Your
proposal is to have " a well 30 feet deep, situated well away from nullahs and
tanks that collect surface drainage, lined with masonry, in good repair, with a
coping wall laid above the surface of the ground, and containing 4 feet of water
in the hot weather. I should fix this as the standard of water-supply to be
aimed at for villages, the number of such wells to be in the proportion of 1 for
every 150 or 200 of the population."
8. You are aware that during the past year advantage was taken of the wells
running dry, to deepen and repair them, and that many new wells were also
made. The importance of the subject was fully realized and much was done by
the local authorities in many districts The Officiating Chief Commissioner
will draw the special attention of District Officers to the remarks made in the
295th para. of your report, and they will be requested to calln Malgoozars and
others to exert themselves in procuring for their villages such a water-supply as
shall be pure, and sufficient for the wants of the inhabitants. An inspecting
establishment such as you think necessary to report on the sanitary condition and
water-supply of every village annually, cannot, the officiating Chief Commissioner
fears, be sanctioned at the present time, but the Officiating Chief Commissioner
is of opinion that much may be done by District Officers. You yourself bear
testimony to the fact that the general immunity of towns in the districts in which
cholera prevailed, as compared with villages, is in a great measure to be attri-
buted to the conservancy which has of late years been introduced by the District
Officers. Hitherto more attention has perhaps been paid to the cleanliness of the
surface in towns and other places, than to preserving from contamination the wells
and other sources of the water. This particular point will now attract greater
notice, and the Officiating Chief Commissisioner feels sure that good results will
be obtained.
9. There are many interesting questions treated in your report on which
perhaps much might be said, but special knowledge would be necessary to deal
with them in a satisfactory manner. The Officiating Chief Commissioner has
therefore merely noticed briefly the results at which you have arrived and their