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area to be immediately vacated wherever plague might make its attack. The
railway and road approaches were rigorously guarded, and every new-comer
found himself in the observation camp. Even if ingenuity had aided his
reaching a house, concealment did not last long. The people were thoroughly
determined that no plague should enter, if they could help it, and some one or
other always conveyed a hint to Dr. Milne, and the travellers and the shelterers
were soon in the huts. The examination of every dead body was another strong
deterrent to any person taking a sick relative to Shikárpur. The Deputy
Commissioner of Jacobabad tells a story of a plague child being conveyed
into his town in a carpet bag. But such incidents were rare. As a rule, after
the first scare, people presented themselves at hospital, or were brought by
friends, or gave intimation, and the danger of the disease spreading became
every day less as the towns and villages set themselves against admitting
strangers, and the desire to run away with the sick gave way to the feeling
that they could nowhere be better cared for than in the hospitals, Government
and private.
By the aid of Messrs. Rickie and Strong, of the North-Western Railway,
large steam disinfectors were erected at Shikárpur and Sukkur and a smaller
one at Rohri. To these disinfectors, bathing sheds were attached. A train-
load of passengers was turned out, all their effects passed into the steam
chamber, while the passengers bathed in disinfectant tubs, and so the pas-
sengers were passed on to the Punjab and to Baluchistan. Surgeon-Captain
Milne turned his steam disinfector to the useful purpose of making all the
washermen in the town carry their bundles to it. when the soiled wearing
apparel of the whole town was thus thoroughly steamed. Whatever he did,
Surgeon-Captain Milne did methodically and with the keenest eye to any
weak spot in his defence ; but, as he says himself, the safety of Shikárpur is
primarily due to the attitude of the people led by the Judges, Messrs. Dayaram
and Tyabji, and seconded by the City Magistrate, Ráo Bahádur Choithrara, Ali
Baksh Muhammad Husein, Mr. Chainrai Kairo, of the Charitable Dispensary,
Lady Doctor Nash, of the Lady Dufferin Hospital, and Mr. Mathieson, Engineer
and Secretary of the Municipality. No crafty cunning was set to work
to defeat the measures taken. On the contrary, any attempt was exposed.
Sukkur was a terrible object lesson of what concealment of plague led to, and
the attitude of the people from first to last was exemplary, nor could they have
been better served than by Surgeon-Captains Milne and Clark.
The Thar and Párkar and Upper Sind Frontier Districts escaped with 3 and
4 cases of plague, respectively. The Deputy Commissioners very early took
precautions, and persons seeking to hide a sick relative found no welcome.
Mr. Mules' arrangements at Jacobabad were very thorough, and he was
among the first to depend upon an observation camp as a deterrent. It would
be impossible to mention all the Deputy Collectors and Mukhtyarkars who,
throughout their charges, with the co-operation of the people, cleaned and
whitewashed the villages till officers on duty have once and again been so
struck that, from remote corners of Sind, they have reported the thoroughness
of the cleansing undertaken. Conspicuous, however, as much exposed to
danger, was the town of Larkhana on the railway line and rushed at by the
Sukkur fugitives. The Deputy Collector, Khán Bahádur Sadik Ali, and the
Mukhtyarkar, Rao Sáheb Jagatrai, carried out the instructions with intelligent
thoroughness, and after a long period of anxiety brought the town safely through
(though there were 20 imported cases). In the rest of this Deputy Collector's
charge only one imported case occurred.
The extent of the plague in the Province of Sind is exhibited in the table
below. There were 6,063 cases and 4,779 deaths. The population of the Pro-
vince was returned in 1891 as 2, 871,774. During the cholera epidemic of
1892, the three districts of Karachi, Hyderabad and Shikárpur lost 14,659 per-
sons by cholera. Of the number attacked by plague, nearly 79 per cent.
succumbed :—