disease within the following ten days. In fact, after the 15th of August, cholera increased with such fearful rapidity, that the soldiers in a few days were panic-stricken and hopeless.
In one regiment, out of a total strength of 1002 men, 863 were employed as hospital orderlies, and of these, no less than 428 were seized with cholera. In the other European regiment at Meean Meer, of 203 cases of cholera, 137 occurred among hospital orderlies. It was not found possible, however, to determine if these hospital orderlies were more liable to be attacked, than men who had not been exposed to cholera in the hospital, because all the men in the station had been on duty of this kind at one time or another. On the other hand, we cannot overlook the fact, that the medical officers, and the whole of the medical establishment, together with the native servants, almost entirely escaped the influence of the disease, although prostrated by the fearfully harassing nature of their duties. And what is more remarkable, when it was discovered that the European orderlies were unable to work any longer, some thirty Sikhs of the 31st Regiment were daily sent to take their place in the European hospitals, but not a single instance of cholera occurred among them.
The Government of India subsequently appointed a commission, presided over by a civilian, Mr. J. Strachey, to report on the circumstances of the outbreak of cholera in the Punjab. This action on the part of the Indian Government in 1861, was the first effort they had made since 1817, to gain any information on the subject of cholera among the troops serving in this country. There was no want of material at their command, the records of the medical
