62
On February 16th the management of the work was made over by Government
to a Commissioned Medical Officer, and from February 24th, owing to an indi-
genous outbreak at Pàlanpur, all up-trains were also examined here. All passen-
gers were examined on the platform, and 24 plague cases in all were detected.
Bhusawal.
7. The staff which has already been described as having been posted here from
the 1st November under the orders of Government was strengthened in February
by the addition of an Assistant Surgeon and three Hospital Assistants. In March
the staff was still further increased, and in its final form consisted of two Assist-
ant Surgeons and five Hospital Assistants. 23 cases of plague were detected
here out of 125 suspected cases.
8. Of the six first class inspection posts described above, two, namely, Kalyán
and Pálghar, were selected for the protection of the Bombay Presidency from
infection by panic-stricken people leaving Bombay, and the others were selected
as being in a sense frontier stations. The inspection at Ahmedabad junction in
the extreme north, protected both Rájputána and Káthiáwár ; that at Bhusával
junction in the north-east, on the Calcutta Hue, protected the Central Provinces
and Bengal; that at Hotgi junction protected Hyderabad and the Madras Pre-
sidency ; and that at Londa junction protected both Madras and Mysore.
9. It may be mentioned hero that other first class inspection posts were
subsequently established at Dhond and Rajewadi for the protection of places in the
Deccan and the Southern Marátha Country at the time when panic-stricken people
were flying from Pooua ; a special inspection was arranged at Maumád ; and at
Poona an inspection of persons leaving by train in both directions was instituted
in the course of March. Previously persons arriving in Poona had been inspected
since the month of October, and the arrangements which were under the local
officers' authorities had been extremely successful; up to the end of January 140
cases of plague had been detected and taken to hospital by Medical officers
employed by the municipality.
10. In addition to first class inspection, the rules for which have been
already given, there were inspections of passengers entering and leaving the trains
at numerous stations in the Mofussil. To legalise these measures, the following
rules applicable to such local inspections were published by Government on
February 17th :
" No. 833.—The following rales Lave been prescribed "by His Excellency the Governor
in Council in accordance with Section 2 (2) (a) and (b) of the Epidemic Diseases Act,
1897:
1. At any railway station within the Presidency of Bombay other than the stations
to which the rules published in Government Notifications Nos. 723 and 257-P, dated
respectively the 10th and 11th February 1897, and No. 854 of this date are applicable,
or at any bandar or landing-place within the said Presidency and outside the limits of
the port of Bombay at which a medical officer or medical officers may be appointed by
the Government or the local authority, or with, the sanction of the local authority, by a
railway or shipping company, as the case may be, for the purpose of inspection under
these rules, such officer or officers shall be empowered to examine ·
(a) persons, whether passengers, railway servants or members of a boat's crew
who alight or disembark at such place from a train or boat or vessel coming from
the direction of Bombay, whether they intend to proceed by such train, boat
or vessel or not, and
(b) persons who intend to start from any of the said places and to travel by
such train, boat or vessel.
All such persons shall be bound to submit to such inspection as the Medical officer
on duty under these rules may deem necessary.
2. For the purpose of these rules ' local authority' means the District Magistrate
and any one empowered by him in this behalf, and within municipal districts includes
the municipality.
3. All inspecting Medical officers appointed at such places as aforesaid before the
passing of these rules shall be deemed to have been appointed under these rules, subject to
the approval of the District Magistrate or of any one empowered by him in this behalf.