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@article{184159,
        author = {U.N.K. Rathnayake},
        title = {The factors associated with the spread of cholera in South Asian countries during the British Empire: From the Jaffna Peninsula of Ceylon in the 19th century},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2025},
        volume = {12},
        number = {4},
        pages = {99-107},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=184159},
        abstract = {South Asian epidemiology of cholera throughout the British Empire was often a constant concern, which worsened along with socio-environmental and colonial conditions. A case study will present cholera epidemics spread along the Jaffna Peninsula in Sri Lanka through 19th-century history: an analysis of more significant regional dynamics. Under this, there is an introduction regarding a colonial infrastructure that enhanced and encouraged the economic policy through an expansion of urbanization, a driving catalyst toward the transmission of this disease. The research problem focuses on how colonial governance, environmental conditions, and public health negligence interact to create the settings for cholera outbreaks. There is extensive literature on cholera in British India, but research has yet to be conducted into localized responses and ecological factors unique to smaller colonies such as Sri Lanka. The principal research objective is to assess how colonial practices in the Jaffna Peninsula sustained the persistence of cholera and discern patterns of epidemiology that are different from the rest of South Asia. Methodologically, the research integrates archival findings, historical analysis of colonial medical reports, and geographical data tracing relationships between population density, sanitation infrastructure, and water resource management. Key findings point to how the failure to invest in public health, coupled with economic gain through the exploitation of natural resources, had compounded the spread of the epidemic, the seasonal monsoons, poor waste management, and religious pilgrimage routes. The study concludes that dealing with cholera needed more confined and ecologically sensitive public health strategies than those under colonial rule. Such findings are informative and provide important lessons for understanding the socio-political dimensions of epidemic control in similar settings.},
        keywords = {British Colonial Governance, Cholera Epidemics, Jaffna Peninsula, Public Health Infrastructure, Environmental Determinants.},
        month = {September},
        }