Plague in India / by Charles Creighton.

  • Creighton, Charles, 1847-1927.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Plague in India / by Charles Creighton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    these Satara villages, as I have others from districts farther south. But the type is the same in all those black-soil valleys of the Deccan Avatered hy the Krishna and its numerous affluents. What Sir Thomas ISlore said of the towns of his mediaeval Utopia may be said of them: Whoso knoweth oue of them kuoweth them all, they be all so like one to another, as far forth as the nature of the place permitteth. They are all mud \dllages inclosed Avithin a ring fence of bushes, sometimes Avith gates and remains of a Avail. Many of them are large, Avith ])opulations up to 4,000 or over, comparatiA^ely fcAv of those that recur in the plague lists haAung their population, as given on the margin, under four figures. In the first season of plague among them, 1898, some villages lost more than a fourth part of their inhabitants in tAvo or three months. Thus the village of Shehvadi, taluka of NaAuilgund, district of DharAvar, AAdth a population of 4,222, had 1,120 plague deaths in eight Aveeks of October, Nov’ember, and December. In the following table I have taken out the figures for a cluster of seA^en villages in the taluka of Hubli, to shoAv the seA^erity of their first plague season and the extent to Avhich they have sutiered in subsequent years: Deaths from iilaf/uc in sever, viUn(/cs near Huhli from 1,‘^98 to 190Jf. Village. Popula- tion in 1891. 1898. ■1899. 1900. 1901. 1902. 1903. 1904. Total. 3,589 799 36 76 229 271 43 1,463 2,203 810 60 186 202 36 1,293 1,306 485 22 44 1 ' 27 17 596 2,548 773 84 101 123 80 1,161 TTnkKl 3,916 349 98 342 261 126 1,176 2 713 270 334 165 759 1,702 356 10 81 125 572 Tavo Aullages which I Ausited, one 12 miles from Belgaum, the other 7 miles from DharAvar, Avill serA^e as samples of the large Aullages in the black-soil basin of the Krishna, each of them having had five epi- demics in the course of seven years. A BELGAUM VILLAGE. The Belsraum \fillage was considered a rich one, the bulk of the cultivators being prosperous Lingayats. The population in 1891 had been 4,.580, it had ah area of 2,600 acres, and it Avas the cattle market for the extensiA'e pastures on the hills and doAvns to the nortliAvest. The 800 houses of the village covered 64 acres, about 600 of them occu- pied by Lingayats and other castes of Hindus, 200 by Mohammedan butchers and cattle dealers in a separate quarter. It Avas inclosed by a