NationalLibraryOfScotland/medical-history-of-british-india huggingface dataset:
174
Very hot or boiling water is an excellent surface disin-
fectant for plague; its practical application would probably
be inconvenient.
(G.O., No. 740-P., dated 2nd August 1898.)
(6)—Railway Inspection.
1. Original Mufassal Regulation 14 (page 29) and Addi-
tional Mufassal Regulation 5 (page 42).—All inspecting officers,
male and female, at railway inspection stations, and clerks
employed at important stations such as Pódanur, Arkonam
and Perambore, should always carry with them a note-book of
a special conspicuous colour with the words " Government
of Madras Plague officials' note-book " printed on the back.
A copy of the appointment order should be attached to the
note-book. Copies of the book may be obtained from the
Superintendent, Government Press, through the Surgeon-
General.
(G.O., No. 724-P., dated 15th May 1899 ; No. 895-P., dated 12th June 1899.)
2. Railway Administrations are requested to instruct their
staff to give every assistance to the Medical officers conduct-
ing the inspection in order to minimise the detention of the
trains, and to detain the trains until the medical inspection is
over. Railway Ticket Collectors may be allowed to accom-
pany the plague inspecting officers, if this course is found to
economize time.
(G.Os., No. 332-M., dated 1st March 1897, No. 1425-P., dated 25th Sept. 1899.)
3. All passengers should be required to quit their carriages
and be examined on the platform or in some suitable place,
cases of suspicion being removed for more careful investi-
gation to a place reserved for the purpose. Care must be
taken that the carriages are locked before the arrival of the
train at the inspection station, and that no passenger is
permitted to leave his carriage until in orderly course the
arrangement shall be complete for such examination.
(G.O., No. 351-M., dated 2nd March 1897.)
4. The inspecting officers should not only thoroughly
examine passengers and passenger vehicles, but also inspect
guards, drivers and firemen and their vans and engines, so
that no person may escape inspection. No distinction should
be made between railway people and others, and before any
train, whether carrying passengers or goods, leaves the in-
spection station, a thorough search should be made to discover
if any persons have concealed themselves with the object of
evading inspection.
(G.O., No. 977-P., dated 1st September 1898.)
175
5. In the absence of any symptoms showing a passenger
to be suffering from fever, it is unnecessary to examine his
person for the purpose of finding out whether buboes are
present. This practice, if it is at present enforced anywhere,
should be discontinued.
(G.O., No. 10-P., dated 8th February 1898.)
6. Female passengers should, under no circumstances, be
required to be examined by men. For their inspection, one
or more nurses are attached to each inspection station.
(G.O., No. 396-P., dated 27th April 1898.)
7. Only persons showing symptoms of plague, or those
from infected areas who can give no satisfactory information
as to their destination or who cannot be relied upon to observe
the passport rules should be detained for observation for ten
days or as long as may be necessary. Others should be
detained only for such period as is necessary for the careful
disinfection of their persons and clothing. It must, however,
be noted that the clothes and personal effects of persons who
are not themselves suffering from infection or show suspicious
symptoms need not be disinfected, unless such clothes and
personal effects are dirty or in such a condition as to raise a
suspicion that they may be contaminated.
(G.O., No. 692-P., dated 9th May 1899; No. 764-P., dated 22nd May 1899.)
8. If a detained person has plague when removed from
the train, all who have travelled with him in the same
compartment are " contacts" and must also be detained
unless they Lave been inoculated. But if he is detained
merely because " suspicious", i.e., dirty or likely to evade the
rules, then there is no need to detain those who have
travelled with him.
(P.O., No. 471, dated 29th October 1898.)
9. To enable detained persons to resume their railway
journey after their discharge from the plague camp, the
Plague officer should give them certificates in the following
form :—
Detention Certificate.
Camp.
1. Name of passenger
2. Number and description of ticket
3. Detained from
to
4. Name and designation of issuing officer
176
The passengers should take the certificates to the Station-
master and get them endorsed by him.
(P.O., No. 17, dated 5th January 1899.)
10. A weekly return of persons detained for observation
at the camps attached to railway inspection stations should
be submitted to the Plague Commissioner (or Government) in
the following form. Persons detained merely for disinfec-
tion and allowed to proceed by the next train should not be
included in the ret/urn :—
Detention Camp.
Return for week ending Monday, the
1899.
1. Number admitted up to the end of the preceding week.
2. Number accounted for up to the end of the preceding
week ...
...
...
...
...
3. Balance (i.e., 1—2)
4. Number admitted during the present week ...
5. Total number to be accounted for (i.e., 3 + 4)
6. Number accounted for—
(a) by deaths ...
...
...
...
...
(6) by removal to plague hospital ...
(c) by discharge on expiration of detention period.
(d) otherwise (give details) ...
Total (a+b+c+d) ...
7. Balance at the end of the week (5—6)
...
...
(G.O., No. 1017-P., dated 5th September 1898 ; P.C., No. 852, dated 6th
December 1898.)
11. The Inspecting Medical officer, Jalarpet, should send
telegraphic intimation to the Medical officer of the Ceylon
Government at Tuticorin when passengers pass from Banga-
lore to Tuticorin.
(P.C., No. 753, dated 22nd November 1898.)
12. Any expenditure incurred in providing inspection
sheds on railway platforms in cases where there are no proper
facilities in the railway station for the examination of pass-
engers in accordance with the Plague Regulations should be
borne by the Civil Department and not by the Railway
Administrations.
(G.O., No. 55-P., dated 9th January 1899.)
13. Persons sending horses from plague-infected areas by
rail through Tungabhadra, Hospet and Jalarpet Railway
Plague Inspection Stations are informed that the syces accom-
panying the animals are liable to be detained at the inspection
stations for a period of ten days under the Plague Regulations.
They are therefore requested to arrange for a second syce
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from a non-infected area being present at the inspection
station, through which an animal belonging to them has to
pass, to relieve the man coming from the infected area. If
such an arrangement is not made, both the animal and the syce
will be liable to be detained and the owner will be required
to pay 8 annas a day for stabling besides the keep of the
horse during the period of detention, unless the syce brings
with him sufficient provender.
(G.O., No. 1022-P., dated 7th September 1898.)
14. Original Mufassal Regulation 16 (page 30).—The mark
used at Tungabhadra Inspection Station has been ordered to
be adopted at all other railway inspection stations. It should
be made only on the tickets of those passengers who come, or
are suspected to come, from plague-infected areas or from
places notified by Government for the purposes of the pass-
port rules. The special mark should be made at the first
inspection station at which the passenger arrives. It is not
necessary to punch his ticket again at any subsequent station
through which he may pass, but he must be medically
examined nevertheless. Tickets of persons who come from
an uninfected area, or who, though coming from an infected
area, have been detained for ten days at one of the observa-
tion camps established in the Madras Presidency, need not be
so marked.
(G.O., No. 1326-P., dated 13th October 1898 ; P.O., No. 931, dated 17th
December 1898.)
15. Care should be taken that the plague punches are not
used except by responsible persons and that they are kept in
safe custody when not in use. The wrong punching of tickets
should be specially guarded against, as the annoyance caused
thereby and the consequent liability to take out a passport is
very great.
(G.O., No. 519-M., dated 13th March 1897 ; P.O., No. 1018, dated 14th April 1899.)
16. Passengers who attempt to evade the plague mark by
re-booking should be watched. If they break their journey
for a considerable period, the passport rules should be applied
to them. If they alight for a few hours with the intention of
proceeding by a subsequent train, the right-hand lower corner
of their new tickets should be clipped with scissors. If this
course be adopted, it will be unnecessary to communicate
their names and addresses to the new places of destination by
telegraph or otherwise. The Railway Administrations have
been authorised to supply stationmasters with scissors and
23
178
bill the Collectors concerned for their cost, which should be
met from Local or Municipal Funds.
(P.C., No. 302, dated 21st October 1898 ; No. 461, dated 21st February 1899 ;
No. 717, 14th March 1899.)
17. Original Mufassal Regulations 18 and 19 (page 34).—
The special attention of the railway authorities should be
drawn to the necessity for the careful working of these regula-
tions. If they are properly worked, there can hardly be any
cases where passengers will break journey and escape observ-
ation altogether.
(G.O., No. 766-P., dated 6th August 1898.)
(7)—Observation System and Passport Rules.
1. Original Mufassal Regulation 1 (page 24).—This regu-
lation should be strictly carried out throughout the Presidency
as a check on the working of Regulation 17 (page 31) and
prosecution should be resorted to in places where the duty
of reporting arrivals from plague-infected parts is neglected
in spite of repeated warnings. If in any municipal town the
existing sanitary staff is unequal to the task of properly carry-
ing out the system of observation, it should be strengthened.
(G.O., No. 556-P., dated 11th June 1898.)
2. Original Mufassal Regulation 17 (page 31) and Addi-
tional Mufassal Regulation 5 (page 42).—All Railway Adminis-
trations are requested to put up in a conspicuous place in
every railway carriage a copy of the following notice in
English and vernacular :—
Notice.
" The Madras Plague Regulations require all passengers arriving
from plague-infected parts to take out passports at the station where
they alight, or in the case of passengers proceeding to Méttupálaiyam,
at Pódanur. Persons infringing the regulations render themselves
liable to prosecution."
(G.O., No. 741-P., dated 2nd August 1898.)
3. It is the duty of railway authorities assisted by the
platform police to see that passengers alighting at a railway
station do not leave the premises except by the proper exit,
and to afford every facility for the working of the Plague
Regulations. Ticket collectors should be required to stop all
passengers holding tickets issued at infected or notified stations
until their names and addresses are taken down, and passports
issued to them either by the plague official appointed for the
purpose, or at smaller stations, by the station staff.
(G.O., No. 273-M., dated 23rd February 1897 ; No. 816 A.M., dated 6th April 1897 ;
No. 1165-P., dated 26th September 1898.)
179
4. When a large body of troops or police or coolies en-
gaged in plague operations are returning to a healthy district,
previous intimation of their departure should be given to the
local authorities of the place of destination. Before starting,
they should be carefully examined and disinfected, and on.
arrival at their destination, they should be given passports
according to the rules.
(G.O., No. 835-P., dated 2nd June 1899.)
5. Persons who pass to and fro between an infected and
a healthy district should be kept under surveillance, but a
passport need not be issued to them more than once during
each period of ten days.
(G.O., No. 1080-P., dated 15th September 1898.)
6. Passport-issuing officers should not suppose that they
have merely to issue passports to those who come and apply
for them. The main object of declaring persons from infected
parts to be bound to take out passports is to punish cases of
wilful evasion of the rules, and it was never the intention to
relieve the passport-issuing officers of their duty of tracing out
such passengers and not allowing them to go away without
passports. Passengers who fail to take out passports should
be prosecuted at the discretion of the Collector, but whether
prosecuted or not, they must be required to present them-
selves for inspection for ten days as soon as their arrival has
been detected.
(G.O., No. 741-P., dated 2nd August 1898.)
7. Arrangements should be made to have all arrivals at
large towns like Salem, Trichinopoly, Madura not only ex-
amined by a medical subordinate at the railway platform, but
also similarly inspected daily for ten days afterwards. The
Collectors concerned must see that this is done and should not
leave the matter wholly into the hands of Municipal Chairmen.
At stations where medical subordinates are not available for
the duty of watching arrivals, granting them passports and
inspecting them for ten days, the work should be entrusted
to stationmasters or competent persons already in the employ
of Government, and if they are found neglecting their duty,
they should be prosecuted. Collectors are requested to check
their action carefully from time to time.
(G.O., No. 1105-P., dated 17th September 1898.)
8. Passport-issuing officers should note that every person
who holds a ticket marked in the manner indicated in para*
graphs 14 and 16 of section 6 of this Chapter, should be given
a passport. To ensure that none escapes taking a passport,
180
the passport-issuing officer should question passengers where
they come from, in cases where they do not hold specially
marked tickets. In cases where a passport has been wrongly
issued owing to erroneous plague-marking of the railway
ticket, the President or the Health Officer of the Municipality
in the City of Madras and the Municipal Chairman or any
Revenue officer not below the grade of Deputy Tahsildar in
the mufassal are authorized to cancel the passport on satis-
factory proof that it was wrongly issued,
(G.O., No. 1326-P., dated 13th October 1898 ; No. 1183-P., dated 2nd August 1899 ;
P.C., No. 560, dated 1st March 1899.)
9. Regulation 17(ii) (c).—The Collector should settle with
the railway authorities of each district at which stations the
railway staff shall be required to perform the duties connected
with the issue of passports, and at which stations the Collector
should make other arrangements. Stationmasters requiring
forms or service postage stamps should apply to the Collectors
concerned, and should use the following designation in frank-
ing covers containing correspondence connected with their
passport work—"Stationmaster and Honorary Plague Pass-
port-issuing officer."
(G.O.. No. 454-P., dated 9th May 1898 5 No. 673-P., dated 15th July 1898;
P.C., No. 381, dated 25th October 1898.)
10. Regulation 17(iv).—Intimation of the issue of passport
or any change in the residence of the passport holder is now
made by sending the triplicate copy of the passport. The
following procedure should be followed in respect to passport
holders who change their residence within ten days of their
arrival:—
(i) When the new place of destination is within the
Madras Presidency—
(a) The local authority of the original place of arrival
should send the triplicate copy of the passport to the local
authority of the new place of destination after noting therein
the number of days for which the passport holder has been
observed.
(b) If the new place of destination is in another district,
the change of residence should also be intimated directly to
the District Medical and Sanitary officer (or Collector) of that
district, and through the Tahsildar or Municipal Chairman
concerned to the District Medical and Sanitary officer (or
Collector) of the original place of arrival.
(ii) When the new place of destination is in the Mysore
Province—
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(c) When a traveller from an infected place situated
within or outside the Madras Presidency proceeds to any
place in the Mysore Province either direct or after breaking
his journey in any infected district in the Madras Presidency,
no intimation need be given to the authorities in Bangalore or
in the Mysore State.
(d) When, however, a passenger from an infected place
arrives in a non-infected district and then proceeds to Mysore
before the expiry of the ten days' period of observation,
intimation of his departure should be at once given to the
authorities in Bangalore or Mysore. If the passenger travels
by railway, the intimation should be addressed to the Assistant
Surgeon, Yesvantpur, or the Residency Surgeon, Bangalore,
as the case may be. If the passenger goes by road, the
intimation should be sent to the local authority or the Amildar
of the place of the destination. In either case the passport
given to the passenger may be recovered by the local authority
of the place of departure or at the road frontier inspection
station through which he may pass.
The intimation should contain the following particulars :—
Passport number, date and station of issue.
Passenger's name and his father's name.
How long observed and where.
New place of residence—District, taluk, village, street, and
number or name of the house.
The forms should be printed at the District Presses.
(P.C., No. 193, dated loth October 1898 ; No. 1183, dated 1st May 1899;
G.O., No. 1395-P., dated 20th September 1899.)
11. Where a person from an infected area is passported
at his destination, but returns to his starting point within
ten days, the passport may be given up on return, and further
observation need not be insisted upon.
(P.O., No. 452, dated 20th February 1899.)
12. Regulation 17 (v).—Collectors should instruct their
officers to deal with the utmost care with persons arriving from
infected parts and presenting symptoms of fever with acute
affection of the lungs, until an opportunity is afforded for
a competent medical officer to pronounce whether there is
reason to suspect the existence of pneumonic plague.
(P.C., No. 978, dated 22nd December 1898.)
13. Regulation 17 (viii).—The object of sending intima-
tion of arrivals from infected parts to the District Medical
and Sanitary officer is not merely to inform that officer of
the movements of such persons, but to make him responsible
182
that the passport-issuing officers, the local authorities, and
the Tahsildars respectively carry out their duties under the
passport rules. He should maintain a register of all intima-
tions received by him and should see that all persons men-
tioned therein are duly accounted for. The intimation forms
will be supplied by the Superintendent, Government Press,
to Collectors on indent. In filling up the form, the ticket
number and the name of railway station of destination should
also be entered.
(G.O., No. 466-P., dated 13th May 1898; No. 997-P., dated 3rd September 1898;
P.O., No. 131, dated 10th October 1898.)
14. Regulation 17 (viii).—Does not require the mainten-
ance of a register. The information referred to therein should
be recorded in duplicate with the aid of carbon paper, a
separate slip of paper being used for each passenger. One
set of copies should be forwarded at once to the respective
destinations and the other kept for reference at the inspection
station. No such intimation is necessary in the case of persons
exempted from the passport rules under paragraph 19 of this
chapter, a.s the officers to whom they are immediately subordi-
nate are responsible for their observation ; but it should be
forwarded in the case of inoculated persons from infected
areas who hold valid certificates as they are liable to be
observed at their own houses.
(G.O., No. 1200-P., dated 7th August 1899; No. 1277-P., dated 22nd August 1899 ;
No. 1415-P., dated 23rd September 1899.)
15. If the guards of the trains and other railway subordi-
nates do not carry out the instructions given to them with
regard to the transmission of the names and addresses of
passengers, there should be no hesitation to prosecute them
under the Epidemic Diseases Act.
(G.O., No. 1220,-P., dated 3rd October 1808.)
16. The duties of the District Medical and Sanitary
officer under clauses viii, ix and x may be performed by
the Collector in Districts where this course is found con-
venient. In such oases, the intimations should be sent to
the Collector.
(P.C., No. 353, dated 22nd October 1898; G.O., No. 754-P., dated 20th May 1899.)
17. Regulation 17 (ix).—The form in which the informa-
tion referred to should be recorded is prescribed in G.O.,
No. 1074-P., dated 15th September 1898. Copies of the form
are supplied by the Superintendent, Government Press.
18. Regulation 17 (.13).—The Tahsildar should file together
the reports received from the District Medical and Sanitary
183
officer (or Collector) and return each to that officer with the
corresponding original passport recovered from the traveller
under clause v. No separate register need be maintained by
the Tahsildar.
(G.O., No, 997,-P., dated 3rd September 1898.)
19. Additional Mufassal Regulation 30 (page 50).—The
extent to which passport rales may be relaxed and the classes
of persons in respect to whom the relaxation may be made
by the Collectors or the President, Municipal Commission,
Madras, are indicated in the following note of the Plague
Commissioner appended to his Proceedings, No. 16, dated 5th
January 1899 :—
NOTE.
The inconveniences and difficulties attending the working of the
passport rules in the case of railway officers have been brought to notice
both by the railway authorities and Collectors. A general relaxation
of the rules cannot be made in favour of any particular class, and in
the case of railway servants is especially undesirable, for there is reason
to believe that it has been by this class that infection has been carried
to several places. The trouble that is now experienced by those con-
stantly on the move may be avoided by them if they are willing to be
inoculated, and no relaxation of the rules is called for in the case of
those who are unwilling to be inoculated and to whom the inconvenience
is merely personal.
2. There are persons, however, constantly employed on the railways
such as engine drivers, firemen, guards and mail sorters, with regard to
whom, as long as they are on actual duty from day to day, the strict
enforcement of the passport rules may result in public inconvenience
and in their cases some relaxation may be granted. The duties of
these men are of a fairly constant nature, and they halt for any length
of time only at the larger stations, where their absence from regular
duty must come at once to the notice of a superior officer. On the appli-
cation of the railway or postal authorities, Collectors may exempt by
name from the ordinary passport rules individual servants of the classes
mentioned, on the understanding that the officer to whom they are
immediately subordinate must report at once to the nearest local authority
every case of sickness among the servants to whom the exemption is
given. Any permanent change in the nature of the duties performed
should be reported to the officer granting an exemption certificate.
Persons so exempted shall be provided with tickets in the following
form:—
(Name)
, son of
, employed as
and ordinarily residing at
, has been
exempted from the passport rules (Original Mufassal Regulation 17) as
long as he travels on duty as such
between the stations of
and
Mark of left thumb.
Signature, designation and seal of officer issuing the ticket.