368 Analyses of Books. [May, 



nearly depopulate the spot, that had so lately congratulated itself on its escape. 

 Sometimes atlcr running a long course on one side of the (langes, it would, as if 

 arrested by some unknown agent, at once stop ; and taking a rapid sweep across 

 the river, lay all waste on the opposite bank. It rarely, however, failed to return 

 to tlie tract, (vhich it had previously left. After leaving a district or town, it 

 sometimes revisited it, but in such cases the second attacks were milder; and more 

 readily subdued by medicine than those in the primary visitation. 



The disorder showed itself in Calcutta in the first week of September, Few 

 ■were seized in the !)eginning ; but of those few scarcely one survived. Each suc- 

 cessive week added strength to the malady; and more extended influence to it3 

 operation. From January to the end of May it may be said to have been at its 

 full height ; and during the whole of that period, the deaths in the city seldom by 

 the police returns fell short of 200 a week. 



It in turn attacked every division, and almost evei^ corps in the army. Of its 

 fatal eftects amongst the troops, a melancholy and signal instance is afforded in the 

 history of its appearance in the centre division of the field army, under the personal 

 command of tiie Most Noble the Commander in Chief. Tliere it commenced its 

 atfeck on the 18lh or 19th of November; was at its utmost violence for four or 

 five days; and finally withdrew in the first days of December. The division con- 

 sisted of Ics: than 10,000 fighting men : and the deaths within 12 days amounted 

 at the very lowest estimate to 3,000; according to others, to 5,000, and even 

 8,000. • The average loss of rank and file w^s between 80 and 90 men a battalion. 



The epidemic was long in crossing the Buudlekund and Rewa Hills. It began 

 to show itself at Jubbulpore on the 10th of April; prevailed generally amidst the 

 corps posted there at Mundelah, Saugor, and other subordinate station*, to the 

 21st; and nearly disappeared before the end of the month. Here its influence 

 was singularly irregular. In the same camp, and under circumstances precisely 

 similar ; some corps were entirely exempt ; others had a few mild cases only ; and 

 others again sutfered very severely. The same irregularity held in diflerent descrip- 

 tions and classes of troops. The disease did not reach Colonel Adams's camp till 

 the 29th of May. It raged very violently daring four or five days, and continued 

 its operations in a desultory manner till the middle of the sucreeding month. In 

 Bengal and themiddle provinces, it may now, perhaps, be considered as nearly at 

 an end. Cases no doubt still now and then occur in Calcutta and its vicinity; but 

 these are rare, and should rather be reckoned sporadic, than as proofs of the sub- 

 sistence of the epidemic. The returns from the diflerent divisions of the army now 

 le.ave the head of cholera morbus, in most cases, blank; and the reports of the 

 civil surgeons are equallv decisive of its general disappearance. At Delhi, Futti- 

 gur, and others of the more northern siaiions, whither the disease was long in 

 spreading, it is still, the Uoard believe, in full force, and producing the most alarm- 

 ing mortality. 



The epidemic continued its course in the same irregular man- 

 ner, and reached Bombay in August, 1818. It is evident from 

 these reports, that the disease presented itself in an infinite 

 variety of forms ; still the characteristic sj'mptoms were the same 

 in all,' however much their order might be changed. Among the 

 natives, the rapid approach of debility was principally to be 

 dreaded, as the powers of nature seemed at once to be destroyed 

 by the visceral congestion. Of this form of the disease, the 

 extract which follows gives an excellent description. 



The attack was generally ushered in by sense of weakness, trembling, 

 piddiness, nausea, violcjit retching, vomiting and jiurging of a watery, starchy, 

 whey-colnured, or greenish fluid. The^e synii)t(ims were accompanied, or 

 quickly followed, by si vere cramps; geneially beginning in the fingers and 

 toes, and thence extending to the wrists and forearms, calves of the legs, thighs, 

 abdomen, and lower part of llie thorax. These were soon succeeded by pain, 

 constriction, and oppression of stomach and pericardium; great sense of internal 

 heat; inordinate thirst; and incessant calls for cold water, which was no sooner 

 ewalldwed than rejc-cted, together with a quantity of phlegm, or whitish fluid, like 



* The latter calculations must include the detiths among the followers of the 

 eamp. 



