RAVAGES OF THE CHOLERA.
While the country was in the disturbed state described in previous pages, its confusion was increased by the appearance of the cholera morbus. This frightful malady first appeared on the banks of the Ganges, in 1817. The early manifestations of it consisted in violent vomitings and discharges of the bowels. After this, spasmodic contractions, beginning in the fingers, gradually extended themselves to the trunk; the pulse sank; the skin became cold; the lips, face, neck, hands, and feet, and soon after the thighs, arms, and surface assumed a leaden, blue, purple, black, or deep brown tint, according to the complexion of the individual, or the intensity of the attack. The fingers and toes were reduced in size; the skin and soft parts covering them became wrinkled, shrivelled, and folded; the nails assumed a bluish, pearly white hue; the larger superficial veins were marked by flat lines of a deeper black; the pulse became small as a thread, and sometimes totally extinct; the voice sunk into a whisper; the respiration was quick, irregular, and imperfect; and the secretion of urine was totally suspended. Death took place often in ten or twelve, and generally in eighteen or twenty hours after the appearance of well-founded symptoms. Many were the thousands who perished by this visitation in India; the cities of Decca and Patna, the towns of Balasore, Burrishol, Burdavan, and Malda suffered greatly, and throughout the Gangetic Delta the population was sensibly diminished. The scourge was extended eastward along the coast of the Asiatic continent, and through the islands of the Indian Ocean, to China and to Timor. Before the end of 1827, it had traversed the Molucca islands, and the island of Timor, and continuing for several years to ravage the interior of China, it had, by 1827, passed to the north of the great wall, and had desolated some places in Mongolia. In the meantime, also, it extended to the west. Bombay, Persia, Asiatic Turkey, Russia, Poland, Austria, and Prussia, all experienced the dreadful visitation, from 1818 to 1831. Precautions had been taken in England, by enforcing quarantine regulations, to protect the country from the malady; but notwithstanding, in the month of October of this year, it made its appearance in Sunderland. Before the close of the year, it found its way from Sunderland and Newcastle to the suburbs of the metropolis. At first its outrages were generally confined to the victims of intemperance; but it soon began to attack patients of all descriptions, and to spread from the capital into the provinces. Scarcely any part in the empire, eventually, escaped the fearful scourge, but its inflictions, probably by reason of the habits of the people, and the nature of the climate, were less violent than in the other nations which it had visited. A board of health was established, which made a daily report of cases. Concerning the disease, there was great contrariety of opinion among medical men. The main points on which they differed were as to whether the disease was contagious or not; whether it was the Asiatic cholera or a new complaint; whether it was imported or indigenous; and whether it partook of the properties of the plague, or was to be regarded as a transient scourge. The ratio of deaths in England was found to be about one to three. Some places were entirely free from its ravages, although it was raging near, which gave rise to an opinion that its propagation was extended by currents in the air.
“God proclaims His hot displeasure against foolish men, That live an atheist life; involves the heaven In tempests; quits his grasp upon the winds, And gives them all their fury; bids a plague Kindle a fiery boil upon the shin, And putrefy the breath of blooming health. He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend Blows mildew from between his shrivelled lips, And taints the golden ear. He springs his mines, And desolates a nation at a blast.”