234
[CHAP. VIII.
often days. The measure worked on the whole very successfully, the co-operation of the
villagers being generally obtained, a consequence in some cases of previous experience of
plague and a recognition of its highly infectious nature.
A further precaution was the establishment of disinfecting camps at certain stations on
the main line between Poona and Bombay, where all arrivals were disinfected before being
allowed to pass into the talukas. This measure was also useful and highly successful.
(2) To assist the discovery of plague cases all village officers were directed to report any
abnormal mortality to the Mámlatdár of their táluka, and they were supplied with copies of
the circular describing the symptoms of plague. Registers were kept of all arrivals and
departures of persons not belonging to the village. These measures were also successful.
(3) The most ordinary source of infection is the arrival from an infected area of persons
carrying infection either in their clothes or bodies. At Khed a Mahomedan family arrived
from Bombay in August. Their clothing was disinfected : they were detained outside the town
for ten days ; on the 12th day, a boy of 14, one of the family, showed symptoms of plague,
From this case plague spread gradually throughout the town.
At Alandi, a Guraν family who, while visiting Chinchwád, had put up in an infected
house, returned to Alandi and infected that, town also.
At Bhongaoli, in the Purandhar Táluka, plague was introduced by a woman who had
been to an infected village in the Wài Táluka of the Sátnra District. At the same time a
washerman returned from an infected village in the Bhor State. Then rats began to die m
BhongaoH, and the village rapidly became infected.
(4) When plague deaths occurred, the clothing and bedding of the deceased was ordin-
arily burnt, but sometimes only washed. The contacis were segregated and their clothing
and bedding washed and sometimes disinfected. Disinfection was the regular course where a
Hospital Assistant was available. On some occasions the clothing was washed or disinfected
a second time when the infected house was re-occupied.
All evacuated houses were sooner or later disinfected with Perchloride of Mercury, all
rubbish being previously swept out and burned, Care was taken to thoroughly saturate with
the solution the floors, walls and ceilings. Occasionally roofs were opened to admit air and
light, and in some cases holes were made in the walls for the same purpose.
Grass huts in which plague cases occurred were invariably burnt.
(a) Alandi, Kharpudi Burlruk and Kherdi, Pimpri, Rase Brahmanwadi and Bhongaoli
were completely evacuated within a very few days of the first indigenous cases of plague.
Partial evacuation was resorted to at Khed and Chakan. Evacuation certainly lessened the
violence of the epidemic but did not completely stop it. Cases continued to occur in the
huts into which the people had gone, and the inability of the family to refrain from attending
en masse on their sick relatives, unless strictly prevented, ensured that a large number should
die where many might have lived. This can only be obviated by having separate quarters
for each, allowing only one attendant who should ordinarily sleep outside the patient's
hut, and not allowing him or the patient to rejoin the family until the latter is cured and they
have both been disinfected. A system of village hospitals might ensure this being done, but
such hospitals are invariably unpopular, and if villagers are to be forced to do everything that
is required, a very large body of men would be necessary, entailing a correspondingly heavy
expenditure. Even, however, assuming that evacuation is not carried out in an ideal manner,
it is still very effective and greatly lessens the mortality of the epidemic,
(6) Inoculation was only carried out on a small scale, 50 persons being inoculated at
Chinchwád and 477 at, Aundh. Ai Chinchwád, one inoculated woman died of plague.
(7) Strict segregation was only insisted on when cases first occurred in a village
Afterwards it became merged in the evacuation measiires referred to above. The segregated
family was treated like a suspicious arrival and simply kept outside the village for a period of
ton days.
(8) Temporary huts were erected for plague patients at Chinchwád, Chakan, Khed,
Arvi, Bhongaoli and Alandi. They wore supposed to be occupied only by the patient and one
attendant, but, this rule was honoured more in the breach than in the observance.
At Alaudi a regular hospital was opened in some dharamshalas adjoining the town. Hos-
pital Assistants, Ward-boys, Ayahs, and the usual hospital staff were provided. The treatment