On the communicability of cholera by human intercourse.

Date:
[1884?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the communicability of cholera by human intercourse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    General conclusions.''' The report is signed, and evidently written by J. M. Cunuingliam, m.d. Having noticed the chief points which demand atten- tion in relation to the great Hiirdwar gathering of 1867, the next point to be considered is the dispersion of tlie pilgrims, and the effect whicli they had in the dissemination of the disease. On this question the facts have been narrated with great care ; evei'y statement of any importance has been given, for the evidence has been considered not with the object of supporting any pi-ecouceived theory on the mode of propagation of the disease, but with the sole view of endeavom-ing to ascertain the truth. Did the pilgrims as they returned to their homes carry cholera with them, and thereby occasion the outbreak which subsequently followed in the various districts through which they traversed, or to which they themselves belonged ? On the first part of this question there can be no differ- ence of opinion. That cholera went with the pilgrims from Hurdwar and accompanied them to a gi-eater or less dis- tance in every direction from it is a fact ivhich admits oj no disimte. The history of their return which has been already given illustrates this point so'clearly that it is not neces- sary to recapitulate the facts. Sufl&ce it to say that the pilgrims bore the disease with them to a distance varying from 50 to 300 miles in almost every point of the compass. This fact in itself may be rej^arded as evidence of com- municability of the disease. That the pilgrims imbibed the poison at Hurdwar in lai-ge numbers cannot be doubted, but it is not probable that the disease should remain latent so very long as to appear among some of them only when they had reached places so far distant as the Upper Provin- ces of the Punjab. At Goojerat, for example, the first case was a pilgrim who was attacked there on the 28fch April. In Cashmere the first cases were pilgrims who were attacked in the second week of June. Judging from all that is yet known of the disease, it appears much more probable, that these and others who were seized weeks after they had left
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