400 A DescriptioJi of Kumaon, [Sess. 



following way. At that time the army in India was very 

 numerous, and cholera cases were common. I found from 

 the statistics that the average number of medical officers and 

 hospital attendants who died of cholera was not greater than 

 the average of military officers and soldiers. When I pointed 

 this out nobody listened to me, and everybody repeated the 

 parrot-cry, " Cholera is very infectious." The one sensible 

 man who opposed my views was the Commissioner of Kumaon, 

 one of the greatest and best men in India. He recognised 

 the fact that medical officers do not die of cholera more often 

 than other people, but explained it by saying that a special 

 providence protected medical officers in the discharge of their 

 duty. I did not at first know how to answer him, till it 

 occurred to me to consult the statistics of deaths. There I 

 found that medical officers died from typhoid fever more than 

 other officers, and from plague very much more than other 

 officers. My conclusion, therefore, on the whole, was, not that 

 there is any special interference in the case of cholera, but 

 simply that cholera is not an infectious disease, and that 

 typhoid fever probably, and plague certainly, are infectious 

 diseases. 



In September 1873 there was an epidemic of cholera in 

 Eastern Kumaon. A medical missionary was very fortunately 

 travelling at the time in that district, and reported to Govern- 

 ment the necessity of a Government medical officer being sent 

 to treat the numerous cases. I was sent at once. There was 

 in the centre of the infected district a military cantonment 

 where a European officer, a bachelor, and a company of 

 Sepoys was posted, and I hoped to be allowed to live in one 

 of the houses, of which there were several near the regi- 

 mental barracks. But the officer wrote me that as I was 

 engaged in cholera duty, and as there was no cholera among 

 the Sepoys, he could not allow me to enter the cantonments ; 

 so I had to pitch my tent under a tree, about a mile from 

 the barracks. I found the epidemic a very bad one, many 

 deaths occurring daily in the scattered villages. The history 

 of its origin, as given me by the inhabitants, was as follows : 

 " Some time previously the goddess of cholera, tired of the 

 plains, had resolved to visit the snowy range, probably with the 

 view of going as a pilgrim to the sacred lake of Mansarover. 



