752 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and in the drinking-water theory, speaks as follows : " On the night 

 of April 11th and on the following day a severe storm burst upon the 

 unsheltered multitude. Only those who know what a storm on the 

 mountains in the tropics is can have any conception what a night of 

 misery these three millions of people suffered on the open plains of 

 Hardwar. This fall of rain must have washed the contents of the 

 closets and the filth on the surface of the earth into the Ganges." 

 And Macnamara believes that on April 12th the pilgrims drank cholera 

 from the Ganges ; but Macnamara is wrong. Granted that the storm 

 had really washed the cholera-stools into the Ganges, then the stools 

 must have remained either in the river itself or else in the holy fort, 

 just as was the case in Koch's water-tank. It is true I can find no 

 numerical observations concerning the rapidity of the flow of the Gan- 

 ges in Hardwar ; but if we suppose that its rate is like that of the 

 Seine in Paris at low water — i. e., half a foot per second — then the 

 water would move at the rate of 1,800 feet an hour. The railed-off 

 fort in which the pilgrims bathed is 650 feet long by thirty feet wide, 

 and if the bathing lasted twelve hours, and if only a third part of the 

 pilgrims had bathed, then more than 83,000 persons must have hourly 

 passed through the water ; this was imjDOSsible, so that only a small 

 proportion of the pilgrims could have bathed on April 12th. These 

 places of pilgrimage are also colossal markets and great places of busi- 

 ness. It does not support the drinking-water theory to assume that, 

 during the bathing of the 12th, cholera bacilli did not get into the 

 holy fort from cases of cholera which would hardly be in a condition 

 to bathe, but from cases of diarrhoea. Either a few of the bathers 

 were, to start with, infected, and so lai'ge numbers could not be in- 

 fected until the bacilli had become distributed, or, if a large number 

 were infected at the outset, we naturally inquire where the infection 

 was taken, and whether there was no possibility of their having been 

 infected before going to the bath. While I do not believe that the pil- 

 grims drank death from the holy stream, yet I shall not maintain that 

 the stormy weather had nothing to do with the cause of the epidemic. 

 Cases of this kind have occurred outside India, as in Malta and Spezia 

 in Italy, where a sudden storm has sent up the death-rate in an explo- 

 sive fashion. But if a weather-storm can create a " cholera-storm," 

 then the cholera must be existent in the soil. One is reminded by this 

 invasion of cholera of the clouds of dust which the watering-carts 

 raise in summer. If the earth is very dry, the water not only lays but 

 makes dust. I can conceive how a sudden heavy fall of rain may rap- 

 idly di-ive out the infective stuff contained in the soil. But Hardwar 

 had experienced bad weather in other years on the same days in April 

 without being followed by such evil consequences. 



How does the journey of the pilgrim act in the spread of cholera ? 

 That infection can occur in a short space of time is witnessed in sol- 

 diers on the march. A case from Bryden's work may be quoted. In 



