KARACHI DISTRICT.]
331
Generally speaking, no one developed the disease in Camp, unless he had brought the
infection on him from the town. The advantages of leaving infected sites for fresh ground
are too well known to need repetition.
The evacuation of blocks had no appreciable effect on the spread of plague when once the
epidemic had begun, though it may be reasonably assumed that it minimised the mortality.
It was probably the chief means of stopping the local outbreaks among the Meinons in
November 1898 in the Rambagh Quarter and in the Garden Quarter. It has yet to be dis-
covered what law governs the progress of infection when once an epidemic begins. While it
is known that houses when infected are most dangerous, it cannot be said that the interiors
of houses are the only places where the germ is found.
The open country in the immediate neighbourhood of Karachi is peculiarly suitable for
Camp sites within reasonable distance of the town. The water-supply is fair, though, owing
to the failure of the rain, it was not so good this year as last.
The provision of huts entails considerable expense to the poorer members of the com-
munity, who are, however, often generously assisted by the wealthier members. The provision
of materials for the indigent formed a large portion of the expenditure during the last plague.
One weak point in the system followed in Karachi was that infected articles were removed
to the jungles without hinderance, the actual rubbish and infected bedding only in the vacated
houses being destroyed. The excellent results that have always followed evacuation, coupled
with thorough disinfection and subsequent segregation, are well known. But on the other
hand the rapid cessation of plague in the Camps point to a comparatively small risk from
infected clothing : the benefit of wholesale disinfection on evacuation, even if it were feasible,
would be lessened by the daily return to work in the infected locality; and the dislocation of
business which follows absolute segregation and the comparatively small risk run by working
by day in infected areas render it inadvisable to attempt to carry out on a large scale the
plan followed with such success with small numbers.
The difficulty of preventing persons who have vacated their houses for Camp from
returning to the town to reside in other houses is another weak point in the system. The
Police were warned which houses had been evacuated, and persons were detected at times in
the earlier part of the epidemic residing in them. In the Nasarpuri and Khatri Camps in the
town, where the huts were all numbered, a regular roll-call was attempted; but such a system
would be out of the question in the Voluntary Camp area—entailing an establishment which
would be very expensive and an amount of interference and supervision which would be much
resented.
The danger of harbouring contacts and of living in infected premises are both fairly well
understood, and the good sense of the people is the best safeguard against an abuse of the
freedom enjoyed in the Voluntary Camp area. The arrangements offered for the safe custody
of valuables in the Police Strong Room when families removed to Camp was not taken
advantage of to any extent either last year or this year. Large quantities of valuable orna-
ments were kept in the mat huts in the Camps, and there were not many who took the
precaution even of burying them in the ground. One or two serious thefts took place in
consequence.