8
HISTORY 0¥ CHOLERA IN INDIA.
He further adds : — " Death raged in tlie camp with horror not to be ^described, and all expected to be devoured by the pestilence. In vain I studied to discover the cause of our misfortune. I attributed it to a poison, but at length found that therb had been a ^pestilential clisordef raging in the parts through which our first marches lay, and' that part of our camp was already drinking the au^ of death and destruction." In the course of, a few days 1143 men were in hospital affected with this disease. On the 29th of March, however, the sick were reduced to 908, and on the 1st of the following month the force was able to march, leaving 300 men convalescent behind.
It will be observed that Colonel Pearse does not men- tion the disease as being cholera ; he calls it a pesti- lence, and in,the following quotation from a despatch of the Supreme Government to the Court of Directors, no mention is made of cholera. This document is dated 27th April, 1781 ; the occurrence of the disease is notified, and the destruction which it caused in this detachment mentioned in terms of becoming regret.* After adverting to its progress in the Circars,, the despatch proceeds : — " The disease to which we allude has not been confined to the country of Ganjam; it afterwards found its way to this place (Calcutta) ; and after chiefly affecting the native inhabitants, so as to occasion a great mortahty during the period of a fortnight, it is now generally abated, and pursuing its course to the northward." The progress of this epidemic has never been recorded; but we have, at any rate, evidence of epidemic cholera raging through-
- ' Report on tlie Epidemic Cholera Morbus as it visited the territories
subject to tlic Presidency of Bengal.' By James Jameson. Calcutta, 1820.
