From rapid change to stasis: Official responses to cholera in British-ruled India and Egypt: 1860 to c.1921

This paper identifies a sharp shift in cholera policies in British India. B efore mid-1868, medical authorities permitted sanitation officials to accep t that this lethal disease was brought into new areas by human movement, an d it allowed them to apply appropriate control measures. Then, with the ope ning of the Suez Canal across Egypt, the Imperial Government in London (ref lecting the interests of investors) compelled officials in India to deny th at cholera was carried by infected persons or that its movement could be st opped by cordons or quarantine of ships. Medically sound control measures w ere forbidden, at first on ideological grounds. After about 1899 bureaucrat ic inertia worked to the same end. This paper examines the consequences in India and Egypt to 1920 - a huge, unnecessary loss of life.