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parties, and to hand over a member of the funeral party to the Police if no
certificate was forthcoming. Instructions were given to all policemen on duty
to examine the certificates of all funeral parties which passed them and to
detain a member of the party when no certificate was forthcoming in order
that inquiries might be made as to where the death had taken place. The
arrangements made were duly notified to the public.
19. The startling decrease which took place in the mortality of Poona
City during the month of April led the Committee to entertain a doubt whether
deaths were not escaping registration. Accordingly, with a view of increasing
the efficiency of the death registration arrangements, a British Officer was placed
in charge of them from April 26th. The actual work of death registration was
entrusted to Native officers, and the Mukádams stationed at the burial and
burning grounds were replaced by men from the Native Infantry. Sowars
were told off to inspect daily the smaller burial grounds where it was not worth
while maintaining permanent posts. I am confident that since these changes
have been made very few deaths have escaped registration, while the number
that went unregistered before April 26th was probably inconsiderable. The
arrangements made for verifying the addresses at which deaths occurred have
been noticed in describing the work of the fumigation parties.
20. In Suburban and Cantonment limits, where the death-rate never
reached the height it did in the city, arrangements for the medical examination
of corpses of persons who died in places other than hospital were made at an
early stage of the operations. This had the effect of keeping down the number
of houses which had to be disinfected and their inmates segregated, since when
the examination showed that death was not due to plague disinfection and
segregation were inapplicable.
21. In the city, owing to the calls upon the time of the Medical Officers
employed, a system of medical examination of corpses was not introduced till
May 19th, when the work of the search parties stopped. Since that date it has
been performed by Surgeon-Captain Beveridge, and has had the effect of saving
the public from much inconvenience. A copy of the notification which was
issued regarding the medical inspection of corpses is given in Appendix 47.
22. By this system of inspection of dead bodies by a medical man, com-
bined with efficient death registration arrangements, it is improbable that any
considerable number of deaths from plague can escape the notice of the author-
ities, and the enforcement of disinfection and segregation in all doubtful cases
which it renders possible should go far to prevent a recrudescence of the
epidemic.
XII.—INSPECTION or IN-COMeRS AND OUT-GOERS.
This subject may conveniently be dealt with under two heads—Inspection
at Railway Stations and Inspection on Roads.
Inspection at Railway Stations.
2. In consequence of the appearance of plague in Bombay, the Managing
Committee of the Poona Suburban Municipality resolved, on the 29th September
1896, to post a medical man at the Poona Railway Station to watch passengers
arriving from Bombay by Railway and to send any found to be suffering from
plague to the shed provided for the purpose in the Sassoon Hospital compound.
A medical man was accordingly posted at Poona Station from 30th September
1896 with two peons to work under him. He was instructed by the then Deputy
Sanitary Commissioner Surgeon-Major Street as to how he should examine
persons suspected to be suffering from plague, and directed to advise them to go
to the Sassoon Hospital, and in the case of their refusing to do so to ascertain
their destination and communicate it to the authorities concerned.
3. On 28th December the inspecting staff was increased to two -medical
men and four peons, who met all the passenger trains arriving from Bombay.
On January 31st the inspecting staff was authorized to compel sufferers from
the plague to go to the Plague Hospital. From February 20th the inspecting
staff was required to watch persons leaving by rail as well as those arriving.