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Captain Bolton, reporting on the evacuation carried out in the
Central District, states as follows :—
Up to the end o£ August the District Officer, could, i£ he thought it necessary,
evacuate a house. It generally meant in this district that should three or
more cases o£ plague take place in a house within a short period o£ time, that
house was evacuated. Compulsory evacuation was given up in August, and
special sanction had to be asked for to carry out this measure. The people could
evacuate a house o£ their own free will, i£ they desired to do so, but no compulsion
was to be used, two instances are here given of voluntary evacuation proving the
benefits o£ evacuation.
Dr. Munshi states :—A case of plague occurred in House No. 255, Duncan
Road, on the 9th January and another on the 14th January. A third occurred on
the 1st o£ February, and between that date and 19th February, five more cases
occurred. By impressing upon the occupants the necessity for evacuation and the
very encouraging results afforded thereby to this very house last year, I succeeded
in getting them to come and live in the Northbrook Garden Camp. This was on
the 19th February. The house was thoroughly disinfected. In the camp I detected
three more cases of plague on the 25th February. These were removed to hospital.
These three had evidently absorbed the poison while living in the infected house,
and the germs were in a state o£ incubation. No more cases occurred and since the
return o£ the people to their homes, the house has been free from plague.
Mr. Samuel states :—No 1, Agripada was voluntarily evacuated. The tenants
of the house made up their minds to go to camp instead of living in a damp and
infected house. In this small house 5 cases o£ plague occurred within a month.
The evacuation took place on the 4th January 1901, and the house was
thoroughly disinfected throughout in the meantime. The people were allowed
to return after 10 days, and no more cases o£ plague occurred in the house for 7
weeks. The bad effects of the abolition o£ evacuating houses may be seen from the
history of a house given below :—
In 244, Ghellabhai Street, Part I, 24 cases o£ plague occurred in a month and
had I been able to vacate the house shortly after the outbreak, I do not believe the
people would have suffered so severely.
Inoculation.
In the year previous to the one under report inoculation was pushed
with much energy and 158,000 persons were inoculated at a cost to
Municipal Funds of Es. 42,000. Special fees were paid to Sectional
Medical Officers, touts were given half an anna for every person they
brought up, and four annas were paid to each person treated. In cases
of subsequent prostration monetary assistance was given from the
Discretional Relief Fund.
During the year under report this system was changed. First of
all, in view of the decline in the epidemic money payments were discon-
tinued as an inducement, and the four anna dole was only given to those
contacts and evicts who underwent the operation ; in other words, inocu-
lation became limited to those only who lived in localities whence the
disease had not disappeared.
These localities gradually became very
few and in September the system became modified still further by the
receipt of orders from the Government of Bombay dated September 4th
1900 limiting the cases in which expenditure might be incurred from