116
[CHAP. III., PT. Ι.
agriculture when you sow wheat, you will get a crop of wheat, and not one of barley, so
wheu plague-seed is sown in a man's body plague symptoms appear and not those of any
other disease. The symptoms are caused, not by the bacilli themselves, but by the poisons
excreted by them into the body of the victim. If the person attacked should recover, he has
the comfortable consciousness that he will not, in all probability, suffer again from the same
disease. This happy result is produced by the action on the body of the bacterial poisons.
Why then should we not produce this poison outside the body by growing the bacilli in
flasks, and then collect the poison they have secreted there ? This is actually what we do in
the laboratory here as you have seen for yourselves to-day. From these bottles we can take
a measured quantity of dead germs, and their poisons, or toxins, as scientific people call
them, and inject them into your bodies. The body then reacts in the same way to the
poison produced in bottles, as it would to the same poison had it unfortunately been manu-
factured in itself instead of in the flask. The result is that the injected person does not
get plague. If we return to our agricultural simile once more, we may get some light
on the matter. You all know that if a soil is heavily salted it will no longer produce
crops ; so in the same way we may say that a person who has passed through an attack of
plague has become " salted," for the plague germ can no longer grow in the soil of his
body. The same effect is produced by inoculation, with the difference, that there is no
danger of dying during the process, and that the inoculated person is in no way dangerous
to those around him. The plague-germ, when it gains entrance to the body of such
a person, finds a "salted" soil, and cannot grow and multiply, and if it cannot grow it
cannot produce any toxines, and so no effect on the individuals is produced. 1 trust I have
been able to throw some light on this somewhat technical subject, and that you will all now
be able to preach inoculation in your own neighbourhoods.'
" His Excellency, who was cordially received, then addressed the company, He said :—
I have little doubt that you all now thoroughly understand the process by which this pro-
phylactic is made. For certainly, as regards myself, without the explanation given here and
in the lecture rooms, my interest would have been more sympathetic than intelligent. But
enough has been said by Major Bannerman to show all interested—and it appears to me that
everybody in India at this moment is interested—in inoculation that there is nothing to hide
in the preparatory process. Nothing can exceed the caution and care with which every stage
in the manufacture is accomplished so that it may be of the purest possible nature. Parel
has seen various vicissitudes. Many, many years ago it was a Jesuitical Seminary, I
believe, and many years afterwards it become the Governor's residence. Three or four years
ago I handed it over for a plague hospital, and I really think under General Gatacre's man-
agement it was the most popular plague hospital. Now it has been lent by the City Improve-
ment Trust to be the home of this laboratory. It is difficult to say how much successful
research may be accomplished or what benefits may not accrue to the studies that will be
carried on here. I have frequently had to make speeches about plague measures before,
but never have I spoken on this particular subject. As I said at the commencement of my
speech, it would be merely a waste of time for me to express an opinion upon inoculation or
prophylactics, except this, and I think I am justified in saying it, although a non-expert
I have been asked at various times und places whether I would recommend inoculation. We
all know there is no forcing of inoculation, and, therefore, comes the question as to recom-
mending. I have seen various reports which have come from Dharwar, Hubli, and other
places, and, although non-experts, we are entitled to read these reports and form our own
couclusion. My conclusion, after reading these reports, and after consulting many medical
men and others who have watched the results of inoculation, is that if I myself were in the
position of many a doctor and many a nurse who from morning to night are engaged in
plague duty, I would be most certainly inoculated. (Applause.) More than that, if I were
asked to advise as to certain individuals in a particular class liable to attacks of plague
I should most certainly say " Be inoculated." (Hear, hear, and applause.) Well, Major
Bannerman, you will agree with me that this is a doctor's afternoon, and I do not, therefore,
propose to occupy your time much longer. What I would wish to say, however, is how
much I am conscious of the heroic manner in which the members of the medical profession
have worked for the last three years in endeavouring to stem the tide of the epidemic. We
have, too, employed on plague work officers from the Army, the Forest Department, the
Revenue and the Salt Departments,· and while all have worked splendidly, it has generally
been considered that after all the doctors were the men. My experience of them has been
that whether going their rounds in the up-country villages, whether watching cases in the
hospitals, or going deep into the great bacteriological problems which present themselves,
their conduct in this Presidency has been beyond all praise. (Applause.) Now I have to
perform an easy task, the task for which I came hère, and that is to formally declare this
institution open. Like most places of the kind so opened, I am glad to think it has been
doing useful work for some considerable time, and Major Bannerman is, you will all agree, to