25
Meanwhile, the villages were "being overhauled lest plague were anywhere
smouldering. Mr. J. C. Pringle, I. C. S., a young officer who had distinguished
himself in the city, was placed on this duty. He was very careful in his inves-
tigations, but so good was the net round Hyderabad that, as already said, few
sick found their way out, while the healthy were not kept in, with the result
that the Hyderabad District, excluding Hyderabad itself and Tando Alahayar,
where 18 cases occurred, escaped with only 37 plague cases among a population
of between eight and nine hundred thousand people.
Two visits were paid to Shikárpur and three to Sukkur during April and
May. The work was being done well, and there was little to do but be thank-
ful that so fine a body of officers had been provided, animated with the one
mind to clear plague from the Province and suspicion from the people. At
Sukkur, as elsewhere, the sick were accommodated in some of the best buildings
in the town, the schools having been placed freely at disposal by the Education-
al Inspector, and the best comforts and nourishment that could be procured
were provided, while the nursing was that of the motherly Sisters of the Lady
Aitchison Hospital, Lahore, generously spared and eager for the service, assisted
by the Zenana Mission ladies. When one of these Sisters caught the plague
(happily she recovered) it was pleasant to hear of the interest taken by the ex-
patients in her recovery, and at any time a visit to a Plague Hospital was re-
warded by the grateful looks of the sufferers towards their nuises and the beam-
ing faces in the convalescent wards. While the sick were thus accommodated,
usually in the centre of the towns, instead of being banished to some dreaded
lazaretto, it was remarkable that the Plague Hospital attendants and guards,
and even the relatives of the sick, enjoyed almost complete immunity. One of
these nurses, Miss Home, in Karachi, besides Sister Isabel at Rohri, took the
disease, but she also recovered. Under proper management, the disease seemed
paralysed and innocuous. Not a single European worker took the disease,
and the only instance of a pure European taking plague was a little daughter
of a Sergeant living at healthy and sea-blown Manora, and that case was
accounted for by the cook having plague in the compound and the child running
about bare-footed. The Police and Native soldiers probably owed much of
their safety to their boots.
The camps were, of course, unpleasant in that heat of Upper Sind which
to be in any way realised must be felt. The huts were, however, as substantial
protections as could bo got. Mr. Gwyther and Mr. Rickie, of the North-West-
ern Railway, and later on Mr. Strong, did prodigies of rapid work. It suggest-
ed itself to them to utilise sleepers, and huts made by sinking sleepers in the
ground, and across these uprights placing a roof of sleepers covered with mud,
were multiplied by the hundred at little expense. Water was laid on to the
camps, and paved and enclosed bathing places provided. Shops moved them-
selves bodily in, and with a few screens for the better classes life was bearable.
Of the results of some of these camps, one or two instances may be quoted,
as they illustrate the way plague was summarily checked in many quarters all
over Sind.
Gharibabad was the worst infected corner of New Sukkur, accounting for
106 cases of plague in the three weeks ending the 19th April. On the 15th, there
had been 6 cases, on the 16th 6 cases ; but on the 17th Mr. Lucas encircled
them with a cordon of men of the "Wiltshires and quickly removed the entire
population of nearly 600 to the health camps, where next day all were disinfect-
ed. Not another case occurred. The camp inhabitants were free to go about
their business as usual, but most worked at their trades in the camp. There
was individual medical inspection twice daily.
Limji Charhi was another plague-infected quarter of small size, but giving
4 or 5 cases daily among only some 300 people. On the 26th April, they were
similarly moved and disinfected. The plague disappeared from that clay.
The inhabitants of these camps were detained for 30 days to permit Mr.
Cadell, who commanded the disinfecting gangs, to finish the work of house-
B 1440—7