328 Cholera Outbreak ^1881 at Aden. [part i. 



Aden since that period, the interval between the last epidemic and that of 1867 is 

 considerably greater than the intervals between the two preceding epidemics. A 

 practical experiment of this kind, and one on so large a scale, cannot be lightly set 

 aside in favour of purely theoretical views, however ingeniously and earnestly those 

 views may be advanced, and however eminent those who promulgate them may be.* 

 23. In conclusion, it has been considered desirable to enter thus fully into the details 

 of the recent cholera outbreak at Aden, and especially as regards its supposed direct 

 importation from Bombay by means of the S. S. Golwmhian. The view that the disease 

 was so introduced has already been unhesitatingly adopted by some sanitary authorities 

 in Europe ; and, possibly, in the course of a few years, unless meanwhile the opportunity 

 be taken of placing the facts on record, the mere " opinion " of the present time may 

 come to be referred to as a well-authenticated incident, and the history of the 

 S. S. Columbian be cited as an instance of the transportability of cholera by means 

 of ships, regarding which there can be no question. 



Simla, 

 20th JuTie, 1882. 



* The convict settlement in the Andaman Islands likewise furnishes a striking illustration of the non- 

 transportability of cholera by means of ships. Notwithstanding that it is within three days of India and two 

 of Burma, and that constant communication has been kept up between it and tlie two countries during the 

 last five-and-twenty years, not a single epidemic of cholera has occurred amongst a population of (at present) 

 over 10,000 convicts, although cases have on some occasions been imported there, and have died from the disease 

 after landing. Nearly all the food for the convicts is imported fro-Ti Calcutta — a place from which cholera is 

 never wholly absent. 



