b. A chair. This use is almost peculiar to the Bengal Presidency. Dr. John Muir [Orig. Skt. Texts, ii. 5] cites it in this sense, as a Hindi word which has no resemblance to any Skt. vocable. Mr. Growse, however, connects it with chatur, 'four' (Ind. Antiq., i. 105). See also beginning of this article. Chau is the common form of 'four' in composition, e.g. chaubandi, (i.e. 'four fastening') the complete shoeing of a horse; chaupahra ('four watches') all night long; chaupār, 'a quadruped'; chaukaṭ and chaukhaṭ ('four timber'), a frame (of a door, &c.). So chaukī seems to have been used for a square-framed stool, and thence a chair.
1772.—"Don't throw yourself back in your burra chokey, and tell me it won't do...."—W. Hastings to G. Vansittart, in Gleig, i. 238.
c. 1782.—"As soon as morning appeared he (Haidar) sat down on his chair (chaukī) and washed his face."—H. of Hydur Naik, 505.
CHOLERA, and CHOLERA MORBUS, s. The Disease. The term 'cholera,' though employed by the old medical writers, no doubt came, as regards its familiar use, from India. Littré alleges that it is a mistake to suppose that the word cholera (χολέρα) is a derivative from χολή 'bile,' and that it really means 'a gutter,' the disease being so called from the symptoms. This should, however, rather be ἀπὸ τῶν χολάδων, the latter word being anciently used for the intestines (the etym. given by the medical writer, Alex. Trallianus). But there is a discussion on the subject in the modern ed. of Stephani Thesaurus, which indicates a conclusion that the derivation from χολὴ is probably right; it is that of Celsus (see below). [The N.E.D. takes the same view, but admits that there is some doubt.] For quotations and some particulars in reference to the history of this terrible disease, see under [MORT-DE-CHIEN].
c. A.D. 20.—"Primoque facienda mentio est cholerae; quia commune id stomachi atque intestinorum vitium videri potest ... intestina torquentur, bilis supra infraque erumpit, primum aquae similis: deinde ut in eâ recens caro tota esse videatur, interdum alba, nonnunquam nigra vel varia. Ergo eo nomine morbum hunc χολέραν Graeci nominârunt...." &c.—A. C. Celsi Med. Libri VIII. iv. xi.
c. A.D. 100.—"ΠΕΡῚ ΧΟΛΈΡΗΣ ... θάνατος ἐπῶδυνος καὶ οἴκτιστος σπασμῷ καὶ πνιγὶ καὶ ἐμέσῳ κενῷ."—Aretaeus, De Causis et signis acutorum morborum, ii. 5.
Also Θεραπεία Χολερῆς, in De Curatione Morb. Ac. ii. 4.
1563.—"R. Is this disease the one which kills so quickly, and from which so few recover? Tell me how it is called among us, and among them, and its symptoms, and the treatment of it in use?
"O. Among us it is called Collerica passio...."—Garcia, f. 74v.
[1611.—"As those ill of Colera."—Couto, Dialogo de Soldado Pratico, p. 5.]