Daily medical inspection of the
inhabitants still continues.
14. From 10th May there have been daily house-to-house visitations in every quarter
of the town. The Plague Superintendents are responsible for
this. A "Hospital Assistant and a highly paid member of the
Collector's Office establishment is attached to each Superintendent.
Until the detachment of the Wiltshire Regiment was withdrawn 3 soldiers used to accompany
each visitation party.
Surgeon-Lieutenant Gwyther exercises general supervision over all the visitation parties
and moves from quarter to quarter oí the town every morning. These arrangements ensure the
medical examination of every person in the town once a day.
Only one case of plague, and that a doubtful one, has been discovered by these visitation
parties. This was on 2nd June. The patient was a boy and he was discharged cured from
hospital in less than a week."
6. The following paragraphs regarding the special measures taken in Rohri
after the formation of the Sukkur-Rohri Plague Committee are extracted
from a report "by Mr. Mountford, I.C.S. :
Measures adopted for dealing
with the plague in the town.
" Compulsory notification of deaths from fever and plague had been in force in the town
from the start as also examination of dead bodies, burning and
burial grounds. These orders had been first of all passed by
me under my special powers and was again re-passed under
Act III of 1897, when the rule was sanctioned by Government. It was a matter of first import-
ance to enforce this rule and this was borne in mind. On the 6th April one Sabhago was
prosecuted by me for not reporting his brother's case and was punished by me with one
month's simple imprisonment. On the 5th May 1897 one Mulchand was similarly punished
and since then cases were regularly reported, although as a rule when the buboes had well
developed.. Later on all cases of fever were regularly reported. In the initial stages of the
plague the inmates of the sanie house only were segregated, while the neighbours were ordered
to remove elsewhere pending the disinfection of their houses. The plague house was dis-
infected according to rules and holes 4 feet square cut in the roof. Subsequently the holes
cut were 6 feet square. In every case the plague-house remained vacant for 10 days,
except in the first few cases when 8 days was the limit. The segregation of neighbours to
the health camp was ordered from the 5th April, 12 days before the first local case, and
it was carried out without exception in every case. At first only two houses each side were
segregated, but as cases occurred in some instances in the third house a day or two after
6 houses were removed to the health camp all round the plague-house. There was a certain
amount of opposition at first as the people considered this a needless hardship, and for
some days the surroundings of a plague house were vacated before the case was reported
This presented a new danger, as infected neighbours were running away to other parts of
the town bearing infection with them ; accordingly I treated all houses in which the run-
aways were discovered as plague houses and segregated the inhabitants of the sheltering
house and some of the neighbouring houses. The result was that when in the next case the