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India and it has been established that sera prepared by their Use form
reli-able standard reagents for the diagnosis of v. cholerae. The work in India
including the studies which have been made on vibrios other than those of
O group No.I shows the necessity of separately determining the O aggluti
-nation of vibrios and indicates that the H+O sera formerly used will not
give reliable information as to the nature of a strain. Many vibrios from
sources in which cholera infection can be excluded are found to be H
agglu-tinators No vibrios of any one serological type other than O group No: I
have been found to be responsible for any group of cholera cases and the
inagglutinable vibrios, other than those of the rough variant of O group I.
often isolated from . cases of clinical cholera are found to be of a very large
number of different serological types. Similar vibrios have been isolated
from healthy persons and external sources in widely scattered areas and
where their cholera origin appears to be extremely unlikely.
7. It has also been shown that by the use of suitable methods vibrios
can be isolated from practically all open water sources in India, the possible
origin of vibrios isolated from human sources both in health and disease
being indicated by the finding.
8. This work has cleared the ground to a very considerable extent and
should facilitate the extension of the investigations to the field study of
outstanding points in epidemiology which will be entered into.
PLAGUE.
Plague had been absent from India for two centuries when infection was
introduced from China to Bombay in 1896. The existence of plague was
acknowledged only reluctantly but the disease soon gained a hold and
be-came severely epidemic. Within a few years it had spread over most of
peninsular India causing a very high mortality. Apart from the fact that
the Bacillus pestis, which had been described by Yersin in Hong Kong in
1894, was the causative organism practically nothing was known about the
methods of spread of the disease and the preventive measures at first applied
were based on the supposition of transmission from man to man. Owing
to the particular facts of the epidemiology of the disease later ascertained,
the measures adopted against the disease were completely ineffective.
2. On the outbreak of plague British, German and Russian Commissions
visited India to enquire into the disease. They did this by taking volumi
- n o u s e v i d e n c e a n d c a r r y i n g o u t s o m e m i n o r l a b o r a t o r y i n v e s t i g a t i o n s .
These Commissions did not elicit any of the essential factors in the
epide-miology of plague.
3. A few workers, including Liston and Lamb who had been deputed
by the Government of India had been investigating the disease in Bombay.
A working commission called the Plague Research Commission was formed
in Bombay in 1905, experienced bacteriologists including Martin, Rowland
and Petrie coming out to India and joining the other workers there. This
Commission worked under an Advisory Committee constituted in India and
including representatives of the Royal Society, the Lister Institute and the
India Office
Contributed by Lt.Col. W. J . Webster, M.C., M.D., I.M.S.