PALANPUR.]
359
search-parties were placed directly under them, and each supervisor, with the help of his
search-party, daily inspected his quarter. Lieutenant Rainier adds:—
" Two or three times a week I, with the medical subordinates, accompanied the ward
supervisors in their search, thus ensuring a complete and simultaneous examination of the
whole city.
"The influence of these gentlemen induced the search-parties to give earlier information
and ensured the inhabitants of the infected block being removed to a segregation camp,
although many still managed to escape to other parts of the city and to the mango-groves
outside.
"When it was found that in the latter place they were not interfered with, and that only
chowkidárs were posted to give information of fresh cases, they speedily removed themselves
and their sick thither."
The disease was gradually subsiding, when the celebration of the Diváli festival caused
the people to go back to their houses, The result of this was a fresh access of virulence.
On the 28th and 29th of October 1897, Mr. A. Wingate, Plague Commissioner, Colonel G.
W. R. Hay, I. M. S., and Major A. V. Anderson, I. M. S., Inspecting Plague Officer, visited
Pálanpur and advocated complete evacuation, thorough disinfection of persons, clothes and
buildings, &c., together with some other minor measures, most of which were promptly
carried out with excellent results.
As regards the value of evacuation, the ward system, and other measures, the following
remarks by Lieutenant Rainier are interesting:—
"To the better organization of search-parties, the voluntary removal of infected house-
holds to the mango-groves and to the great decrease in the population (many people having
fled to the surrounding villages) must be attributed the decline of the disease which marked
the eighth to the eleventh week of the epidemic,
"Unfortunately the occurrence of the Diváli festival caused a great number of people to
return to the city, resulting in a rapid increase of the disease.
" The week after the Diváli most of these people had returned to the villages. Probably
at this time they laid the foundation of the epidemic in the districts, though one or two vil-
lages were already infected. About this time (28th October 1897) the Plague Commis-
sioner arrived and advocated the complete evacuation of the city. This was done by the
2nd November, about 8,000 or one-third of the normal population building huts for them-
selves in the open areas round about the city, the remainder making good their escape to the
villages. The effect of this operation, combined with the increasing confidence of the people,
leading them to voluntarily report cases and submit to segregation, was at once apparent.
By the end of November the epidemic was practically at an end."
On the evacuation of the town, the ward system was continued in the areas outside it,
each Superintendent keeping a register of the person living under his supervision.
The figures for the months during which the epidemic lasted are given below :—
Month.
August
1897—4 weeks
September ,, —4 ,,
October
,, —5 ,, ...
...
November
„ —4 ,,
Total ...
Population.
(Census of 1891.)
21,092
Cases,
31
251
295
84
661
Deaths,
17
151
182
60
410
It is instructive to compare these figures with those of Násik, in which the same
measures were tried, and the months of November 1897 for Pálanpur and of January 1898
for Násik are therefore given in full:—