48 THE INDO-EUROPEAN EPIDEMIC OP 1826-32.
Saiigur, Agra, Meerut, Kurnaul, and Nusseerabad divisions were absolutely free from the disease, with the exception of the usual sporadic cases which occur there every season. Before the month of August cholera had subsided, but by no means disappeared, from Cawnpore eastward.
In November, 1826, we notice the first muttering of the storm which was gathering in the west. The Superintending Surgeon of the Nusseerabad Division writes as follows:—"In the stations on the right banks of the Jumna, viz., Delhi, Muttra, and Agra, the returns show that the Corps there have experienced during the month a slight invasion of cholera."
The above details are sufficient to give us an idea of the cholera of 1826; its steady advance from east to north-west as far as a line drawn about half-way between Cawnpore and Agra; its halting precisely as it had done in 1817, but apparently not invading Bundelcund (in the Nagpore Subsidiary Force the ratio of admissions to strength per 1000 for cholera was in 1827, 0.605c; in 1828, 1.120; in 1829, 1.617; and in 1830 there were no admissions at all); in other respects the cholera of 1826 presented an exact counterpart to that of 1817, and in all probability to that of 1783.
I would draw special attention to the foregoing observation of the Superintending Surgeon of the Nusseerabad Division, as to the slight invasion of certain cities by cholera on the right bank of the Jumna, towards the close of the year 1826—by the skirmishers, as it were, thrown forward by the invading power; the evidence of the potential force of the disease in these localities.
