6
(4) A special segregation camp in the shape of a large masonry
dharmshála situated outside the Sarjápur Grate of the town, recently placed
in thorough repair, was available for instant use, and would hold between
two and three hundred persons.
(5) A store of matting and tarpaulins was held ready for use should
the erection of further temporary structures be found necessary.
(6) All arrivals by train and road at. Nagar and Bhingár from infected
districts were being registered and inspected, all deaths were required
to be duly certified, and mortality returns were carefully scrutinized weekly.
(7) Disinfectants had been placed in all táluka head-quarters for use
in any of the villages of the district.
(8) A scheme for house-to-house inspection, such as was required in
Poona, was held in readiness for adoption at short notice.
In this way Ahmednagar, which had successfully dealt with 26 imported
cases during the prevalence of plague elsewhere, was fully prepared for any
possible developments that the change of season from dry to wet weather might
be expected to produce. Happily there has so far been necessity for utilizing
the preparations for the outbreak so long averted.
Precautionary measures in
the Nagar District.
19. Outside Nagar City and its immediate surroundings little could be
done to arrest the importation of infection from Poona,
Thána or other infected places. At the railway
stations arrivals were registered ; but little reliance
could be placed on the information thus obtained being subsequently utilized
with effect. The roads lay open to travellers, and no system of posts over the
Poona and Thána borders seemed on consideration to hold out a prospect of
results justifying the expenditure and trouble involved in establishing them.
Local authorities were fully informed of their powers and duties, and provided with
a stock of disinfectants. Small camps were erected at railway stations for the
detention of arrivals attacked by suspicious fever. Above all, the local plague
authorities and village officers were impressed with the necessity of segregating
suspicious cases of fever outside the villages, and such segregation was, as a rule,
enforced in all cases reported. It is probable that the safety of the outlying
villages was secured by an informal quarantine which the villagers in many places
adopted in self-defence, in accordance with established custom. Sick persons
not inhabitants of the village are often, in times of epidemics, refused entry and
driven out to the fields by the villagers. The patient so deprived of shelter and
attendance is extremely likely to succumb to the illness ; but the village escapes,
and the principal acted upon if somewhat cruel is in the main sound. In Akola
this form of segregation is reported to be very prevalent.
Conclusion.
20. There remains little more to relate. Partly, it would seem, owing to
the extreme dryness or the climate, which does not
favour the development and spread of the disease, and
partly it may perhaps be hazarded, owing to the prompt segregation of plague
cases and the relatives of those attacked, the bubonic plague failed entirely to
establish itself in epidemic form in Ahmednagar town or district. Without at-
tempting to credit to the latter of these causes the exemption from disease which
probably climate and local conditions have combined to secure, it may perhaps
not unfairly be claimed that few measures which previous experience had shown
to be either practical or effective were omitted in endeavouring to ward off the
expected visitation. To those who were responsible for the working of these
measures the result is not devoid of satisfaction.
21. A rough estimate of the expenditure incurred on plague measures is
given in Appendix IV. A mortality record is given in Appendix V.
K. E. ENTHOVEN,
Personal Assistant to the Collector.
Ahmednagar, 21st July 1897.