68
[CHAP.
II.
MR. HANKIN :—Its or gin in the outside world ; search for the microbe in food, clothing,
bedding, drains and sea-water ; and whether the microbes survived longer in rotten than sound
grain.
DR. SURVEYOR :—The nature of the disease in rate and fowls ; bacteriological proof that
rats are suffering from the disease ; the effects of antiseptics on the microbe, and the relative
value of different antiseptics practically.
MR. HAFFKINE :—The study of the microbe and its relation to the patient and to the
animal body; the question of its commuonicability by infection or contagion between man and
man, and between man and animals, inoculations, etc.; diagnostic methods ; the period during
which the patient continues infectious ; immunity ; and antitoxine and other treatment.
Dr. Surveyor was unable, owing to illness, to pursue his line of investigation or to
write a report. Mr. Haffkine's report was not ready for publication with the Committee's
report, which was presented to Government in November 1897.
The members of the Committee examined and reported on a very large number of speci-
mens from suspected plague cases sent from every part of India ; experimented with
numerous antiseptics sent for report ; and answered an immense number of inquiries addressed
:to them ; involving tedious laboratory work and a considerable amount of correspondence.
The difficulties of laboratory research were very great, owing to want of apparatus and
of trained and intelligent assistants to carry out the ordinary routine work.
The portions of the programme which devolved on Drs. Lyons and Childe had to be
carried out at such times as they could spare from their other duties, which, owing to the
presence of the epidemic, were unusually heavy.
In the present outbreak of plague the infection was no doubt imparted from some
locality in which the disease existed, but the most searching inquiry, instituted at the time
it was first noticed, failed to discover evidence of plague cases (or indeed of any severe form
of sickness except twelve cases of cholera) on board vessels which entered Bombay Harbour
after 1st June 1896.
Inquiry was also instituted among ship-owners regarding any noticeable mortality
among rats on ships trading with China and ports where plague was known to have existed,
but in this case also with negative results. As the outbreak commenced near the Docks,
it appears most probable that the infection was introduced by sea and carried in their
clothes or goods by traders* who were themselves insusceptible. It is also posssible that it
may have been introduced in this way by traders from Northern India, as plague is believed
to be endemic on the southern slopes of the Himalayas.†
The disease probably commenced to spread in Bombay about the beginning of August
1896, as the mortality of the city began to increase in the second week of that month. This
increase in mortality was attributed at the time to remittent fever and lung affections, but as
rats were dying in great numbers in Mandvi Ward, where the death-rate among the
population was unusually high, and where the prevalence of the epidemic was first discovered,
there can be little doubt that the excessive mortality was due to plague. The epidemic spread
slowly, and the total mortality continued to menease until by the second week in February
the whole city had become infected. After that time the mortality began to decrease, and by
the end of May it had fallen to the normal, and deaths from plague ceased to occur.
* Dr. Jan Mahomed's first cases occurred towards the end of September among Mooltanis who trade with
China, and who lived near the dock.
† Vide Paper on Plague in Gahrwal and Kumaon, by Col. Hutcheaon. 1. M. S., in the Transactions of the Indian
Medical Congress, 1894, Calcutta.—W. B. B.