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THE ASIATIC EHDEMIC OF 1817-21.
During the year 1818 cholera spread over the greater part of India, invading districts which had previously escaped, and being reproduced in those already de- vastated by it ; so rapidly was it engendered in various directions, that it is somewhat difficult to' describe its progress, so as to give an adequate idea of it. We may probably best consider its advance under the following divisions : —
1st. To the north-east of the Ganges from the district of Tirhoot as far as Bareilly.
2nd. From Central India, north-west, west, and lastly southward into the Deccan.
3rd. From Ganjam, along the eastern seaboard, and a considerable portion of the western shore of the Peninsula.
1. During the cold season of 1817-18 cholera appears to have been absolutely in abeyance throughout the districts to the north-east of the Ganges, but in April and May, 1818, it burst out with terrible violence in Tirhoot, Chupra, and Goruckpore, extending north- ward into Nepaul, and rapidly invading Oude and Azimgur to 'the west. The disease was in full force at Fyzabad and Lucknow. Towards the end of April "the troops and camp followers in personal attendance upon the Governor- General on his return from the Upper Provinces again fell in with the epidemic at Goruckpore, bilt now its attacks were nearly restricted to such persons as had not been with the central division of the army in the preceding autumn."*
The inhabitants of Benares were under the influence of the epidemic in April, but did not sufier severely from it. Towards the end of March it appeared at Allahabad, destroying 10,000 of its population, but
- Jameson's ' Report,' p. xxvii.
