324 Cholera Outbreak of \^%\ at Aden. [part r 



reported to have occurred amongst the coolies on the very first day on which they 

 were engaged in unloading the cargo of the vessel,* one of which appears to have 

 proved fatal during the night and the other on the day following. It is, however, not 

 satisfactorily shown that the first fatal case had any connection with the Columbian: 

 the man's name does not appear to have been ascertained, and he is not included in the 

 tabular statement appended to the Committee's Keport, All that is said concerning 

 him is contained in the following sentence in paragraph 9 of the Eeport : — " As it was 

 reported that another coolie who had been employed on board the S.S. Golumhian had 

 died during the night, inquiries were at once instituted ; " but, so far as can be gathered, 

 no precise information concerning this fatal case was obtained, and the only noteworthy 

 result of the inquiry appears to have been the discovery of two other cholera-affected 

 coolies in the bazaar. 



That germinating organisms should be capable of producing such alarming symptoms, 

 and even death, within so few hours after their assumed introduction into the system, 

 has not, so far as I am aware, ever been seriously suggested before, and certainly all my 

 own experiments with such organisms are wholly opposed to any such assumption. 

 Nor would the view, that the disease may have been caused by some other kind of virus 

 or poison acquired by handling the rice bags on board the Columbian be much more 

 tenable than the germ hypothesis, for it would appear that the rice, subsequent to 

 leaving the ship, was handled and eaten in the settlement with complete impunity. 

 Nor, further, can it well be assumed that the poison was of a gaseous character, generated 

 in the hold of the ship, for at least two of the coolies attacked were known not to have 

 been down in the hold at all, and none of the pilgrims or crew were in the slightest 

 degree affected. 



12. Moreover, the previous and subsequent history of the vessel is strongly opposed 

 to the idea that she was tainted. The Port Surgeon had visited the vessel on her 

 arrival after a 13 days' voyage direct from Bombay,! and reported that "the cargo 

 was inspected by him and he found it sweet and clean ; the hold of the ship was also dry 

 and clean;" and further, "the ship was free from disease." The mortality on board 

 pilgrim ships is usually exceedingly high, owing to the aged, sickly, and not unfrequently 

 moribund condition of a large proportion of the pilgrims who start for Mecca. On this 

 particular voyage five died out of a total of 650 pilgrims, the deaths in all these 

 cases being ascribed to old age and general debility. 



13. Two of the crew also died, one being a stoker, who died on the 29th July, 

 1 1 days after leaving Bombay and three days before reaching Aden. Of this latter 

 casualty, the Committee report — " The stoker was entered in the return by the Native 

 Doctor in medical charge as ' colic' The circumstances were inquired into at the time, 

 and were considered so free from suspicion that when cholera appeared in Aden among 



* There are some discrepancies between the account given of the earlier cases in paragraph !» of the Com- 

 mittee's Eeport and the tabular statement appended to it. The data as given in the text are adopted here, 

 f The date of departure from Bombay is given as the 17th in one of the papers and as the 18th in otherd. 



