The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-04-07

ashore they may carry the plague in
their trail.
The conditions are more favorable in
India for the plague than in almost
any other place. But the rest of the
world should look we'll to the ounce of
prevention. for a pound of absolute
cure has not yet been discovered for
this plague that has extended its scope
over a quarter of India and out to Fan
zibar, Mauritius. Madagascar and
Eastern Africa. to Manchuria and Cen
trail Asia. Now it is seeking to estab-
lish its reign Of terror in Hawaii.
Wherever you go, wherever you turn
in India you cannot escape the plague.
Whether in Bombay. Poona, Sharapoor
or Calcutta, which are plague centers,
or in some less infected district.
plague" is the pivot on which the con-
versation turns, and plague precau-
tons make railway travelling one long
series of medical examinations. You
are turned out of your compartment al
most every daylight hour to be exam
ined, and at night you slowly awaken
while strange hands tumble under the
blankets TO take your pulse
AS said before, conditions in india
are peculiarly favorable to the plague
rules of caste. the privacy of the home
and the sequestration of the women.
and the violation of these customs is
more feared by the natives than the
plague itself Their philosophy teaches
them neither to dread sickness nor
fear death.
The house-to-house visits of the Of
ficials. the removal of the sick. and the
incubation of the sound. or their re-
moyal to the detention hospital. are
Calamities far worse than the plague.
They break down caste barriers, and
rather than lose caste the native courts
death.
Many are the devices employed TO
hinder the health officials. One of
these officials told me that it was a
daily occurrence to find plague victims
placed in living attitudes so that the
family might bury the dead and their
house escape fumigation. On one oc-
casiOn an official entering a house saw
five men seated around a table playing
cards. He found nothing suspicious in
the house, but upon returning to the
CardrOom happened TO place his hand
on one of the players. 1t was a dead
plague victim, who had been prOpped
up at the table. Another time an old
woman in a most lifelike attitude, her
hands in the dough as il kneadng it.
was found TO have been dead several
hours.
My work in the hospital was most
trying. The pity and suffering of it all
could never be described. During the
cold months the plague is at its worst.
Death comes swiftly to the plague vic
| Tins. One morning | drove by house
and stopped to speak to the master. At
| . in the afternoon | passed again and
found this same house being white
washed by the health officials. In that
short interval the master had been
stricken with the plague, had died, the
interior had been fumigated and the
exterior was being whitewashed.
The Hindoos take the bodies of their
dead to the plague fires and only leave
their dead when nothing but the ashes
remain, and not even then il they have
the means to go to the Gauges with
these precious relics.
The laborers prepare the funeral pyre
and then the parents or other relatives
lift the body upon the pyre. When a
man or woman dies and leaves no kin
the servants perform this final Office.
For peculiar reason the pyre is made
shorter than the body to be consumed