228
[CHAP. VIII.
aided by Mr. Joshi, Acting Mámlatdár, and the Hospital Assistant in charge of the town,
Pratap Gangaram. Four volunteers were found who carried on the work in a most
thorough manner, and when they had taken over the duties, few cases escaped detection.
A party of sweepers was formed, and systematically disinfected and cleansed out every court-
yard and privy in the town. Several cases occurred in "D" Division, Kámátipura,
towards the end of October. This part was accordingly completely evacuated for 15 days,
and the houses thoroughly ventilated and limewashed. The inhabitants were put into huts
under observation. Only two fresh cases occurred among them while in the fields. The
improvement continued during November. Plague showed no tendency to rise again.
Houses in which cases had occurred before the 20th October—20—were put to rights by
their owners, and allowed to be inhabited after they had been passed by the Medical Officer,
but the roofs were not closed.
"In December an observation camp was formed, in which persons entering Sirur were
detained ten days under observation. Five imported cases of plague were detected and
sent to hospital. On the 4th December, a case occurred near the police lines in some old
thatched huts ; these huts were unroofed and the thatching burnt."
The last indigenous case occurred on the 22nd of December 1897 ; the total number of
oases treated in hospital was 442, of which 297 died and 147 recovered.
Inoculation was tried on a very small scale at Ghodnadi ; the following is Mr. Lamb's
description of the experiment :—
"Inoculation was only tried on a very small scale. On August 28th, 14 persons
were inoculated with a smalt dose of Dr. Haffkine's lymph ; one of them afterwards died of
plague on September 23rd. On September 30th Surgeon-Captain Kilkelly inoculated
himself and 34 others with a stronger dose. But as one man, who no doubt was previously
infected with plague, died on the following night and a second man was very seriously
ill, apart from the temporary fever which the inoculation produced on them all to a greater
or less extent, no one was subsequently found willing to volunteer for inoculation.
None of the others inoculated at this time were afterwards attacked with plague."
The outbreak at Ghodnadi did not cause any great dissemination of the disease.
Before plague was declared epidemic in the town, but while there was yet a fear of an out-
break there, a very large proportion of its inhabitants fled : precautions being taken after-
wards to prevent persons from leaving the town without passes,
The total number of cases and deaths recorded in the village of Sirur, outside Munici-
pal limits and in the neighbouring villages, in Sirur Táluka, were 121 cases—104 deaths;
of which 109 cases—95· deaths occurred in the open fields within the boundaries of the
town of Sirur. Besides this, some villages in the Ahmednagar District, the border of
which is only one mile distant from Ghodnadi, were infected by that town.
Manchar.
Population—1,895.
Infection was introduced into the village of Manchar by a Marwadi woman belonging·
to the village of Avsari Budruk. A death from plague
had already taken place at her honse at the latter place when
she came to Manchar and infected a woman of the family
with whom she put up; both these women shortly after died of plague. The disease now
spread from house to house, carrying off two or three members from each infected family :
the Marwadi and Koshti eastes being more particularly attacked. Complete evacuation
of the village was promptly enforced; all houses were kept entirely open ; infected houses
insufficiently lighted or ventilated had holes made in them admitting of light and fresh
air in abundance. Disinfection was carried out in every house, whether infected or not :
and the following remarks by Mr. Lamb on the enect of these measures are interesting:—
"All these measures being adopted, the village became prefectly free from plague
poison ; in proof of this not a single plague case occurred after the re-occupation of the
village, which was unoccupied for 3 1/2 months continually. Out of the several anti-plague
measures resorted to, the evacuation of houses at once was found to be most effective ; from