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Government do not regard with much favour the system of granting rewards
for information regarding plague cases, but do not altogether prohibit it at the
discretion of local Governments. The employment of paid spies and informers
should never be adopted.
Government fully endorse the view of the Commission that the employment
of influential and trustworthy residents of a town to collect information regarding
the occurrence of cases of plague must be of material assistance to the authorities.
It would be impossible to provide official agencies of sufficient strength in cities
like Bombay. Moreover, unless there be an intermediary between the repre-
sentative of Government and the people, there is constant danger that the require-
ments of the authorities may be misunderstood. The risk of concealment of cases
is lessened where people see that the influential residents of the place have ranged
themselves on the side of the authorities. Government expect that all adminis-
trations will avail themselves of every opportunity of enlisting and utilizing the
services of influential and trustworthy gentlemen of the non-official classes in all
matters connected with plague administration and particularly in assisting to
discover cases of plague.
The inspection of villages next referred to does not concern this City.
Discovery of Plague after Death—Paras. 16 to 23.
Since it is not possible to find all cases of plague in life, the first object should
be to find all cases after death. There is a divergence of opinion in the Commission
as to the question of corpse inspection, but they are agreed as to the necessity of
the disinfection in towns of every house in which a plague death has occurred.
The number of houses in respect of which information will be volunteered judging
by past experience will be extremely few. The majority of the Commission
propose to discover the remainder by determining that all cases in which the cause
of death is not ascertained shall be treated as deaths from plague ; the minority
propose to ascertain them by requiring every body to be examined. Under both
proposals there will be some margin of error. If the proposal of the majority is
properly and completely carried out, a certain number of houses in which plague
deaths have not occurred will be disinfected ; if that of the minority is carried out,
a certain number in which plague deaths have occurred will escape disinfection,
for it is impossible always to diagnose plague after death.
Government agreeing with the majority of the Commission are of opinion
that the compulsory examination of dead bodies is a very unpopular measure ; that
its object is always likely to be defeated by dead bodies being thrown out of houses ;
and that it could only be effectively carried out, with establishments which it would
be impossible to provide, and that even if every dead body were examined this
would afford no greater security that every house in which a plague death has
occurred would be disinfected, then a system of assuming that every death, the
cause of which cannot be established, was due to plague and requiring the house
in which it occurred to be disinfected.
Government approve of the daily scrutiny of the returns from burning ghauts
and burial grounds by strong staffs appointed to different sections of a town who
make a careful and patient enquiry into all deaths considered in any way open
to suspicion.
They direct that compulsory corpse inspection shall not be utilized again in
any part of India. The object which it is designed to attain will be effected by
treating during an outbreak of plague in towns all deaths, the cause of which