Constitutional Whig

MISCELLANEOUS.
PROGRESS OF THE INDIAN CHOLERA.

We give to-day a very interesting article from the May number of the Englishman's Magazine, upon the progress of the Indian Cholera, or, as it is commonly called, Cholera Morbus. By this it will be perceived that that dreadful scourge commenced its career as early as 1817, and that it has for fourteen years been travelling through Asia to Europe, where it now is, with every prospect of soon invading France and England, from whence to this country its transmission by means of our commercial intercourse will be facile and rapid. We shall to-morrow give a second article from the same work, upon its nature and cure, in which a lively picture of its effects is drawn by the writer which fell under his personal inspection in India. We earnestly recommend this subject to the attention of our municipal authorities, that precautionary measures may be promptly adopted on its first appearance in England. A strict quarantine and due attention to cleanliness may do much to prevent its approach in its most malignant form: since these have been effected in certain cases. But the firm, unwavering step with which it has conducted its terrible march in the east., unobstructed by hills and floods, and stopping only at the thickly populated cities, to gorge its appetite with a third of its inhabitants, and then passing on like some famished monster to another, again to renew its feast upon its trembling victims, leaves us but little to hope from the interposition between us of the wide Atlantic. A single ship would suffice to convey it hither, and out of the many hundreds traversing the ocean, and some of them sailing from the very ports infected by it, may not one carry contagion in its hold? We would not wish to create unnecessary alarm, but a salutary caution is not to be neglected. It is a scourge which seems destined to visit every portion of the globe, as well from the facility as the certainty of its progress, which is affected neither by distance nor climate, and we have no right to claim an exemption from its visitation, while we continue to hold an intercourse with the scene of its ravages.--Standard.

From the Englishman's Magazine.
PROGRESS OF THE INDIAN CHOLERA.

Indian or Spasmodic Cholera, is a plague of modern origin. It is in its principal symptoms also altogether unlike the English cholera, yet many persons not acquainted with the nature of both species, have confounded them. In Hindostan, Spasmodic Cholera has probably always existed as a comparatively mild climatic disease, affecting at certain seasons of the year a small number of individuals in various parts of the country. But there is no evidence to show that it ever bore the epidemic character until the year 1817. However this question may be disposed of, it is at least certain that the Indian Cholera was not entitled to be classed with pestilential scourges of the worst description, previous to the beginning of August, 1817, when it suddenly broke out with unprecedented malignity.

Commencing among the inhabitants of Jessore, a town 100 miles N. E. of Calcutta, in less than a month it travelled along the course of the river to that city, having desolated the intervening villages. Before the expiration of August, the native population of Calcutta were attacked, and early in Sept. the disease was also manifested among the Europeans.

From January to May 1818, the pestilence raged with extreme violence, extending its destructive influence across Bengal, from Silhet to Cuttack, and towards the interior, from the mouth of the Ganges to its confluence with the Jumna, a space including 450 square miles.

Leaving Bengal the disease retired for some time to the western bank of the Ganges and Jumna. In its most malignant form it appeared at Benares, where in two months 15,000 persons perished. At Allahabad forty or fifty died daily. To other locations situated on either bank the disease soon spread, and the mortality was equally great. In the district of Gorrakpore 30,000 were carried off in one month. Then suffered in succession Lucknow, Cawnpore, Delhi, Agra, Mutra, Meerat and Bareilly.

Between the 6th and 7th of November, the epidemic had reached the grand army, which, on the approach of the Pindarreawar, had been concentrated at Jubbulpore, Mundellah and Sauger, under the command of the Marquis of Hastings. It consisted of 10,000 troops, and 80,000 followers. To the different divisions of this force the Cholera proved more fatally effective than could the shot of the enemy in a well-contested field. In twelve days, nearly 3000 men had fallen to rise no more. At this time the thermometer ranged from 90° to 100 Fahrenheit. The heat was moist and suffocating, and the atmosphere a dead calm. The progress of the Cholera in the centre division of the army was as follows:-After creeping insidiously for a few days among the lower classes of the camp followers, it seemed instantaneously to gain fresh vigour, breaking out with irresistible force in every direction. Previous to the 11th it had overspread the camp, sparing neither age nor sex in the indiscriminating violence of its attack. The old and the young, the European and the native, fighting men, and camp-followers were alike selected, and all equally sank within its death-grasp. From the 11th to the 20th, the mortality had become so extensive that the stoutest hearts were yielding to despair. The camp wore the aspect of a general hospital. The medical officers night and day at their posts, were no longer able to administer to the numerous sick who continued to pour in from every quarter. The Cholera now directed its course across the Deccan, advancing, in many instances, at the rate of fifteen or eighteen miles a day, and remaining at various posts during a period of from two to six weeks. In this way it reached Husseinabad, where the mortality was frightful for several days. It then followed to the banks of the Nerbuddah to Tanah, and afterwards traversed to Aurungabad, Ahmednugger, and Poonah. Taking the direction of the coast, it arrived at Bombay, August, 1818, having crossed the Indian Peninsular in twelve months from the date of its appearance in Calcutta.

We have thus been able to trace the footsteps of this destructive traveller through the country of its birth. Its measured rate of progression, and the occasional halts which it made for definite periods in thickly inhabited towns, are worthy of remark, as the epidemic still retains these characteristics. Like a nascent river, its course has been at times direct or devious, uniform or temporarily interrupted, appearing at various places, not at the same period, but in succession, either by the gradual advance of the main current, or of some of its distributive branches.

While the interior of Hindostan was submitting to this, the pestilence had spread along the coast of Malabar and Coromandel, reaching Madras the 5th of October. With its progress here, a new and alarming feature was developed. The possibility of transporting the contagion by sea was evinced in its transit from Coromandel to the Island of Ceylon. In Candy, the capital, it broke out, December, 1818, with even greater violence than upon the Continent.

By the 15th September, 1819, Mauritius was included in the islands infected. The disease did not appear until after the arrival of the Topaz frigate from Ceylon, where the epidemic was then raging. The vessel at the time of sailing seemed healthy, but during the passage the Cholera appeared among the crew. In Port Louis fifty persons died daily. The malady, however, was chiefly confined to the coast; for though the deaths in the hospital of the town amounted to 91 cases of 133, on the plantations the mortality was not higher than ten or fifteen per cent.

In the adjacent island of Bourbon, the disease began early in December, 1819. The governor had adopted measures to interdict all communication with Mauritius; but notwithstanding this, two boats from the different islands held clandestine intercourse, and the contagion was imported. Of 257 persons seized with the distemper, 178 died.

During the last six months of 1819, the cholera, pursuing its route to the south and east, had also invaded the Indo-Chinese Peninsula. Siam received more than a proportional share of misfortune. In Bankok alone 40,000 individuals are said to have fallen victims. The contagion marched on to Malacca and Singapore. By the end of April it was announced on the northern coast of Java. During May it extended with violence in the interior of this island.

Cochin China and Tonquin were invaded in 1820. In December, of the same year, it entered China, beginning its ravages at Canton. Pekin admitted the enemy in 1821, and during that and the following year the mortality was so enormous, that coffins and other funeral requisites were necessarily furnished at the expense of the public treasury, for the interment of the poorer classes. Numbers of people engaged in the pursuit of business or pleasure, riding or walking, were seen to fall in the streets, exhausted by the sudden impression of the disease, which carried them in a few hours afterwards to eternity.

We shall now return to Bombay, and describe the course which the epidemic took to the north and west, in its approaches from that island towards the confines of Europe; and the route by which at last it was enabled to traverse the Russian empire, threatening, in the present day, the neighboring European States.

In July, 1821, through the intercourse maintained by ships trading between Bombay and Muscat. in Arabia, the contagion was exported to the latter. Here the disease destroyed 60,000 persons Many expired in minutes after the accession. The Cholera now spread to different parts of the Persian Gulf to Bahrein, Bushire, and Bassora. In Bassora 18,000 individuals perished, of whom 14,000 died in a fortnight.

From the Persian Gulf the Cholera extended inland. in two directions, following the line of commercial intercourse. On one hand it ascended the Euphrates, travelling Mesopotamia, into Syria; and the Tigris, from Bassora to Bagdad, On the other, the disease was propagated into Persia.- In the city of Shiraz, the population of which is 40,000, there died 16,000 in the first few days. Among the victims was the East India Company's Resident, Claudius James Rich, Esq. He had retired to rest, but slightly indisposed. In the morning he was found dead in his bed.

Extending through Persia, the contagion visited several districts in the north and south of the kingdom. Ispahan escaped in consequence of the caravans from Shiraz being prohibited from entering the city, The route that was substituted lay through Yezd. This town paid dearly for the vicarious visitation, as 7000 persons were afterwards swept away by the Cholera. During the succeeding winter, the contagion became dormant both in Persia and Syria.

In the spring of 1822, the Syrian and Persian streams of contagion had their frozen energies restored to activity. They quickly spread in their primitive vigor Mosul, Beri, Aintab, and Aleppo, were infected. In Persia, during September, the disease spread to the northward of Teheran, throughout all Kurdistan and Tauris.

In the spring and autumn of 1823, Diarbekr and Antioch were attacked, and the disease ravaged many of the towns along the Asiatic side of the Mediterranean. It also extended in an opposite course, attaining, in the month of August, Baku, upon the borders of the Caspian Sea. At length, in September, it reached the Russian city of Astracan, at the mouth of the Volga. It first broke out in the marine hospital. From the 25th of September to the 9th of October, there died 141 patients, nearly two-thirds of all who had been attacked. Rigorous measures were enforced by the authorities for checking the contagion, but it continued to manifest itself until the severity of winter, had set in. During the ensuing summer it did not return. The winter of this year was also destructive of the Syrian branch before it could reach Egypt. Sanitary precautions, however, in expectation of its arrival, had been prescribed by the viceroy.

Although Europe was relieved from the impending danger, by the complete destruction or exhaustion of those parts of the contagious currents which had penetrated to Astracan, and to the borders of Egypt, yet the Cholera continued to re-appear, every summer, in many of the countries previously infected, showing that the cold of winter had, in general, power to check its morbid influence upon the human body, but not to destroy the miasma altogether.

In 1823 it re-appeared in Java, and carried off 100,000 people. After visiting Ternate, Celebes and Banda, in 1823, it first reached Amboyna. The inhabitants had no recollection of the disease ever having been in the Spice Islands before. Afterwards it committed great havoc in Timor. For several years the Cholera pursued its destructive course through China. After desolating several cities in Mongolia it had reached the frontiers of Siberia, at the end of the year 1826. In February 1828, the disease fortunately received a check during the prevalence of a strong north wind.

After the first invasion; Persia had several returns of Cholera. In October, 1829, a very serious inroad commenced in Teheran. the royal residence But the occurrence of winter stopped its progress for the time. The contagion, however, was again resuscitated towards the middle of June, 1830, in the provinces of Mazanderan and Shirvan. upon the Southern shore of the Caspian Sea. From the latter it passed through the town of Tauris, and destroyed 5,000 of its inhabitants. Crossing the Russian frontier, it rapidly advanced towards the interior. In two provinces 4,557 persons were seized with the malady, of whom more than a third died. The 5th of August it entered Tiflis. The population was soon diminished from 30,000 to 8,000, by deaths, and migration to avoid the distemper. To avert the spreading mortality, the inhabitants had recourse to religious ceremonies and processions: which by collecting crowds, only served to extend the disease.

In the mean time, by the first of July, the malady had reached Astracan. Ten days afterwards, 1229 individuals had been seized, of whom more than a third died, including the civil governor, and nearly all the officers of police. This was the second time the devoted city of Astracan had been visited by the contagion.

The contagion, in penetrating to the heart of the Russian Empire, from Astracan, pursued the course of the Volga, which spreads its navigable waters over the most populous provinces, Considerable havoc was made among the Cossacks of the Don The capitals of the several districts between that and Moscow were ravaged in succession. In the city the appearance of the destroyer was announced the 22th of September, having travelled from Astracan, a distance of 900 miles in less than three months.

In Moscow, energetic measures were instantly instituted by the government to afford every assistance to the sick, and to oppose the progress of the malady. The 11th of October, twelve days after the invasion, 216 cases of Cholera had occurred, and of these 75 were fatal. The mortality; however exceeded even the proportion with the extension of the disease. By the 10th of November, 6506 cases were returned, and the deaths amounted to 2,003, or more than a half.

Before closing the account of the progress of Indian Cholera, and in order to submit to a glance the magnitude of the evil, we shall point out the geographical limits of its past career in the various directions along which it has been propagated. From Bengal its aboriginal province, It travelled southward to Mauritius and to the island of Timor, near Holland; eastward to Koko choton, a Chinese town situated east of Pekin; westward to the city of Moscow. [it is well known, that the disease has since extended from Moscow to Poland, where it attacked both the Russian and Polish armies; many officers have fallen victims, and the sudden death of Count Diebitsch is ascribed to it The latest European advices apprizes us of its appearance at Archangel. At Riga, Dantzic, and in Galicia, it is committing frightful ravages, and gradually extending itself to southward and westward, and may be expected in France at its present rate of travelling in 1832, a portion of the globe, in extent, about equal to seventy degrees of latitude, and one hundred degrees of longitude.