12
27. The above table shows that the great inrush of people took place in
April and May, when 167,173 passengers poured into Bombay by sea from
places within the prescribed limits. They represented all sorts and conditions
of people, the sleek and well fed native from ditch, the Goanese who arrived
in as good health as when he originally deserted the city, and the hungry and
destitute native from the southern ports of the Presidency. Comparatively
few of the latter class were actually emaciated from famine. The larger
numbers were simply without means of subsistence, and many of them were
also ill and weak and perilously close to famine point unless relieved. Consider-
able numbers were found on inspection to be suffering from fever, and were
sent to observation camps for food and treatment rather than for suspicion of
Plague.
This large influx of sickly and destitute arrivals did not at first seem to
increase the weekly mortality returns of the city. The unusual cleanliness of
Bombay at the time, a much reduced population, and the fine weather which
enabled the immigrants to sleep in the open air, together with the charity doled
out by friends or relations, doubtless prevented the unfavourable effects on the
general health which might have been expected. With the advent of the
rains, however, most of the favourable conditions ceased. The population had
largely increased ; sleeping in the open air became either impossible or attended
with danger to health ; over-crowding in damp and ill-ventilated rooms resulted,
and the mortality steadily increased, until early in August it had become prac-
tically double its normal rate calculated on the population of the last census,
viz., 821,000,
28. In dealing with the masses of people who came under inspection
during the four months April to July, and who represented arrivals from heavily
infected places such as Karachi, Janjira, Alibàg, &c., as well as from ports where
Plague had not reached epidemic proportions, although each case was decided
on its own merits, it was found necessary to decide on some defined plan in
order to eliminate the healthy from the suspected. A sliding scale of tempera-
tures was accordingly introduced, and passengers were divided into classes
according to their own state of health and to the state of Plague at the places
which they were judged to have arrived from. A map showing the progress of
the disease, and altered according to the reports from the mofussil, was furnished
by the Plague Committee, and in accordance with the alterations in this map
the figures on the sliding scale of temparatures would vary. Thus arrivals from
a place only slightly infected would, if free from other signs of Plague and with
temperatures under 100° F., be passed as healthy one week, and the next week,
owing to unfavourable reports from the same place, would be placed in obser-
vation camp if found with temperatures anything over normal. This system
was found to work well, and as a brisk house-to-house visitation was being
carried out by the Plague Committee at the same time it is probable that few,
if any, cases of Plague which arrived by sea during the four months under report
escaped detection, even if they succeeded in passing· through the inspecting" staffs
in the harbour and at the bandars. Some difficulty was experienced in dis-
covering the places from which the passengers had really come. By arrange-
ment the tickets were not collected until the inspection was over, and in many
cases the tickets contained the information required. In other instances, how-
over, the passengers had travelled on foot for many days and covered long-
distances in order to secure the cheaper transit by the Dharamtar ferry boat,
the fare for which by law is fixed at four annas ; and their original places of
departure could with difficulty be traced, and in some instances not at all.
29. When the process of elimination was completed the suspects were
transferred to the Plague Committee's observation camps, and detained there
for periods varying from 3 to 5 and 8 days, according as they had come originally
from uninfected, moderately and heavily infected places. Actual Plague cases
were sent in ambulances to a Plague hospital.
These observation camps, at Modi Khána, Narelvádi and Reay Road, open
until the rains set in, and during the rains at Wári Bandar and Málet Bandar,
have been already described in the Plague Committee's report. Suffice it to
say that they answered their purpose admirably and reflect the greatest credit