26
70. With a greater diffusion of the disease a corresponding increase in the inci-
dence of and mortality from plague was also to be expected, and that the opposite occurred
can only, in the absence of any other discoverable cause, be attributed to inoculation.
It might be argued—especially with regard to the lower death-rate—that the
virulence of the disease had abated in this, the fourth, epidemic in the locality. This
however is an argument which is unhappily unsupported by the experience of plague in
other parts of India. The close similarity of the case mortality of the disease in 1897-98
with that of those parts of the district which though bordering upon were not included in the
"inoculated area" goes far towards negativing the supposition that the disease had lost
any of its former virulence. This subject will be again referred to.
71. Nothing has as yet been said with regard to the incidence of plague upon the
population of the villages in the infected area in which outbreaks of plague occurred in
1897-98 and in 1900-01. The omission is due to the circumstance that among the
villages shewn as "infected " in both seasons were many in which only imported of
isolated cases of plague occurred, the inclusion of which in the computation of the
incidence of plague upon the population of villages in which outbreaks of the
disease occurred would lead to the formation of imperfect conclusion, In the statement
given below particulars of those villages only have been given in which outbreaks of plague
as opposed to imported or isolated cases occurred :—
Statement No. 19 showing the Incidence and Fatality of Plague in the Jullundur
and Hoshiárpur Districts during the Epidemic of 1897-98 and 1900-01.
[Note.—Statistics concerning places in which only isolated or imparted cases of plague occurred have been
omitted from this statement.]
1
Villages.
Infected in 1897 98
***
Infected in 1900-01.
Within "inoculated area"***
Without "inoculated area"
2
84
139
64
3
83,748
145,549
70,788
4
3 404
2,746
I 662
5
2,113
1,097
1,050
6
Percentage of attacks
to population
4 06
1 89
2 35
7
Percentage of deaths to
population.
2 52
0 75
1 48
8
Percentage of fata
attacks.
62 07
39 95
63.18
It will be noticed that the incidence of plague upon the population of infected
villages was very much lower in 1900-01, both within and without the infected the
"inoculated area" than it was in 1897-98. One reason for this lowered case incidence
may be found in the circumstance already noticed that it was not until March 1901
that plague began to spread rapidly. Indeed it was not until the middle of March
that any outbreak of the disease occurred outside the " inoculated area." There was
a much shorter period, therefore, in the present season than in that of 1897-98, for plague
to spread through villages, before the arrival of the hot weather checked the epidemic.
As far as this circumstance is concerned the "inoculated area" was rather less
favourably situated than the other parts of the districts, and the fact that the incidence
of plague upon the population was lower within this area than outside it can only be
accounted for as the result of inoculation.
72. The possibility that the lowered incidence and fatality of plague within the
"inoculated area" might be due to a decrease in the virulence of the disease in this the
fourth epidemic has already been referred to and reasons have been given for considering
this possibility an unlikely one, This cause of the lowered incidence and fatality of plague