24
Owing to the great pressure of work under which the inoculation operations, both
in the hot weather of 1900 and during the epidemic of 1900-01. the inoculation regis-
ters had not been indexed. The first thing that was necessary therefore was the index-
ing of the inoculation registers and the preparation of a statement showing for each
village the registers containing entries of inoculations of its residents.
57. The clerical establishment of the Plague Medical Officers of, the Jullundur
and Hoshiárpur Districts in 1900-01 were very limited, and it is not to ber wondered at
that the records submitted by Plague Medical Officers were very incomplete.
58. The clerical establishment of the Chief Plague Medical Officer
until
June 1902, up to which date also the offices of the Chief Plague Medical Officer and
Deputy Sanitary Commissioner were combined, consisted of only two clerks. It was thus
impossible to check completely the records submitted by Plague Medical Officers, though
these were so obviously defective that they were returned again and again for correction
and completion, and it has only been by utilising the services of some of the clerks sanc-
tioned for Inoculating Medical Officers during the present season of 1902-03 and by
temporarily deputing to this duty two of the clerks of the increased office establishment of
the Chief Plague Medical Officer that it has been possible to obtain much of the information
contained in this report It is, moreover, only quite recently that some of this information
has been obtained.
59. It will be evident from what has been written above that such estimate as
can be made of the result of the inoculation operations of the hot weather of 1900
can only be an approximate one. it has been pointed out that the condition of the
present epidemic differed greatly from those of epidemics in former years, and that
records could not be maintained with the same accuracy as formerly. Nevertheless
it is believed that it can be shewn that the "inoculation campaign" of 1900 had very
beneficial results.
Longer period of freedom from plague than in former
years.
60. Attention has already been drawn to the much larger period of freedom from
plague which elapsed between the beginning
of the present epidemic and the end of its
immediate predecessor than between previous
epidemics. This period in the case of the Jullundur District was, as stated, 107 days, while
in the case of the Hoshiárpur District no case of plague is known to have occurred between
June 4th, 1900, and March 16th, 1901, a period of over nine months.
61. As far as the Hoshiárpur District alone is concerned, it may be fairly claimed
that the "inoculation campaign'' succeeded in its object; for it is noteworthy that
the first two villages, Mazári and Kukowál, which were infected in this district in the
present epidemic were outside the inoculated area, infection having been introduced from
the Jullundur District.
62. It may be remarked here also that the first case of the present epidemic in
the Jullundur District occurred in a village, Mangowál, in which no inoculation had been
performed since March 1900. It was not included in the " inoculation campaign" as
most of its inhabitants had been inoculated during an outbreak of plague there in Febru-
ary and March 1900. Moreover, in none of the four villages infected up to the end of
December 1900 had inoculations been performed since the previous May, and of the six
villages infected between the end of December 1900 and the beginning of March 1901 there
were only two in which inoculations had been performed since the previous June.
63. Attention may also be drawn to the circumstances remarked in the Plague
Report for 1900-01 that both in November and December it was possible to declare
the Jullundur District " free of plague "—a declaration which implied the absence of the
disease for a period of 21 days, a condition which had not occurred at this season of
the year since the first appearance of the plague in the Province in 1897.
64. These circumstances are not a little remarkable, especially when the condi-
tions which have been already described as existing during the present epidemic are taken
into consideration, and but for the "inoculation campaign" there is no known factor to
account for them.
However, as has been seen, in spite of its mild beginning, the epidemic of 1900-01
was the most severe and widespread that had hitherto occurred in the Jullundur and
Hoshiárpur Districts. The only previous epidemic which had approached the severity
of the present one was that of 1897 98, the first known in the Province. In this epidemic
there were 3,413 cases of plague and 2,114 deaths as compared with the 4,449 cases and
2,156 deaths of the epidemic of 1900-01.