288 NATURE AND LIFE. 



date contain similar proofs. When the Portuguese, in 1498, 

 and afterward the Dutch and the English, landed on the 

 shores of India, they had frequent opportunities to observe 

 epidemic cholera and it is not strange that a description of 

 the disease could have been made by European doctors in the 

 seventeenth century. We have still detailed accounts of 

 the plagues that raged in the eighteenth century, of which 

 that of Hurdwar is the most famous. In short, to whatever 

 period we recur, we come upon one of the links of that long 

 chronological chain of the cholera, which begins with the 

 oldest books of Hindoo medicine. 



The causes which have always aided the development 

 of cholera in the Indies are active there at the present day. 

 Almost every year the disease breaks out in places where 

 pilgrims gather. Among these localities, of which some 

 are also commercial towns, three particularly attract the 

 crowd : they are Hurdwar, on the Ganges, in the north of 

 Hindostan ; Juggernath, on the coast of Orissa, at the 

 northwest of the gulf of Bengal ; and Conjeveram, in the 

 south of Madras. Pilgrims arrive at these places in the 

 warm season, after a journey of more than a hundred leagues, 

 almost always made on foot, in a state of exhaustion and 

 wretchedness of which we can hardly form an idea. Once 

 in these holy places, their crowding together, their bad food, 

 uncleanliness, and debauchery, bring them into such con- 

 ditions that the germs of plague develop, and the epidemic 

 kindles among them. This infected multitude then scatters 

 abroad, and passes through the country in all directions, 

 sowing miasma and contagion. 



Thus these immense gatherings of people favor the ex- 

 tension of the cholera. Are they at the same time its origi- 

 nating causes ? We cannot answer positively in either way. 

 All possible suppositions have been indulged as to the 

 origin of the cholera in India, but none of them really ex- 

 plains the difficulty. What is the cause that produces the 



