APPENDIX 2.
DIRECTIONS POR SEAECHEES.
1—A search party is composed of three British soldiers and a Native gentleman. It is
provided with a pickaxe, a lantern, a pot of paint and a note-book.
2—A search division is composed of 10 search parties and is under the command of an
officer. A Medical Officer, one or more ladies and three Native soldiers are attached to each
search division. It is provided with two ambulances and one cart to convey property to the
segregation camp.
3—Search parties will make careful house-to-house inspection in the area assigned to their
division in order to discover plague cases and dead bodies.
4—When a search party comes to a house, the Native gentlemen will explain the object of
the visit to the inmates and demand admission.
5— Should the inmates fail to admit the search party promptly or should there be no one to
open the house door the search party will force their way in.
6—The soldiers will carefully search all parts of the house, and in doing so may force open
all inner doors which are not on application opened by the inmates.
7—In the case of the house of a Hindu the soldiers will not enter the cook-room or the
god room unless—
(i) There are persons in these rooms who refuse to leave them, or
(ii) There is reason to suspect that these rooms contain a corpse or a sick person, or
(iii) Access to other portions of the house can only be obtained through these rooms.
8—The soldiers will inspect all persons in the house in order to ascertain whether any of
them are sick, provided that if the inmates so desire the inspection of the women in the house
will be made by one of the ladies attached to the division.
9—It is the duty of the Native gentlemen attached to a search party to accompany the
party through the house, to act as interpreter between the soldiers and the inmates of the house,
to point out to them the god room and the cook-room, to search these rooms himself in cases in
which there is no religous objection to his doing so, and to obey the orders given to him by the
officer commanding the division.
10—The soldiers will not open boxes or cupboards unless they have reason to suspect that
they contain corpses or sick persons.
11— On a corpse or a sick person being found one member of the party will summon the
Medical Officer attached to the division, while the remainder will detain the inmates of the
house. Should the Medical Officer after examination suspect that the case is one of plague a
segregation squad will be sent for. Any person that the Medical Officer suspects to be suffering
from plague will be removed in an ambulance with one member of the household as an attendant
(should any be willing to accompany him) to a plague hospital. Such of the remaining inmates
of the house as the Medical Officer may indicate will be taken charge of by the segregation
squad. The inmates of the house and the neighbours should be desired to make immediate
arrangements for the burial or burning of any corpse that may be found. Should nobody be
found willing to undertake this duty a funeral party will be summoned from the City Police
office.
12—The officer in charge of a search division will note the names of all plague patients
and corpses and the number of the house, name of Street and the Peth where the patients and
corpses are found.
13—The inmates of any infected house which is ordered to be vacated will be required to
choose whether such valuable property as they may possess should be delivered to a neighbour
after disinfection or should be sent to the warehouse. If they chose the latter alternative the
property will be packed and marked with the letter W.
14— Persons removed to a plague hospital may take with them only such articles as the
Medical Officer may permit. Persons removed to a segregation camp may send to the camp
clothes, bedding, cooking pots and other necessaries and comforts in the cart assigned for that
purpose.
15 Except property to be removed to a plague hospital or a segregation camp no property
shall be removed from an infected house till the house has been disinfected by the fumigators.
16—The mat or bedding of a plague patient will be burnt in the street, but no other pro-
peri y will be destroyed by search parties.
17 After searching a house the search party will paint such mark upon it as may from
time to time be prescribed as a sign that it has been searched. An account must be kept of the
number of houses searched.
8
The Medical Officer will cause a vertical red line to be painted on each infected house
and the date of search to be painted beside it.
19—The Native soldiers attached to a search division will be employed on fastening up
doors that have been forced open.
20 The Medical Officer will be accompanied by a man carrying a yellow flag to show his
whereabouts.
B 1218—1
* Appendix 1 is a Map (not printed).