36
utterly ignorant relatives. In Mahim Hospital there were children of 6, 7, and 8
years with 5 and 6 buboes on them who recovered. What possible chance could they
have had at home."
Segregation
of Contacts.
The object of sending contacts to camp is, as explained last year,
partly to get people out of infected rooms, and partly to prevent
the risk of their infecting others. It is an unpopular measure ; the
contacts do not greatly object to leaving the room, but they do not like
going to camp. Where a suffering case was found, the family would go
off to the camps attached to the principal hospitals without much
difficulty, but where the patient was already dead, it often took endless
time and trouble to trace the contacts, and frequently they could not
be found at all. Among the lower classes is to be found a large fuc-
tuating population with few belongings, who come to Bombay for
work, and share a room as sub-tenants, In such cases especially it was
exceedingly difficult to find the sub-tenants. Once the contacts were
found there was practically no difficulty in getting them to go to camps,
except among the Mussalmans who consistently object to all interference.
As a general rule the people were happy enough when they got to
camp, and often wished to stay on there ; but a certain number of cases
occurred, more especially among those sent from F and G Wards, who
had to go a considerable distance to camp, where they quietly left the
camp and disappeared. This was to some extent prevented by making
a point of sending as much of their kit as possible to camp and pro-
hibiting its removal till the expiry of the 10 days period, but sometimes
hardly any kit could be found to send, and sometimes the people would
just leave their kit and go. In a few cases they were traced and sent
back. Among the higher classes great good was done by the various
private camps. The members of the various communities were quite
aware of the danger of staying in their infected quarters and perfectly
content to go to their own private camps. In the General Statement of
work done the number of contacts dealt with is given. It will be seen
that as compared with the total number of Plague cases, the work was
a good deal more efficient than in the previous year; and when the very
large number of contacts, who were not interfered with because they were
inoculated, is taken into consideration, the improvement is very marked.
Evacuation of
infected
houses and
localities.
There is very little new to be written on the subject of the evacu-
ation of infected houses and localities. This operation, which involves
a more extensive interference with the people than any other, is the
one that causes least trouble. The reason, no doubt, is that considerable
discretion is used in adopting it; the people have generally become
anxious for their safety, and everything possible is done for the com-
fort and convenience of those removed. The services of volunteers
were invaluable in this work. The number of people sent to camp
would have been greater but for the fact that inoculation was so freely
offered and accepted as an alternative for segregation.
Theoretically when it had been decided to evacuate a house, only
persons who were inoculated should have been allowed to remain but