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2. The special officers appointed for any local area under these rules may be known as
plague authorities.
3. At any railway station or bandar to which no Medical officer has been or may be
specially appointed for inspection duty under rules sanctioned by Government concerning
the inspection of travellers by rail or boat, any plague authority who may be present on duty,
or other officer or person specially authorized in this behalf by the District Magistrate, if he
reasonably believes or suspects that any person alighting or disembarking from a train or
boat is suffering from bubonic plague, may detain any such person for the purpose of medical
examination, and shall (if he be not himself a Medical officer authorized under these rules)
without delay give information of the detention to the nearest Medical officer so authorized.
Any Station Master at a railway station where no Medical officer has been posted cm
inspection duty may forward to the nearest station at which such a Medical officer is posted
any person who is or is suspected by him to be suffering from the plague. Persons entering
the train or embarking on a boat shall similarly be liable to inspection and detention under
this rule by the persons and under the circumstances above mentioned.
4. A plague authority or any person authorized by a District Magistrate in this behalf
may inspect or cause the inspection of persons leaving an infected area, and may, if any such
person is suffering or is suspected by him to be suffering from plague, detain or cause the
detention of such person at a place appointed for the purpose, or may forward him or cause
him to be forwarded to such place.
5. At any place specially appointed by the District Magistrate or by any officer em-
powered by him in this behalf, and situate on a road leading into a town or village, any
plague authority on duty or other officer or person specially authorized in this behalf by the
District Magistrate may detain, for the purpose of medical examination, any person whom
he reasonably believes or suspects to be suffering from the plague, and shall (if he be not
himself a medical officer authorized under these rules) give information of the detention to
the nearest Medical officer so authorized. Authority is given to District Magistrates to
place inspecting officers at posts or roads leading from an infected town or village or other
place in order to prevent the removal of the sick into healthy towns or villages.
6. In any town or village or other area to which this rule shall be applied by the Dis-
trict Magistrate, an occupant of a house or building or the principal surviving member of a
family shall give immediate information to the nearest plague authority of any sickness or
death, due or likely to be due to plague, in such house or building or amongst the members
of such family. Such plague authority (if he be not himself a Medical officer) shall without
delay send word to the nearest Medical officer holding Her Majesty's commission or in
charge of a Government or State-aided medical institution or to a Medical officer employed
by a municipality not lower in grade than a Hospital Assistant or to any such Medical officer
on pension, and such Medical officer, whether appointed a plague authority for the locality
or not, shall be bound to come to the place indicated.
7. Immediately on receiving information under Rules 3, 4, 5 or 6, or whenever he
thinks house visitation necessary, the plague authority .shall go to the place indicated, and
if the place be a house or dwelling place and if the occupants thereof do not (on his demand)
allow him to enter and give him reasonable facilities for ascertaining whether any of the
inmates are suffering from the plague, such authority is empowered to enter into such house
or any part thereof by force, and to detain, for the purpose of medical examination, any
person found therein to be suffering or suspected to be suffering from the plague, or in his
opinion likely to have been infected, e. g.,. owing to his having lived in the same house with
a plague patient.
8. A plague authority is empowered to have the cause of death inquired into in all
cases, and, unless satisfied, to treat it as a plague case.
9. Every Medical officer appointed under these rules as a plague authority is empowered
to examine all persons whom he discovers or about whom he receives information under the
provisions of Rules 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7, and to detain and segregate persons suffering or suspected
by him to be suffering from the plague, in such places as may be appointed by the District
Magistrate or officer specially deputed by him in this behalf for the accommodation of such
persons respectively. For the purpose of segregating people the District Magistrate or
officer specially authorized by him in this behalf may take possession of and occupy any
vacant ground or building, such compensation being afterwards made to the owner or
occupier thereof as may bo fixed by a Panch as provided in Rule 15.
10. If a plague authority who is specially appointed in this behalf by the District
Magistrate has reason to believe that any building intended or used as a dwelling is or has
been occupied by a sufferer from the plague, or if it appears to him that any such building is in
such an insanitary condition as to be unfit for human habitation, he may prohibit by a written
order the further use of such building as a dwelling house.
When any such prohibition has been made, no owner or occupier of such building shall
use or suffer the same to be used for human habitation until the said officer gives him written
permission in this behalf.