Proceedings of the Hon'ble the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab in the Home (Medical and
Sanitary) Department, No. 285L, P., dated 9th March 1901.
READ—
Report on Inoculation in the plague-infected areas of the Punjab and its Dependencies
from October 1900 to September 1901, by Major E-Wilkinson, I. M. S, Chief
Plague Medical Officer, Punjab.
Report on Plague in the Punjab from Ist October 1901 to 30th September 1902, by
Major E. Wilkinson, I. M. S., Chief Plague Medical Officer, Punjab.
Report on Plague and Inoculation in the Punjab from Ist October 1902 to 30th Septem-
ber 1903, by Major E Wilkinson, I. M. S., Chief Plague Medical Officer, Punjab.
REMARKS.—The repor s now under review cover the plague history
of the Punjab during the two years 1901-02 and 1902-03, and in addition give
the history of anti-plague inoculations in the Province during 1900-01, During
the two latter years the people had nothing to fear from reporting plague as no
compulsory measures were in force, and it is believed that reports of cases and
deaths were freely made. The reporting of plague cases and deaths has been com-
pulsory throughout and still is so, but the reporting agency is everywhere defec-
tive, particularly in its inability to distinguish plague from other diseases, and in
some places, such as Ludhiána during 1901-02, it broke down altogether during
severe outbreaks. An instance of the breakdown of reporting is afforded by
Gujránwála, in which district deaths only appear to have been brought on to the
record in July 1903 : the district figures for the month give ,892 cases and the
same number of deaths. Moreover, the monthly or weekly returns were
commonly affected by the omission to report cases and deaths in the period in
which they occurred and their subsequent inclusion in a later period when they
came to light. The inclusion of deaths which occurred previously account for
such returns as that of Siálkot during June 1902, when 9S8 cases with 1,010
deaths were reported, or that of Lahore for June 1903, when 2,425 cases and 6,867
deaths were reported. The statistics incorporated in the reports are therefore
admittedly incomplete. There is, however, reason to believe that the death re-
turns convey an approximately correct idea of the state of plague in the Province,
for while many plague deaths were omitted from them, these omissions were pro-
bably balanced by the inclusion in them of deaths not due to plague. The records
of cases are much more vitiated by the inclusion among plague cases of illnesses
due to other causes. To make this clear it is necessary only to look at the figures
for cases and deaths reported as due to pneumonia and septicsemic plague, The
case mortality on the reported figures is so low as to render it certain that many
illnesses from ordinary pneumonia or fever have been ascribed to plague. It
should, however, be recollected that plague occurrences among inoculated
persons have always been more freely reported than other plague occurrences,
and that in 1902-03 an elaborate system of record and verification by an
exceptionally strong Medical staff was in force, so that the figures relating to
inoculation, particularly for 1902-03, may be accepted with some confidence as
practically correct.
2. When Sir Charles Rivaz assumed the Lieutenant-Governorship of the
Punjab in March 1902 it was feared that the Province had " still to experience
the full force of the calamity with which it has been visited." This fear
has, unfortunately, been realised. By the end of 1900-01 the Punjab had
had 14,573 plague cases and 8,394 deaths, and the disease was established
only in parts of Jullundur, Hoshiárpur, Siálkot, Gurdáspur, Ludhiána,
Ambala and Ferozepore. The number of infected districts rose in the
following year to 16 and again in 1902-03 to 21, while the number of reported
plague cases and deaths, which for 1900-01 had been 9,908 and 5,542 res-
pectively, rose in 1901-02 to 267,581 cases with 174,041 deaths and in 1902-03
to 325.747 cases with 195,141 deaths. By the end of 1902-03 the total
number of plague deaths registered in the Province amounted to 377,576, and
the whole Province was infected except certain tracts on its borders. On
the west and south-west, the Mooltan Division, except a part of the Jhang
District, was still uninfected ; in the north-west, the disease was confined to
limited areas in Jhelum and Rawalpindi ; in the south-east, Delhi and parts of
Gurgaon and Rohtak were still uninfected ; and in the Hills there was practically
no plague. But the disease was established in the whole of the rest of the