INOCULATION.]
41
15 persons were seized, 6 of them being sepoys. In the ten days following removal to camp,
13 sepoys and 20 among the families and followers were attacked. Then removal from the
infected locality had its usual effect : the cases gradually became fewer, and ceased by the end
of the year. The following table summarises the events of this period, ?. e., 12th November
to 31st December 1897.
Among
,,
,,
,,
Sepoys, 34 cases, with
Women, 20 „
,,
Children, 16 „
,,
Followers, 8 „
,,
Total ... 78 „
22
10
9
8
49
deaths
t»
»
»
»
=
=
=
=
=
64.7
50.0
56.25
100.0
62.8
per cent. of mortality.
,,
,,
,,
,,
,,
,,
,,
,,
An officer of the Plague Research Laboratory was sent to Belgaum, and commenced
operations there on 24th December. No difficulty was experienced in persuading the men
to consent to inoculation : and all the sepoys who were off duty that day in the Hindalgi
Camp (229) were operated on during the morning, and allowed to return to their lines next
day. Those in other camps and the families were speedily inoculated and allowed to return
also. The return was complete by the 30th December. A few more inoculations continued
to be done up to 6th January 1898, among followers and children, but the regiment was
practically a completely inoculated community by the end of the year. The total operated
on was 1,665, out of a population of 1,746 living in the lines at that date. The 81 not operated
on were infants, women far advanced in pregnancy, and the sick in hospital chiefly, though
one solitary sepoy has up to the present time refused to submit to the operation.
After this date two cases occurred in January, the sufferers being a European officer and a
sepoy, both employed in disinfection work in the town ; they had both been inoculated and both
recovered. No cases were reported for the next 6 months, though, as shown above, the epidemic
was at its height in the neighbouring city and cantonment in January, and the men were allowed
freely to go to these places after inoculation. That this practical immunity of the regiment
was not due merely to the disinfection of the lines will be manifest to anyone studying the
occurrences during the second epidemic from July to December 1898, now to be described.
The second epidemic in Belgaum Town began in June, reached its height in October, and
thereafter declined till January 1899, when it ceased. The table given below shows the
number of deaths from plague (the attacks were, of course, many more, but no accurate
figures are forthcoming on this head) reported in the City and Cantonment, month by
month, contrasted with the attacks and deaths in the Regiment.
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Dates.
1898
,,
...
...
...
,,
...
...
,,
...
...
,,
...
...
...
,,
Deaths reportad from
city and Cantonment.
14
215
304
098
999
275
65
Attacks in the
Regiment,
1
o
2
4
2
1
Numbers of those
attacked in the Bogt .
who died.
1
1
1
2
1
0
From the above it is manifest that the numbers attacked and the subsequent fatalities in the
Regiment kept pace exactly with the severity of the epidemic in the neighbouring town, rising
and declining with it. The conclusion is therefore inevitable that the same infection that
was producing such havoc in the civil population was equally present in the lines of the military,
yet they suffered in proportion 22 times less at the height of the epidemic, In the City and
11