GREAT EPIDEMICS ASIATIC CHOLERA. 289 



birth of the miasma ? Is it the crowding together of pil- 

 grims under bad hygienic conditions ? Is it the putrefaction 

 of vegetable matters under a torrid sun, or the stagnant 

 waters of the Ganges, loaded with corpses and filth, or is 

 it a special state of the soil ? We do not know. What is 

 certain is, that pilgrimages aid in propagating the cholera, 

 and that it in some way seeks out a pestilential atmosphere. 

 Therefore the wish is reasonable that the British Govern- 

 ment should control these pilgrimages, and give greater 

 activity to the labors of canal -making and the sanitary 

 measures it has undertaken to render the country healthy. 

 When medical savants suggest going to attack the evil at 

 its root and destroy it forever, and preach a crusade to India 

 in which all civilized nations should join to cut off the heads 

 of the hydra, as Hercules of old did those of the Lernean 

 monster, we may applaud the spirit and generosity of the 

 project, but must ask what means are to be found for its 

 execution. 



Persia, situated between India and Europe, is not a 

 focus of cholera, but it is a country where the disease finds 

 so suitable a region that it very often prevails in it. Only 

 a few years ago the shah's kingdom presented a miserable 

 spectacle in this respect. Dirt and offal were not removed ; 

 the bodies of animals, camels, oxen, horses, mules, were eaten 

 by dogs, jackals, and birds of prey, in the towns or in their 

 environs. A deeply-rooted religious belief in the country 

 caused it to be regarded as a sacred duty to carry the 

 dead far away and bury them in holy cemeteries. This 

 transportation was performed under deplorable circum- 

 stances. The bodies, already in different stages of putre- 

 faction, were merely wrapped in felt cloths, seldom inclosed 

 in coffins of thin, ill-joined boards. In this state the bodies 

 were carried on the backs of camels or mules, in all weathers, 

 to distances averaging thirty or forty days' march. There 

 were caravans of corpses, as there are caravans of pilgrims ; 



