Encouragement of popular methods of disinfection.
" Stress may with advantage be laid on the opening up of large holes in kacha roofs
for purposes of ventilation, because the practice
fits in well with rural ideas: Other tendencies
that can be used in planning a mode of disinfection that does not require skilled supervision,
are the readiness to sun clothes in order to keep out moths and to burn wheat straw or nim
leaves over the floors and the popularity of phenyle as a disinfectant."
Staff and Establishment.
(s) The following medical officers and subordinates were employed on plague duty
in the district :—
1. Major C. H. James, I.M.S., Civil Surgeon and Plague Medical Officer.
2. Lieutenant Mclnnes, I.M.S., Civil Surgeon and Plague Medical Officer.
3. Major Hickey, Temporary Medical Officer.
4. Temporary Assistant Surgeon Key, Temporary Medical Officer.
5. Captain Blacker, Temporary Medical Officer.
6. Temporary Assistant Surgeon Bharucha.
7. Temporary Assistant Surgeon Nazir Husain (was attached to Kalsia State) and
6 Hospital Assistants.
The following were attached to the Kálka Plague Inspection Post :-—
1. Captain Eates, Temporary Medical Officer.
2. Miss J. Mendietta, Temporary Medical Officer, and one Hospital Assistant and
one Dhái.
SIMLA DISTRICT.
39. There were 66 cases of plague with 45 deaths in the Simla District during the
year 1901-02. Of these 65 cases with 44 deaths occurred in the Cantonment of Subáthu
and I fatal case in Simla itself.
Details are not available regarding the outbreak at Subáthu, though it is known
that it was limited to the native occupants of the bazar.
The first case occurred in August 1902, and the outbreak had not ceased by the
end of the year under report.
The single case which occurred in Simla was reported on August 23rd, the death
of the patient having been discovered on that day. The patient had come from Subáthu
on August 15th, and his name had been only registered at the inspection post at Tawi,
where, however, he had stated that he came from a neighbouring village. The man had
lived in the top storey of a house in the bazar, a little below the Town Hall, the remainder
of which was chiefly occupied by durzies. All these persons together with some occu-
pants of an opposite house who were believed to have had relations with the patient were
quickly removed to the segregation camp which had been kept in readiness and the whole
house disinfected, with all the personal effects of the occupants.
The chemical solution of perchloride of mercury was used for disinfecting the house,
and clothes and other personal property were taken to Tara Devi and disinfected in the
steam disinfector there.
As no further case occurred among the persons segregated, they were permitted to
return to their houses after the expiry of ten days.
While in the segregation camp each adult received a subsistence allowance of
4 annas and each child 2 annas daily.
Arrangements were made by the Civil Surgeon for offering inoculation in the
early part of the Simla season, but this caused a panic " among the coolies and the wildest
rumours prevailed in the neighbouring Hill States leading to the refusal of many villages
to allow their children to be vaccinated. It became necessary therefore to discontinue
inoculation operations in Simla, and only 345 persons were inoculated.
Measures for the protection of the hill stations in
the Simla District.
(a) With the object of preventing the spread of plague to the hill stations in the Simla
District, railway and road inspection posts
were established at Kálka, and arrangements
were made for the inspection of persons
entering these hill stations and for their surveillance for some period after their arrival.
These arrangements, in the case of Military Cantonments, were made by the Military
authorities ; in the case of Simla they were under the control of the Punjab Government.
(b) The following report on the inspection posts at Kálka and on the arrangements
for the inspection and surveillance of arrivals at Simla were written by Mr. H. D. Craik,
Assistant Commissioner, who was at first in charge of the posts at Kálka and was afterwards