4
were built. In the meantime fresh cases kept occurring amongst those encamp-
ed in the fields.
30. Plague broke out badly in February in the Christian village of Choin,
which was quite close to Dánda. The Choin people anxiously looked forward,
at any rate in February, to the opening of the hospital, and in my rounds often
anxious enquiries were made of me as to when the Plague Hospital at Khar
would be open. In one family the father was the sole survivor till the day
before the hospital was opened. He had tended all his family till he was struck
down himself : he had no relatives to assist him : he remained under a tree till
the hospital Was opened. I promised him he should be the first in hospital, and
he was. He lived for six days in hospital and died. He was one amongst a few
in Bandra of the afflicted who expressed any gratitude for what 1 had done for
him and his family.
31. The 1st of March was fixed as the day when the Khar Hospital
would be ready. How anxiously did I look forward to its opening ! However,
we could not take patients till the 2nd March.
32. On the 1st March it occurred to me it would be a good thing if I
could get the Danda villagers to go and see the hospital before it was opened
when I could explain all we intended to do for them. Accordingly I went to
their encampment and called them together and asked them to come with me
to see the hospital. With trouble I got 20 men to go with me. We started off,
when the women rushed at the men and would not let them go. I was therefore
only able to get two to accompany me, named Bhendu aad Nagu, both influential
men. They expressed themselves much satisfied and promised to call the people
together, and advised them to take their sick there. Alas ! poor Nagu on the
17th of March came voluntarily to our hospital and his wife also; both died of
the plague. In order to save Nagu, Dr. Prall sent in specially for Dr. Haff-
kiue's new curative serum and he was dosed four times. Dr. Haffkine himself
came and saw him, but alas he died. He was a great loss to me, because he was
the one of the very few who assisted me. The only other of the Dánda men who
helped was Cowasji Pestonji, who is interested in the liquor shop in Dánda.
33. On the 2nd March the hospital was opened. Many patients at once
came voluntarily. Sister Magdalene and Sister Katharine were the Nurses,
Mr. Bhowaniprasad Bhagwanlal was the Hospital Assistant, Mr. Pereira the
Compounder. We had four military orderlies of the 22nd Native Infantry, a Brah-
min cook, a Christian cook, several ward-boys, one of them, Bhagwan, who had
been in charge of the Chapel Road sheds, and who was the most willing and
obliging worker in the whole hospital. Our Medical staff—Dr. Prall, Dr. Gon-
salves, Dr. DeMonte—attended the hospital gratuitously. We had everything in
the hospital which was required and the arrangements were excellent.
34. On the second day we had 24 patients, and our shed was full. I at once
built another shed which was used for women only. We then had accommoda-
tion for about 40 or 50 patients. However, the patients died off rapidly, and I do
not think we ever had more than about 30 at one time.
35. I got a second Hospital Assistant, but after remaining three days he
ran away from fear.
36. Unfortunately the disease was of the worst type, and our patients died
rapidly. This caused consternation outside, and we soon found that force was
required to bring many of the patients into hospital. The people saw that
those who went into hospital died and they preferred to die at home, or believed
we poisoned them in hospital.
37. Even the Christians who knew that the Nurses were ladies of their
own faith commenced to conceal their cases. This was partly due I believe to
the fact that one or two had been cured who used some quack remedy and they
were anxious to try this cure at home. In fact latterly the Christians nearly
always concealed their cases and gave as much trouble as the Kolis.
38. The Panda people often sent their cases into the village and concealed
them. I had spies and others who used to give me information, and in this way
we used to find them out and take them to hospital. I scarcely ever prosecuted