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At the Maratha Hospital the serum was used in selected patients
from the 13th of November until 18th of January. In the beginning the
selection was made by Dr. Mayr, later on by the Medical Officer of the
hospital or his assistant who made also the injections except few intraven-
ous ones. 65 patients were admitted during the period given above. 37
received the serum treatment and had 6 recoveries, 28 were excluded
from it, some being under native treatment and had one recovery, a boy
who did not receive the serum because it was considered he would recover
without it. The number of recoveries under the serum treatment would
have been 9 but for the fact that 3 patients died in full convalescence
from avoidable complications. A woman died on the 30th day of illness
from exhaustion due to erysipelas following the incision of the bubo ; a
girl on the 10th day from tetanus originating from the seat of the last
injection ; and a man on the 17th day of the collapse following an attack
of cholera form diarrhæa. Others in which the serum had admittedly
proved beneficial died from unavoidable complication, so a girl on the
13th day, mother objecting to the further treatment when improvement
had set in. Three patients died from bronchitis, peritonitis and croupous
pneumonia respectively on the 8th, 9th and 13th day of illness. Those
not treated with the serum died all within 4 days after admission except
two who lived 6 days. There was only one mild case amongst all admis-
sions which recovered on the control side, and no convalescent case.
The type of the disease was exceedingly severe, the total mortality
amongst the 65 admissions being 89•5%. Triple buboes although usually
put down as single on the charts of temperature, and septicæmia were
preponderant as at the Arthur Road Hospital. The severity of the disease
can further be judged by the fact that out of 30 cases admitted during
January after the discontinuance of the serum treatment only 3 recovered
two of them being convalescent with buboes ready for opening, so that in
fact, out of 28 acute cases only one recovered after a very prolonged illness.
Probably even, the late Medical Officer of the Maratha Hospital with all
his vast clinical experience of plague will hardly claim that he was able
to select for the serum treatment all those who would have recovered by
nature alone. And few, as the recoveries were, they were practically
all on the serum side and give unmistakable evidence that the serum
treatment was not a "complete failure" at the Maratha Hospital, in
which it had to contend also against difficulties not originating in the
disease, not the least of which was the selection of the patients by some
body who had no experience of the serum treatment.
The records received from the private practitioners show that 16
patients recovered amongst 38 treated. From this short resume it will
be seen why the serum could not be prepared in the quantity intended
and why the results did not correspond to those obtained previously.
Still ample evidence of the efficacy of the serum was obtained in many
instances even in the most advanced cases and much valuable information
was gained by the preparation and the application of the serum. On the
other hand it can not be denied that the experience of the last epidemic