KANAKA DISTRICT.]
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to be evacuated, and nearly three-fourths of the population have left their houses, and
now live in temporary sheds erected by them in the fields and jungles. Bats were
infected before human beings. All the inmates of the houses where deaths occurred from
plague have been segregated. Disinfection of infected houses is progressing. Nobody
is allowed to leave the village at present."
Next week there were 5 cases, all again fatal, at Hungund ; but none elsewhere in the
District. " Nearly the whole village," writes the Collector, " has been evacuated." Two
more cases occurred in the succeeding week (15th—21st October 1898) ; and the whole
village was empty. Mr. W. T. W. Baker, I.C.S., Assistant Collector, was sent to Hungund,
and also an extra Hospital Assistant. Steps were at once taken to prevent the
spread of infection outside the village. Hungund itself, after returning 4 cases in the last
week of October 1898, was practically free, as only four more sporadic cases occurred there
at intervals of a fortnight each. The last case, which was due to outside infection, occurred
in a hut beyond the village in the week ending 27th January 1899. The precautions taken
to combat the spread of the disease beyond Hungund were completely successful, as not a
single case escaped to any other place.
But whether it was that the outbreak of plague within the District had demoralized
the frontier guards, or tended to slacken their vigilance, several cases were now imported
from the Dhárwár District into the Mundgod Petha and the Yelkipur and Haliyál Tálukas.
At no place, however, was the disease allowed to get a footing. As soon as a case occurred
or dead rats were discovered, the people left the village site and encamped in the fields ;
this was generally done very willingly, and, the villages being comparatively small,
evacuation could be rapidly accomplished without difficulty. Some cases occurred in the
fields where people had temporarily taken shelter. In several villages disinfection was
carried out by the people themselves, under the guidance of the District Agricultural
Inspector, by slightly digging up the floors and burning a mixture of grass, cowdung, and
chaff on the rough surface so made, and allowing it to smoulder for about 24 hours.
Haliyál Town.
Population—6,180.
With the exception of a sharp attack at Tergaum, a village of some 2,000 inhabit-
ants, which reported 32 cases (26 fatal) in the brief space
of three weeks, during the month of March 1899, the only
place that suffered from an epidemic of any magnitude was Haliyal Town, situated at a
distance of only 21 miles from Dhárwár and 7 miles from the Aluavar Railway Station.
"How infection reached that town," writes the Collector, "is not clearly known ; but there
have been several imported cases."
As in the villages, so at Haliyál, evacuation was resorted to without delay. In the
very week in which the first 4 cases were reported (ending 3rd February 1899), the inha-
bitants of the street in which they occurred were turned out, and a fortnight thereafter the
whole of the townspeople had taken shelter in the fields. Dr. E. S, Winter arrived on the
12th February with the particular object of popularizing inoculation. Of this protection,
however, the people seemed disinclined to avail themselves, preferring to vacate the town.
Nevertheless, the epidemic was speedily arrested, and since the 14th of April the District has
been practically free, a solitary case having been reported from Haliyál Town about the
middle of May last.
From the subjoined table of monthly attacks and deaths for the whole of the
epidemic, it is clear that the District has been exceptionally fortunate in its freedom from
plague.
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