The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-07-18

I'm practice said DR.. Cofer, "there
is nothing equal to bounty. There
ought to be bounty, say of five cents
for each live rat delivered to the Board
of Health, and a bounty say of ten
cents to every one who will telephone
the health officer of the finding of a
dead rat and keep it untouched until the
health officer can come. But if any
dead rat shall be found to be plague
infected then the bounty ought TO be
something worth while, say two dollars
and a half.
There has just been recently pub
lished the report of the British Com
mission appointed three or four years
ago to investigate the plague in India.
That report is most interesting and
may be said to be the last word, up
to the present, on the subject. One
of the conclusions of that commission
is that plague is a rat disease, and
human beings ought not to suffer from
it any more than they ought to suffer
from CHAMBERS and farcy which are
horse diseases. Another conclusion
is that f1eas are the sole means of dis
seminating the disease. This was
demonstrated by innumerable and most
ingenious experiments. Another re-
suit of these experiments was that
where the sulphur treatment had failed
to kill all the infected fieas in places
where patients had died of the plague,
these fieas were gotten rid of by put
ting guinea pigs, on which there were
no fieas into the rooms.
IF we can delay one of these periods
of recrudescence of the plague for eight
or nine months it would save far more
than the cost of what is now proposed
LAS to smallpox, there is smallpox
on the mainland constantly. Every
large city has it. The Kumeric came
here having had five deaths from it
on the voyage. I certainly thought
that there would be some cases of 1t
in quarantine, and l cabled for author
itv 70 build fifteen additional cottages.
and was ready to build them if they
were needed. But day after day pass
ed without any cases appearing and
finally the fourteenth day passed.
But. after all, that method of treat
ment is pretty nearly obsolete. The
demonstration is complete that vacci-
nation is an absolute preventive of the
disease. In as small a community as
this we ought to be able to create 81
sentiment that would make this the
best yaccinated community in tho
world. Vaccine virus is cheap and
there are government physicians enough
throughout the Territory to vaccinate
everybody without expense. If the
community were thoroughly vaccinated
| there need be absolutely no fear what
ever of smallpox.
"SOne questions that have been ask
ed me led me to look up some data of
the work here. These show that next
to Manila the quarantine work here at
this port is the largest done at any
American port. These are the statis-
tics:
For the four years ending July LIST.
1905, 1926 vessels were inspected; these
carrying 98, 564 persons; % persons sent
| to quarantine; 1880 were held as sus-
poets: 23.43S pieces of baggage disin-
| fected; $50 vessels disinfected.
| Last year (ended July LIST, 1900,
OUTGOING.
Vessels disinfected, 80; pieces o.
! baggage, 1000: passengers and crews
inspected, 4239.
QUARANTINE STATION PROPER
Have detained for observation 276s
| Orienta's and 1858 Europeans. Station
has been in quarantine 81 days; 10 per-
sons in hospital suffering from quaran,
| Unable diseases; IS vessels fumigated
INCOMING
1866 vessels Carrying 91,971 persons a.
against the totals for four years endin.
July 1st, 1905,