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[CHAP. VII.
canso of the long security of the Panch Mahals. Such was the opinion of Mr. W. Doderet,
I. C. S., the Collector, and it may be emphasized here:
"I must not omit to mention that our villagers grasped the necessity of avoiding all inter-
course with Ratanpur, and to this I mainly attribute their total immunity from contagion."
And it was the same all along the infected portions of the frontier ; and when at length infec-
tion, crossing the horder, entered the Punch Mahals, it came, apparently, as the consequence
of disregarding this precaution. After the subsidence of plague in Baroda Territory (May
1898), these precautions were relaxed, and were replaced by the surveillance system.
First Epidemic (October 1898—April 1899).—The details of the first two cases of
plague in the Panch Mahals are as follows :—
(1) A Hindu Wánia died on the 11th of September 1898 with suspicious symptoms.
He was ill with fever for four days, and had a swelling in the groin and another behind the
ear. The man was not treated by the Hospital Assistant during his illness, nor was any post-
mortem held on the body. It may fairly be concluded that the man died of plague. The
source of infection was never firmly established, as the man's previous movements were not
known with any certainty, but 'it was commonly reported in the Godhra Bazár,' writes the
Collector, 'that the man had been to Sandhesal, a Gáekwári village, which is highly infected
with plague.'
(2) The second case was discovered on the morning of the 12th September 1898.
This case was a genuine plague case, and as the man admitted having visited a Gáekwári
village within ten days previously, there is little room for doubt as to the source of infection
in his case.
The Collector classes these two cases thus—
(1) Doubtful; (2) Imported.
Kálol.
Population—4,464.
Both these cases occurred in the village of Kálol ; but as they were promptly isolated
and all contacts segregated, it was not thought probable that the
disease had really obtained a footing there. On the 2nd October
1898, however, a woman, who had not previously visited infected
territory, succumbed to symptoms, which left no further doubt as to the existence of indigen-
ous plague at Kálol. At the same time two or three suspicious cases also occurred, accom-
panied by the discovery of a number of dead rats. But no sooner was Kálol declared infect-
ed, than its inhabitants fled, panic-stricken, to the surrounding villages ; and, although the
inhabitants of these latter were wary in admitting them, they succeeded in spreading the
infection throughout the Táluka. Kálol reported 60 cases—46 deaths up to the 2nd of
December 1898, from which date it was free.
Godhra.
Population—14,691.
Although the danger to Godhra Town was recognized in good time, yet all efforts
to prevent the importation of the disease into it from Kálol proved
unavailing ; and the circumstances attending its discovery there are of
sufficient interest to merit narration in detail. The Civil Surgeon's
suspicions having been aroused by noticing two corpses being carried past the Civil Hospital
to the cremation ground, he enquired into the circumstances attending the death of the two
persons, and was told that they were husband and wife, who had died of fever within half an
hour of each other, after some three or four days' illness. Further enquiry elicited the fact
that two of their children were also ailing from fever in the same house. These cases