25
applied to be inoculated before it was known that plague was in the village, and
before, therefore, any effort had been made to induce the inhabitants to be
operated on, is strong presumptive evidence of the existence of undetected plague
there.
It is probable then that these two children (aged 9 and 5 years) had been
exposed to plague infection, and that the prophylactic was not in their case
given early enough to produce abortion of the disease. The presumption that
the inoculation caused the attack is out of the question, as the vaccine does not
contain living plague germs.
Mr. Anderson finally sums up his report in the following words:—
" Out of 5,648 persons inoculated the writer has seen a few, perhaps 4, cases of rather
badly swollen arm : none o£ them have resisted treatment or led to any worse effects. Had
these accidents been many times as frequent, it would be a-cheap price to pay for so many
saved lives.
" The lesson of the figures is that plague can be effectively stamped out by inoculation ;
plague seems like a forest fire, it sweeps along destroying dry grass and bushes, and is stayed
when it comes to the green : the inoculated are the green bushes : so long as they are few in
number, some are caught up in the general conflagration, but as soon as the inoculated are in
the majority, the fire dies down and splutters oat. Consider the following figures for the four
villages where more than half the people got inoculated :
Village.
Dat
Vakodi
Arangaou
Darewadi
Valunj (badly in-
fected)
;e on which the inoculated were
in majority.
6th September 1899.
6th September 1899.
20th September 1899.
1st September 1899.
Date on which plague ceased
to be epidemic.
6th September 1899.
13th September 1899.
27th September 1899.
12th September 1899.
Interval in days.
Nil.
7
7
11"
The Government of India, wishing to collect, and submit to examination,
the many facts concerning plague collected by medical men and others through-
out the country, and having reference to various matters regarding the origin,
dissemination, prevention and combating of plague epidemics, appointed for
this purpose the Indian Plague Commission, consisting of—
T. R. Fraser, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., Professor of Materia Medica, University
of Edinburgh, President of the Commission.
J. P. Hewett, C.I.E., I.C.S., Secretary to the Government of
India in the Home Department.
A. E. Wright, M.D., Professor of Pathology in the Army
Members ... { Medical School, Netley.
A. Cumine, I.C.S., a Senior Collector in the Bombay Presidency.
M. A. Ruffer, M.B., Head of the Quarantine Board of the
L Egyptian Government.
C. J. Hallifax, I.C.S., Secretary to the Commission.
The principal questions, about which the Government of India desired that
evidence should be collected were—
(1) the origin of the different outbreaks of plague;
(2) the manner in which the disease is communicated ;
(3) the effects of curative serum ; and
(4) the effects of preventive inoculation.
The members of the Commission cached Bombay on the 25th November
1898, and at once began the work of examining witnesses put forward by the
various local Governments throughout India, as well as any of the public
who expressed a desire to give evidence. Their tour extended throughout
the Bombay Presidency, the Province of Mysore, the Deccan districts of
Madras, the State of Hyderabad, the Central Provinces, the Lower Provinces
of Bengal, the North-West Provinces and the Punjab. In short their tour
was co-extensive with the territory which had up to that time been invaded by
plague. The witnesses examined during this extended tour comprised not
only civil and military officers of Government of all grades who had any
experience of plague and plague measures, but medical men and laymen from
the non-official classes, both European and Native, and also hákims and vaids
well versed in the ancient medical lore of the East. The Commission left India
on 25th March ; had several sittings in London, where further evidence was
collected, and they are still engaged (December 1900) in arranging the voluminous
B 42—7