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" (b) Αll clothes in actual uso, all carpets, mats, curtains, screens and bedding
" have been sent to the Steam Disinfector, Modikhana, and from there transferred to
" the Camp to which it is intended to send the contacts or evicts.
" (c). Discretion hud to be used in dealing with other property, such as silks,
" boots, boxes and other valuables. It is with the handling of such articles that one
" feels so helpless. The directions are complete, and direct that leather is to be
" washed with this, and silks treated in such a manner, but it is quite another thing to
" have the turning out of the heterogeneous collection of a Parsee House, with stores
" of bygone years, holiday clothes, boxes, large supplies of grain, and all to the
" tune of a pack of grumbling, talking women. The ordinary clothing curtains and
" mats and bedding are easily dealt with, as are the approaches and latrines, but I
" have never left a house after disinfection but with a feeling that if disinfection is of
" value more might have been done.
"With the poor and lower classes no such difficulties present themselves. Doors
" have been found locked and owners not present ; but a pasted notice that if the
" owner does not present himself within 24 hours, the doors will be opened in the
" presence of the Police, has almost invariably proved successful."
It is very difficult to give disinfection a fair chance. The people
now for the most part accept it as an inevitable inconvenience, but the
number who realise the importance and value of it is still extraordinarily
small, and the result, in a large number of cases is that, as soon as they
realise that the Plague Staff will come to disinfect, some, and often all
the kit is quietly removed to a neighbour's room. This, of course, in-
volves risk of the spread of infection, and when the original room is re-
occupied tbe old kit is brought back, and another case possibly occurs.
Such instances are used as an argument for the futility of disinfection,
whereas the real fact is that thorough disinfection has been defeated by
the people themselves. Among Parsees and Mussulmans, again, disin-
fection is deprived of a fair chance by the religious scruples of these com-
munities : for three days after a death the work cannot be done on account
of religious ceremonies ; and in the meantime much mischief may occur.
It is exceedingly difficult to know what to do in cases where infec-
tion is suspected in a god own containing valuable property. If the
property was certainly infected and likely to spread the disease, it would,
of course, be thoroughly disinfected or destroyed without hesitation, but
where the probability only amounted to a possibility and any satisfac-
tory method of disinfection involved the loss of hundreds of rupees, the
problem was usually solved by spreading the articles out in the sun.
In C. Ward and the Central District, and to a certain extent in other
parts of the City, whenever time permitted, attention was devoted to the
disinfection of empty houses with bad records. That this measure was
of some value, is indicated by the fact that in cleaning up and disinfect-
ing 83 such houses in C. Ward, 281 dead rats were found. The
total number of dead rats found by the disinfecting gangs in the course
of their work in C. Ward during the year was 669.
Tile turning was continued during the year with a view to thoroughly
ventilating infected quarters, but was confined to single storeyed build-
ings, and only resorted to in ihe case of buildings of several storeys
when upper storeys were affected.