COURSE OF THE EPIDEMIC WAVE OF 1826. 47
but a very meager idea of the origin and course of that great wave of epidemic cliolera, upon the study of which we must now enter.
During the first quarter of 1826 cliolera was evi- dently on the increase throughout the whole of Lower Bengal. Among the troops in the Presidency Circle no less than 76 cases occurred in April : of these 38 died ; but what is of more importance to notice is, that H. M.'s 31st Regiment at Dinapore.was attacked by cholera in April, 1826, 57 men having been seized vnth the disease : of these 23 died ; and at the same time, in the Eegiment at Buxar, 49 men were affected with cholera, and 29 died. From Dinapore, Dr. Dickson writes on the 4th of April, 1826 — " I am very sorry to report that cholera has again commenced its ravages at this station : the sm^ounding districts are, likewise, most severely affected."* The Superintending Sur- geon at Benares, on the 13th of May, 1826, reports — " that, in the city of Benares, two or three hundred persons were daily carried off by cholera, and yet the troops and prisoners in the jail remained entirely exempt from the disease, which, nevertheless, was most severe all over the Benares division." In the Cawnpore Circle, during the month of June, 64 Euro- pean and 108 Native soldiers were attacked by the disease. We have clear evidence, therefore, of a most severe outburst of epidemic cholera, commencing early in 1826, throughout the whole of Lower ^^engal, and gradually extending towards the north-west as far as the Cawnpore division, during the first six months of the year. Beyond this area, we hear of nothing approaching to an epidemic outbreak of cholera. The
- See also Dempatcr's account of this epidemic in the ' Transactions
of the Medical and Physical Society of Calcutta,' vol. iii, p. 420.
