Thread by @HindooHistory

The Ogden Standard-Examiner, 1920

"To Sterilize the Sacred Cesspools of India"

#HindooHistory

"Officials of the British Empire are uniting in a movement to clean up the plague spots of India and the Orient generally, hitherto protected by religious sentiment and associations"

"This is one of the results of recent events which have brought many men of civilized nations in contact with the mysterious sacred plague spots of the East and impressed these men with the urgent necessity of cleaning them up"

"Cholera, plague and 'Spanish influenza,' to mention only three out of the many diseases, are constantly prevalent in certain localities of the Orient, and from these places they are from time to time spread out over the whole world, causing immense mortality"

"'The epidemic home of cholera,' says the London Lancet in a recent issue, 'is universally believed to be in Lower Bengal-- in the Sundarbans and the delta of the Ganges..."

"The problem of the eradication of this disease, therefore, is not complicated by uncertainty as to its place of origin..."

"In attempting to clean up the plague spots along the Ganges River the British authorities will be interfering with the most scared localities of the Hindu religion. The Ganges is the 'Holy River' of that religion."

Caption: "How Cattle Are Washed While Pious Devotees Bathe in the Sacred but Filthy River Ganges"

"Into these sacred bathing places the pious pilgrims plunge without the slightest regard for health or cleanliness...."

"Often diseased,covered with sweat and insects, suffering from sore eyes and other afflictions, they rush in until the tank is nothing but a wriggling mass of black humanity.The religious fervor that inspires them makes them feel that the experience has benefited them enormously"

"Many of these pilgrims are walking cases of Asiatic cholera or some other disease that is prevalent in Asia..."

"The germs are distributed throughout the whole assembly, and they carry them home or die on the way, and in either case distribute the seeds of disease in various parts of the world"

"There are upward of 200,000,000 Hindus in India to whom the Ganges is a sacred stream. There are also more than 60,000,000 Mohammedans in the country who have their own sacred places of pilgrimage and aid in the work of spreading infection"

"To achieve their objects the reformers will have to deal with the tenderest susceptibilities of an ignorant and fanatical mass of people. Nevertheless, science has made some progress even among the Hindus..."

An illustration from the piece.

Caption: "A Hindu Fanatic Taking a High Jump Into the River Ganges, Which Would be Fatal to Most Men, but Which He Believes Will Assure Him the Deepest Blessing of the Sacred Stream"

Caption: "Medical Science Finds a Delicate Task in Regulating the Hindu Fanatics Who Overcrowd the Sacred Bathing Pools of the River Ganges, and In Disinfecting the Pious Mohammedan Pilgrims from Mecca"

Caption: “Hindu Devotees Swarming Into the Sacred River Ganges at Benares, Which They Believe Will Give Them Eternal Happiness, but Which Modern Science Has Shown to the World’s Filthiest Breeding Place of Cholera”