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that amongst these Municipal hospitals the diagnosis can be relied on,
whereas the same cannot be said of all of the other Municipal hospitals.
The rest of the hospitals solely under the Municipality are the Sunni
Julahi Hospital, the Mahomedan General Hospital, Northbrook Gardens,
the Mahim Hospital, the Maratta Ward of the Hindu Hospital, and the
Narielwadi Mussalman Hospital. The Julahi Hospital had a larger
number of admissions during the present year, but the plague cases wero
fewer, the increase in the number of patients during the year is stated to
be due to relapsing fever and observation cases. I cannot help stating
that as a native hakim is in charge of this hospital, the figures for
diagnostic purposes are unreliable. The Northbrook Gardens Hospital is
also under the treatment and management of a native hakim. This
hospital shows double the amount of admissions this year ; plague cases
are about 100 more, and the number of ll observation" cases has risen
from 32 last year to 237 this year. The Mahim Hospital was opened last
June for the convenience of the people in F and G- wards, and has proved
a very useful institution, having treated some 170 cases during the year.
A small hospital, called the Narielwadi Mussalman, was opened by
the Municipality at the Narielwadi village, and 8 cases were treated here.
Amongst the private hospitals the most useful were the Sarvajanic,
the Parsee, Adamji Pirbhoy, the D arias than Lohana, Hindu, Aga Khan's,
and Port Trust.
There has been a general falling off in the number of admissions
in these hospitals. The new ones opened this year are the Maratta
Wards of the Hindu Hospital, the Cutchi Dasa Oswal Bunyas, and the.
Maharajah Servants' Hospitals. Amongst the private Mahomedan hospitals
only one has sent in any return, and I really cannot understand why the
others, or in fact any of these hospitals, are kept open. They are hospitals
only in name and are not of the slightest use.
My remarks regarding these private hospitals in the heart of the City
hold good this as last year, and I am still more than ever firmly convinced
that they are a sure source of danger to the community, and that ail
hospitals should be taken outside crowded localities in Bombay City and
placed where they can have plenty of light and air and be under control.
I have little to add to the clinical features of the diseases this year,
I would like to call attention to the remarks made by Dr. Choksy regard-
ing the use of Haffkine's prophylactic serum, and further observations
on this subject ought to be studied. We had some curious combim-
tions of plague with other diseases, such as small-pox and relapsing
fever, arid these have been noticed by some of the medical officers.
Plague has been endemic during the year and cases were admitted
every month; the epidemic began about December and continued, during
the following months up to end of April, when it began to decrease.
Relapsing fever also began about the same time as plague and continued
on to May. Several cases of this disease were admitted to the Arthur
Road Hospital from the Oomercarry Jail, where the disease broke out
badly. The virulence of plague was the same as last year, and the
mortality kept to about 80 per cent.