Reports bringing up the statistical history of the European Army in India and of the Native Army and jail population of Bengal to 1876 : and the cholera history of 1875 and 1876, in continuation of reports embracing the period from 1817 to 1872 / by J.L.Bryden.

James Bryden

Date:: 1878

Credit: Reports bringing up the statistical history of the European Army in India and of the Native Army and jail population of Bengal to 1876 : and the cholera history of 1875 and 1876, in continuation of reports embracing the period from 1817 to 1872 / by J.L.Bryden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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$cholera. Its manifestations are, however, less definitely marked ; and hence the difficulty of appreciating the natural history of the malaria miasm, as read in its manifestations, is far greater than in the case of cholera, since the fact of the presence of cholera can never be misapprehended. Many of the most deadly epidemics of India have been caused by fevers purely mala- Prinmrily, malarious epidemic ous. When the deadly remittent type of this fever is general fever is not contagious, and mistakes over an area, the inexperienced constantly ask, whether so viru- may arise by assuming the contrary. ]gQ|; ^ fever is not being propagated from man to man; and inferences entirely at variance with facts are deduced from a mistaken view of the nature of the prevailing fever. Anotber very common misapprehension is, that, for example in a jail community, the ordinary fevers of August and September degenerate into a typhus in the end of the year. In several cases I have noted the true history as very different. As a rule, these jails have been infected by typhus in April and May, when the typhus season was coming to an end; the germ of contagion was lost sight of from June to October, although all this time continuing to infect the community, and ensuring a deadly outbreak lasting from November till June of the year following. The extreme importance of apprehending correctly the natural history of fevers in general, Importance of distinguishing and of yellow fevers in particular, cannot be too strongly urged, the diffeieut varieties of yellow Copland insists on the same thing in the very comprehensive fevers. sentence whick follows :— .The manner in which very different diseases have been confounded the one with the other, by those espousing the non-infectious nature of yellow-fever, whether from ignorance or unfairness, has led to the most serious consequences to the community, has misled the inex- perienced, mystified the subjects in dispute, furnished grounds for a special pleading sort of argumentation, and endangered the safety of fleets and armies and even of kingdoms.- * Epidemic Malaria.—The Succession of Epidemics from 1807 onwards. What is meant when we speak of an epidemic of malarious fever, I have many times tried Epidemic malaria has a history, to explain, and I shall here again illustrate the subject, general and local. A single locality Taking a typical station Or district, say in Northern India, may be taken as typical for a great ^l^ieh experience tells US will localise malaria if epidemic, the natural province. records of a very long series of years will point out certain seasons, separated by clear intervals, which are indices of the universal prevalence of malarious fevers, not in the district specially, but over the entire provincial area defined by subjection to the same meteorological influences. The history of the Saharunpore district in Northern India in its relation to malaria epide- The Saharunpore district as typi- ^lics is typical. The local enquirer ascertains, that in the past cal, taking the epidemics from 1810 seventy years certain years are recorded or traditionally remem- onwards. The epidemics from 1810, bered as years distinguished from all others as fever years : and festaSns.' tl^^se are the years recognised in all other districts of the same natural the fever years of the present century. As in the case of cholera, not one but many natural provinces may be covered simultaneously, or in succession, by the same epidemic. Dr. Garden, who was for many years Civil Surgeon of Saharunpore, in endeavouring to estimate the effects of canal irrigation on the development of fever, has brought together from the records of bis district the general facts extending over a period of fifty years, and has supplemented these by enquiries among the inhabitants, who, as I have said, recognise seasons as epidemic, and know that in their constitution such seasons differ essentially from what is normal for the locality. Such an aggregate of facts was exactly what was required to show that a single locality may be typical for a natural province in relation to epidemic malaria. The natural provinces of malaria and cholera being the same, and the laws of distribution homologous, a typical station or a typical district, as in the case of cholera, will show that the local phenomenon is but a fraction of a universally spread and geographically limited whole; and what is noted as an epidemic of malarious fever in Saharunpore is but an index of the spread of the same fever over many or over all the epidemic provinces of the Continent of India. It was the localisation ,pf epidemic malaria in 1869 that caused Dr. Garden to turn his attention to the enquiry. He writes : Feeling that the terribly fatal outbreak of 1868—70 must be in some way exceptional, I have searched all available records for information, in the belief that to read the epidemic aright, the history of the past must be studied.^^ His conclusion is, that the study furnishes proof that at certain periods violent epidemics haVjp occurred, which, implanted on the ordinary endemic fever, have proved most fatal, though at the same time they formed but portions of wide-spread outbreaks, extending over more or less of the whole penin- sula, and passing even beyond its bounds. Dr. Garden quotes my account of the geographical area covered by the fevers of 1850 and 1859, as given in the original cholera report, and he states that ever since he witnessed the great fever of the end of 1859, when he was Civil Surgeon of the Ghazeepore district, the impression left on his mind has been the same as that conveyed to me by the occurrences of these few weeks. In the present century up to 1851), Dr. Garden finds in the Saharunpore district records of the following ei)idemic years: 1809, 1817, 1829, 1834,1843—45, and 1850. * Diet. Epidemics, p. 779.$