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"between certain areas, prohibit entrance of persons within
prescribed area, make regulations for inspection of travellers by
land or water and, if necessary, their detention and segregation,
and destruction of suspected articles.
(c) Direct that any place for supply or preparation or storing of food
be closed, or the food removed, if so permitted.
(d) Direct compulsory notification of sickness or death from any
cause.
(e) Value and pay compensation for all bedding, clothing, &c., or
temporary huts destroyed, and after summary inquiry of any
valuable article or house.
(f) To give notice to house-holders or occupiers within 48 hours to
limewash and clean their premises or specified parts, and to burn
or collect dirt, rags and rubbish for cartage.
The Commissioner was also empowered to delegate the following powers
to any person by name :
(a) Remove any person suffering or suspected to be suffering from
plague, or likely to have contracted the disease, to any place ;
detain him till permitted leave.
(b) Prohibit re-occupation of any house without permission.
(c) Regulate removal, burial or burning of corpses and general conduct
of funerals.
(d) Prohibit import or export of specified articles.
(e) Determine in what manner and by whom any expenses, including
compensation, be defrayed.
Lastly the Commissioner might make subsidiary rules to carry out any
of the above powers, and might require any Municipality to act in
any of the above ways in such manner as the Commissioner might
prescribe and to employ such establishment as deemed necessary.
These powers were so very wide that on the 17th February a circular was
issued, desiring that every officer and subordinate should recollect that excep-
tional powers carry with them increased responsibility, and the powers must be
used with consideration, tact and judgment, and only be put in force when and
so far as the necessity for preventing spread of the disease required.
On the 19th January the Collector of Hyderabad, Mr. C. G. Dodgson,
I. C. S., had reported the arrangements made for cleaning Hyderabad town and
other large towns in his district, and for medical examination and detention
on the steam ferry across the Indus and at principal Railway stations. On the
5th February, the first* local cases in Sind, outside Karachi, were reported by
the Assistant Collector, Mr. N. B. Divatia, of the Hala Sub-division of the
Hyderabad District, to have occurred at Tando Alahyar, a Railway station and
Municipal town of over 4,000 people. Five such cases had occurred during the
last fortnight of January, and four had proved fatal. The Collector of Hyder-
abad was asked to report whether segregation of the healthy found in the
infected house and isolation of the sick had been rigorously enforced, and
whether disinfection was thorough. These, being the first local cases, caused
anxiety. The reply received was that a man arrived in Tando Alahyar from
Karachi on the 10th January and died of plague on the 12th. His two sons, who
had not been to Karachi and who lived with him, fell ill, and they died on the
19th. In an adjoining house, practically all one building, two persons who had
also neither left the town, were attacked and died on the 26th. Mr. Divatia went
to Tando Alahyar on the 7th February, and found that clothing and bedding had
been burned and houses disinfected. On his arrival he introduced segregation,
and the Collector's commendation of his work was borne out by the fact that,
though Tando Alahyar continued to be a source of anxiety till after the middle
of April, yet cases were only on one occasion in excess of one a week, and the
total cases and deaths did not exceed 18 and 15, respectively—a testimony to
Mr. Divatia's prompt enforcement of orders. There was no other local outbreak
in the Hyderabad District.