23
Hospital r.
9. Owing to the reluctance of the people to enter the Municipal Hospital,
and the abandonment or the forcible removal of the
sick, up to January the Arthur Road Hospital was
only about half full. At the end of January when patients began to come in
greater numbers, the accommodation was extended by the addition of another
ward, and the Mazgaon Sisters were approached on the subject of undertaking
the nursing. All along great difficulty had been experienced in obtaining the
requisite number of attendants.
10. As regards private hospitals the Commissioner writes as follows :
" As early as October private hospitals for Hindus on these lines (i.e. management by
their castemeu) were opened in Mandvi and Bhuleshvar, but tkis effort proved abortive, the
unreasoning terror of hospital life was still in full vigour, and extended even to institutions
managed entirely by men o£ their own class. In December, however, more successful efforts
were made in this direction. A Jain Hospital was erected in the compound of the Arthur Road
institution, a little later Dr. Bahadurji opened a most successful and well-managed hospital for
Parsis in Parel, and on the 28th. January a Hindu hospital, which did excellent service, was
opened under the efficient management of the Honourable Dr. Bhalchandra Krishna. Similarly
the Port Trustees opened a model hospital at Wàri Bandar for their employes on the 23rd
December, and through the energy of Professor Mailer an institution was started at Modikhàna
for the servants of Europeans on 31st January. It may also be mentioned that a temporary
hospital was erected in December by the Health Department at Nàrelvàdi for the benefit of the
people of that locality, which was at the time being very severely visited."
11. Professor Muller writes with regard to the hospital for servants of
Europeans that while the prospect of removal to the Municipal Hospital excited
the utmost terror in the minds of the low-caste natives of the servant class, they
had little, if any, objection to going to the special servants' hospital, or to the
hospitals afterwards established by the Plague Committee.
Disinfection, &c.
12. The measures described in section 5 of Chapter I were carried on on an
ever-increasing scale during the months of December
and January. Wherever the approach of the plague
in a locality was apprehended, disinfectants were distributed to the people for
use, but owing to the perversity with which the people insisted in scattering
these in front of their houses, on their verandahs, and everywhere except in
the dark and damp corners of their houses, the measure did not produce the
effect it should have done.
" In December, " writes the Municipal Commissioner, (t the drainage and building
branches carried out limewashing operations on a large scale throughout a great portion of the
city and suburbs in anticipation of the pestilence. The magnitude of the disinfecting and
limewashing operations carried oat by the Municipality can be appreciated from the
fact that during the months of December, January and February some 14,000 houses
were treated by the Engineering Department alone,, while the Health Department was
busily employed in the same work from the very beginning. Many houses were treated
more than once, and every recurrence of plague was the signal for a fresh, sanitary
onslaught. It has been shown, further on, how, towards the end of the epidemic, belief in
the efficacy of ventilation to some extent superseded faith in disinfection, but the fact that
in Kàmàtipura in some 404 houses where 511 cases occurred, only 89 were recorded after
they had been limewashed two or three times, goes far to show that whether it was the
germicidal properties of the lime or the effect, it had in brightening and lightening the
houses, the measures taken in this direction were of great value in checking the disease. It
cannot be claimed for them, more than for any others, that they were absolutely efficacious,
for the plague appeared in epidemic form in districts where whole streets had been lime-
washed from end to end in anticipation of its approach.; but when the death-rate in Bombay
during the pestilence is compared with the appalling mortality that has occurred at other
times and places from the same scourge, it is not unnatural to conclude that those measures
to which the greatest energy was devoted in Bombay had something to do with the
mitigation of the disaster. Besides the Engineering and Health Departments, tlie Fire
Brigade gave the greatest assistance, and from the end of September till long after the
constitution of the Plague Committee, they were hard at work flushing gullies and build-
ings. On an average 3 to 5 steamers were daily employed on this duty, each with its com-
plement of 11 men, and in addition the Brigade manuals and pumps were freely made
use of.·"
13. Another important step taken in December was the cutting off of the
water connections inside the worst houses. The majority of the buildings in
which the poorer classes live in the city are of a Himsy construction, easily
saturated from top to bottom by leaking pipes. " Not only do the majority of
the people," writes the Municipal Commissioner, " consider it necessary to turn