The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1899-07-06

New York Sun and written by an Eng
lish Surgeon in the Indian Civil Service
who was placed i'm charge of a plague
camp near Bombay and who finally
contracted the disease himself. From
this he has not yet entirely recovered.
In the presidency of Bombay alone the
plague carried off $4,000 victims, and il
is still beyond control.
The exact manner in which the plague
was impo' ted into Bombay has been a
subject of much controversy, and num-
erous theories have been advanced from
time to time. The one which has receiv-
ed the most support is that it was in
troduced throught the medium of some
stores which were brought from Hong
kong, where the plague had been prev
alent, and deposited i'm the "godowns"
Cwarehouses) at Mandoi, a shipping
quarter of Bombay. The rats in this
district first became affected by the
disease, and Ii was noticed that large
number of dead ones were found lying
about the warehouses little while be-
fore human beings were attacked. For
the first few weeks the plague spread
in concentric circles throughout the ma
tive quarter. and the center of the in
fected areas concided with the stua-
ton of the "godowns" The plague.
however, remained localized in these
areas but short time, for the natives
living there carried the infection in
their clothes to other and distant parts
of the city, and these fresh foci of the
disease appeared.
The spread of the disease seems to be
attributable chiefly to the lower ami
mails, principally rats. though monkeys.
cats and squirrels have also been shown
to convey 1t. 1t is also communicable
from man to man by means of cloth
ing; and habitations in which cases of
plague have occurred are sources of in
fection, the bacillus haveing been actu-
ally demonstrated as present in the
floor scrapings There are some OBJ
scure and but little understood factors
which contribute to or initiate against
the spread of the epidemic. For in
stance, it is remarkable that although
some cases of true plague have occur
red in Calcutta, city whose sanitary
condition as far as the native quarter
is concerned, is but little If at all better
than that of Bombay, the disease has
never made any great headway there
1t has been sporadic rather than epi-
demic. This is probably due to some
condition in the environment of Cal
cutta which is inimical to the spread of
plague, but what that condition may be
is matter of conjecture.
Practically there are two main Varie-
ties of plague. In the first it affects the
Emphatic glands-this is the bubonic
type. The glands chiefly affected are
those of the groins, armpits. face and
neck their relative frequency being in
the order given Facial bubo is, how
ever, much the most serious, and every
case of this character that 1 have seen
has proved fatal. In cases of bubonic
plague the bacilli are at first localized
in the affected swollen gland-the bubo
and If the resistant power of the pa
tient be strong enough to keep him
alive until suppuration of the bubo oc-
ours, the prospect of recovery is good,
as the process of suppuration tends to
destroy the bacilli. If, however, the re-
sistant power be low, the bacilli after a
little while become generalized in the
blood and a fatal termination ensues
In the second variety the plague af-
tects the lungs-this is the pneumonia
type. 1t is rarer than the bubonic, but
much more deadly. Here the bacilli are
generaliZed in the blood from the first
and recovery seldom or never occurs.
The onset of the disease varies from a
rev hours to a week or even longer,
with an average of about five days. The
symptoms of a well marked case in the
hrst stages are unmiStakable. Burning
skin, high fever, rapid bounding pulse,
injected eyes, furred tongue, great bod
lily weakness, slurring of speech, mental
obfuscation, and in most instances a
y,
but above all, especially in adults, there
is an expression of countenance that
might almost be regarded as pathogno-
monic of the disease, which one might
perhaps be pardoned for terming a
plague face. Adequately to describe il
is impossible, but it is a look com
pounded of the most abject terror pain
and collapse, which, once SEEN can
never be forgotten or misread.
The treatment of the plague from a
remedial point of view can be summed
up very shortly. There is no specific
known. Various curative serums-that
is to say serums which would cure or
arrest the progress of the disease i'm the
plague e-striCken-have been tried, but
not one of them has proved satisfaC-
tory. All that il seems possible to dc
for the affected is to fight the disease n
a rational manner by skilled nursing
suitable feeding, and the proper use OF
I a inv q