Plague in India, past and present / by W.B. Bannerman.

  • Bannerman, William Burney, 1858-1924.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Plague in India, past and present / by W.B. Bannerman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Issued by the Research Defence Society, Sept., 1910. 2 PLAGUE IN INDIA, PAST AND PRESENT : A CONTRAST By Lieut.-Col. W. B. BANNERMAN, I M.S., M.D., D.Sc., F.R.S.E., Director of the Bombay Bacteriological Laboratory It is interesting and profitable to contrast our present knowledge of plague, precise, accurate and practically * useful as it is, with the ideas that prevailed among medical men before the advent of the dread disease to India in 1896. Plague had not visited the plains of Hindustan for many years, and was only known traditionally as a disease that had devastated armies and towns in pre- sanitary times; and had come to lie regarded as of interest only to antiquarians and historians, and as of no practical importance to the ordinary medical man. It was therefore with surprise, and even incredulity, that the announcement of the presence of the bubonic plague in Bombay was received in October, 1896. As the epidemic spread through the city one realised the truth of many of the tales of terror handed down from the past. The railway stations were besieged by thousands flying from this nameless terror, which the strongest measures of the authorities seemed powerless to control. The scenes witnessed by those whose A