Cholera Epidemics in Burma and the Type of Vibrio Associated with Them

vague belief, however, exists that the disease was first introduced by Indian labourers who came to build pagodas (Buddhist temples) at Pagan. On the other hand, there is every probability that epidemics occasionally spread from southern China where cholera was described by the very name it now bears, over two thousand years before the Christian era (Maxwell, 1929). A systematic record showing the mortality rate for cholera in Burma (Bozman, 1937) is only obtainable since 1872 after the country had passed under British control. Rogers (1928) refers to this record and, correlating the mortality rate with figures of absolute humidity deduced from various meteorological data, arrived at the conclusion that Lower Burma is ' a typically endemic' area. But there is