REPORT BY MB. R. GILBERT ON PLAGUE IN BA'NDRA.
1. I left Bándra for Australia on 24rth December 1896, and did not return
till 12th February 1897. Plague broke out badly whilst I was absent. During
that period Assistant Surgeon Gonsalves was Vice-Président of the Bándra
Municipality, and Chairman of the Special Plague Committee. I therefore
requested him to be good enough to make a separate report as to what was done
before I was appointed President of the Bándra Municipality and Special Plague
authority : this I enclose.
2. I commenced plague work in Bándra about the 14th February. Gov-
ernment placed at my sole disposal first Rs. 2,000, and soon after Rs. 8,000 more,
to be spent by me for plague purposes, as I might think fit, and they gave me
the fullest powers under the Infectious Diseases Act. I felt that unless I had at
my personal disposal this money with the fullest powers it would be useless my
undertaking plague work.
3. At this period the Municipal establishment was in a demoralised state,
and the general Municipal business was being carried on in a perfunctory man-
ner. The rates and taxes were not or could not be collected, the sweepers were
more or less mutinous, the majority of the members of the Municipal Board
had left Bándra, including most of those who belonged to the Special Plague
Committee for dealing with plague. The money which had been set apart for
plague purposes was nearly exhausted. It was impossible to get a quorum of the
Municipal members owing to so many being absent, and the District Municipal
Act had been drafted without providing any machinery for meeting a visitation
of plague and its consequential results.
4. At this time there were some small hospital sheds in an excellent situa-
tion on the Chapel Road close to and facing Máhim Bay. There were two men to
look after the place, but there were no conveniences or proper accommodation for
patients, and it seemed absolutely cruel to send patients there. I at once deter-
mined other arrangements must be carried out as quickly as possible. Hand-
bills in English and Maráthi were distributed and pasted all over Bándra giving
an abstract of the rules passed tinder the Infectious Diseases Act, and explaining
the object of the rules. This was done so that no one should be able to say he
was ignorant of the rules.
5. The Bándra Municipality is made up of a number of villages and
hamlets, with open fields all around, on which the inhabitants could easily
camp, and in fact upon which most of them did encamp.
6. I thought it best to have one good Central Hospital thoroughly equip-
ped, with a staff of Doctors, Nurses, and a full Hospital Establishment, to which
I could without any conscientious scruples force patients to go to against their
will and the -wishes of their relatives. I thought it also best to have some
hospital sheds built at Dánda, as the inhabitants on the first outbreak of the
plague there expressed a wish to have their own hospital sheds managed by
themselves.
7. They like most of the other inhabitants of Bándra held the opinion
which prevailed in Bombay that Government would cause every one to be
poisoned who went to a hospital, and with a view to meet these people I consent-
ed to build them sheds for their own sick, where they might deal with their
sick as they liked. I regret I agreed to this. The sheds were built, but never
used as a hospital.
8. I next had to deal with the Mahommedans. The Mahommedans in
Bándra nearly all reside in Naopara (an exclusively Mahommedan village near
the Railway Station) and in the slaughter-house-yard and near thereto. The
slaughter-house is under the Bombay Municipality, but Mr. Saunders, the
Superintendent in charge, asked for my assistance, and until the Plague Com-
mittee were appointed and took over charge of the slaughter-house, in the
middle of March, I supervised the slaughter-house also. I went to Naopara
and got hold of the Moulvie, the Moolla, and same of the influential inhabitants
B 1113—1