MEDICAL REPORT ON THE PLAGUE IN POONA.
December 1896 to June 1897, by W. W. 0. Beveridge, M.B., Army Medical
Staff, Member, Poona Plague Committee, re Segregation and Disinfecting.
With the short time at disposal, it is only possible to allude to some of the
inore important points connected with the epidemic of Plague in Poona.
According to the Municipal Returns for the City of Poona, the plague first
made itself known on December 19th, 1896, a case being discovered in Nihal
Peth. Whether previous to this it had been lurking among the hordes of the
population is more or less uncertain ; but it is certain that cases had been import-
ed into Poona from Bombay as early as the beginning of October ; and, as the
reports issued by the temporary Plague Hospital under the management of the
Civil Hospital, show, a case occurred on October 9th, 1896.
A large proportion of the cases, up to the opening of the Government
Plague Hospital on February 5th, 1897, were imported, in all probability intro-
duced along the lines of traffic from Bombay, where the disease for some months
had been prevalent ; at that time out of 170 cases 113 died, so that it may be
supposed, as is generally the case at the commencement of the epidemic form of
plague, it was of a virulent type.
Entering as it did into a city containing all those elements necessary for
the propagation and spread of a typical filth-borne disease, it is not to be won-
dered at that it speedily and surely secured a firm hold, steadily increasing up to
March 10th, 1897, when it reached a maximum, which in all probability would
have been higher, but for the energetic measures so ably carried out by the
Military Search Parties.
The summary of the work done, and the result gained by the system of Mili-
tary Search Parties in Poona, as advocated in my report of February the 25th,
are embodied in the Report of the Chairman of the Poona Plague Committee.
Allowing for average mortality from other causes, the death roll from plague
probably reached 3,000 persons, and the worst week of the epidemic showed a
mortality of 189 per thousand of the population.
Total Mortality Curve.
The accompanying chart* shows the curve assumed by the total mortality in
the City of Poona, arranged for convenience in the means of five-day periods,
from December the 20th, 1896, to May the 30th, 1897, when the disease had
practically declined.
It will be seen that there is a steady rise, with slight fluctuation (January
31st, February 4th), up to the first week in March, and by March the 10th the
maximum of 82 was reached. From now there follows a marked fall which may
be accounted for by the energetic measures adopted on the 12th and carried out
with such praiseworthy zeal by the military workers, the careful and thorough
segregation and the disinfection of infected houses.
It was necessary to take the total mortality from all causes, as " Deaths
from Plague " were unreliable ; but as about one-third of the population had left
and had also removed all their sick, the excess over normal (about 7 per day),
shows fairly accurately the plague mortality,
Nomenclature.
The plague has from earliest times been disguised under various alias, in
spite of the identity of the pathological appearances.
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