107
" Volunteers was the removal of plague cases to hospital. They were all more or less
" in sympathy with plague cases being kept at home, and it required much time and
"trouble to get them to heartily support the opposite principle which has guided us,
"i.e., that, extraordinary causes (such as great weakness, &c.) apart, it is far better
"for the ordinary sick man in a native house to be treated in hospital than at home.
"The broader question of saving the lives of others and of checking plague infection
" by the prompt removal of plague cases to hospital was not so much dwelt upon as
"the benefit in each individual case. It has been our consistent policy never to
"leave a case in the house, unless the patient was in a state unfit for removal, and
" at the same time we have endeavoured to encourage voluntary removals as much
" as possible, i.e., removals by the agency of relations or friends or Volunteers alone
" without the interference or presence of the District Officer or his section Medical
"Officer, and now I find that in 9 cases out of 10 the Volunteers themselves initiate
" and encourage immediate removal to hospital."
Captain Cuppage, who at the end of the year relieved Lieut. Warneford
in this District, reports that between November 1898 and May 1899,
1,233 cases of plague out of a total of 2,593 were reported by Volunteers.
He adds :—
" When I first joined the District I could not help being struck by the energy
" which the Volunteers threw into their work. Whenever I went round with the
" Sectional Medical Officers I always found some of the Volunteers on their rounds
" though they had no previous intimation of my intention to visit them."
The work of the Volunteers in A Ward, too, was excellent. There
were only 2 Committees, one for the Fort and one for Colaba, comprising
28 gentlemen. They reported 487 cases or 32 per cent, of the total
found, and there were some of them who did their work with unbounded
enthusiasm, devoting the whole of their leisure time to it. By keeping
constantly in touch with the people, with the house-owners and bhayas
(care-takers) they obtained a thorough knowledge of their beats, while
some of them had great influence of their own as householders, leaders
of their communities, or well-known medical practitioners. Thanks to
their tact, good humour and kindness, not a single serious difficulty
occurred in the plague administration of A Ward. In B Ward (North)
there were 21 gentlemen who worked. They had an overcrowded, in-
sanitary district to deal with, and never got such a hold upon it as was
secured by those in A Ward. They did, however, from time to time,
excellent work. It was marred occasionally by bickering, and a good
deal of effort was required to work up any keenness among them. There
were, however, one or two exceptionally hard workers, and the short-
comings of the Committees as a whole may be with some justice ascribed
to the fact that the District Officer was so constantly changed. This
was unavoidable. The following account is given by Lieut. Brackenbury
of the work of Volunteers in B Ward (South).
"In June 1898 I found two Committees working in Mandvi and one in
" Chakla. The Committees in Mandvi were the Cutch Lohana and the Khoja (with a
" Sub-Committee for Jews). The Committee in Chakla was the Chakla Mixed
" (Hindu and Mahomedans). The Lohana Committee were supposed to look after
"the whole of Mandvi, i.e., not only their own caste, but also the two very large castes