PART I.] SpecMlations as to the Cause of the Outbreak. 327 



and the total number of deaths in the Settlement is stated by the Assistant Political 

 Resident to have been 57.* 



19. It would seem that, previous to the appearance of the disease at Aden in 

 1867, it was known to have been prevalent "in the little District of Aleecan in the 

 Foodthlee country," about 40 miles distant from the Settlement, and the sudden 

 outbreak of the disease at Aden was attributed to " choleraic blasts " from that direction. 

 In 1881, however, cholera does not appear to have been observed in any of the outlying 

 districts previous to its sudden manifestation in the Settlement, so that the possibility 

 of accounting for it on the supposition of a "choleraic blast " could not well be entertained. 

 It does not appear to have occurred to the observers of either epidemic that the disease 

 could have originated at or near the locality in which the sufferers dwelt. t 



20. The possibility of the disease being of local origin has been very generally 

 ignored. The idea that cholera originates de novo in India, and in India only, and 

 is thence disseminated by means of human intercourse, and still further diffused by 

 rivers or by the wind, has taken so firm a hold on the minds of the medical profession 

 and the public at large, that any other conceivable method of the origination of the 

 disease is almost completely ignored, notwithstanding that a long array of facts has 

 been recorded, which prove that epidemic outbursts of the disease occur under conditions 

 when none of these factors can be shown to exist, 



21. The influence of the promulgation of current theoretical views has many disad- 

 vantages. What the essential cause may be is wholly unknown, but surely it is wiser 

 frankly to avow our ignorance than to promulgate purely theoretical doctrines which 

 tend to divert the attention of Grovernments and individuals from the necessity of 

 getting rid of known local causes of ill-health, and which, if carried to their logical 

 conclusion, would seriously interfere with personal liberty, and prove very embarrassing 

 to the commercial intercourse of nations. 



22. The past history of Aden furnishes strong evidence as to the non-transportability 

 of cholera by ships. So does that of the Andamans. For, since the occupation of Aden 

 in 1839, we have accounts of five epidemics of cholera as having occurred there — in 

 1846, 1858, 1865, 1867, and lastly, in 1881. The Suez Canal was opened in 1869, 

 and yet, notwithstanding the enormously increased communication between India and 



* A Statistical Account of the British Settlement of Aden by Captain F. M. Hunter, Assistant Political 

 Resident, 1877, page 177. In this work, Captain (now Major) Hunter refers, under the heading "Natural 

 Calamities," to three other cholera epidemics at Aden previous to that of 1867. The first, in 1846, after a heavy- 

 fall of rain — the disease breaking out at Mokha, under similar circumstances, on the very same day. The attack 

 lasted 33 days at Aden, and "about 386 persons were carried off, of whom 20 were Europeans." The second 

 epidemic was in 1858, on which occasion 15 Europeans and 560 Natives died from the disease ; and the third was 

 in 1865 — May to August — when 1 European and 53 Natives died. 



f Evidence illustrative of this aspect of the general question will be found in a report submitted a few years 

 ago by Dr. Douglas Cunningham and myself : " Cholera in relation to certain Physical Phenomena : Being a 

 contribution to the Special Cholera Inquiry sanctioned by the Right Honourable the Secretaries of State for War 

 and for India," and which was published in the Thirteenth Annual Report of the Sanitary Commissioner with 

 the Government of India ; and also (in part) in the Practitioner for April and May 1878. 



