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(2) The room was then entered and divested of everything in the way of furniture,
rubbish, &c.
(3) The latter, and specially anything of little value, was at once burnt, and clothes
or draperies were drenched with phenyle (1—100) water. Boxes, cooking pots, &c., were
replaced after also being similarly treated, the strings of cots were cut out and burnt and
the frames were sprayed.
(4) The walls, roof and floor were then thoroughly sprayed with a solution of
perchloride of mercury (1—1000).
(5) The floor was dug to a depth of 6 inches in any room where a ease had occurred
and the loose earth not removed but thickly scattered with chloride of lime.
(6) The walls were then thoroughly whitewashed, one part of lime being used to
three parts of water, and in addition two handsful of chloride of lime were also mixed.
(7) Holes were then made either in the roof or walls to ensure light and free venti-
lation, all thatch straw or matting roofs being removed and burnt as a rule.
(S) A red circular mark was then made on houses cleaned and disinfected in which
cases had occurred, and a blue mark on other houses so cleaned in which no case had
occurred.
(9) All heaps of rubbish were consumed on the spot, being saturated as a rule with
kerosine oil.
(10) All houses were then locked and the key tied to a label, which indicated the
number of the house, the street and owner's name, which was then sent by the Superin-
tendent of the quarter to the Municipal Secretary.
By 14th April the second batch of Karachi coolies and masons had arrived and the work
of cleaning and disinfecting all houses in which cases had occurred since the commencement of
the outbreak had been brought up to date. The Plague Committee then directed that every
house and godown in New Sukkur and Gharibabad was to be considered as infected and cleaned
and disinfected in exactly the same manner as houses in which plague cases had occurred.
This was a gigantic task and kept the Plague Superintendents engaged continuously from
15th April to 15th June. Altogether about 6,000 houses were cleaned and disinfected in the
manner described above.
Mr. Cadell with his 12 gangs of Karachi masons and coolies and assisted by Mr. Bahadurji,
Subordinate Judge, who relieved Ráo Sáheb Rochiram as Additional Plague Superintendent of
Gharibabad early in April, completed the cleaning and disinfection of the entire Ghribabad
quarter consisting of 1,638 houses on 16th May, and some of his gangs and Inspectors were then
transferred to the other divisions of the town.
About one-third of the Karáchi masons and coolies were paid off and sent back on 13th May
1897 and the remainder returned to Karachi on 17th May.
Mr» Cadell was transferred to Karachi on 18th May. To him alone belongs the credit
of procuring labour and of organising the gangs, and of setting on foot the systematic and
scientific cleaning and disinfection of the town.
System of segregation of in-
mates of infected houses and of
neighbours.
5. Up to the end of March it was the custom to segregate only the inmates of houses in
which cases of plague occurred. But experience had shown that
the plague passed from house to house, and that neighbours
living several doors off a plague house were frequently attacked
after the inmates of the plague house had been removed; and
therefore one of the first measures of the Plague Committee was to give the Plague Superin-
tendents full power to segregate also the inmates of as many houses as they considered necessary
in the neighbourhood of the plague house. After first week in April such persons were sent to a
camp named the ' health camp ' quite distinct from the ' segregation camp ' and which will
be described hereafter.
This measure proved most successful. It not only stayed the progress of the plague
in the town (especially in Gharibabad which was in places fairly thickly inhabited up to
17th April) by creating wide gaps which had to be bridged before fresh victims could be
found, but in many cases it certainly saved the lives of those who were segregated by
removing them beyond the reach of infection.
From 1st April the Plague Committee introduced a system by which the inmates of
plague houses and neighbouring houses were sent to the segregation and health camps,
respectively, under printed passes issued by the Superintendent of the quarter in which the
case occurred. The printed pass was in counterfoil, and contained details of the names,
sex, &c., of the persons segregated from each house. The persons to be segregated were
given in charge of a police orderly and he returned with the pass countersigned by the
Superintendent of the segregation or health camp as the case might be, in token of his
having admitted into the camp the number of persons shown in the pass. Segregation was