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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    infected rats or patients failed to induce the disease. Further, as the result of post-mortem examination of 6,000 rats which had died of plague naturally contracted in Bombay city, it was found that buboes (plague- swellings) were never present in the abdominal cavity, as would have been the case had the infecting germs entered by the route of the stomach or intestine. On the contrary, all the plague buboes were in glands connected with the skin, through which evidently the germs had gained an entrance. The second hypothesis, that contaminated floors were dangerous, was a favourite one in the early days of plague in India, and very naturally so when one considers the habits of the people, who go about without shoes, and eat their food seated on the floor. Experiment quickly disposed of this idea, however, for it was found that animals penned on floors grossly contaminated with plague germs did not acquire plague except where actual pools of plague culture were on the floor—a condition which would never occur in Nature. It was likewise found, when experimenting with plague-infected huts, that just as many guinea-pigs contracted plague when placed in rooms that had been washed out with strong disinfectant acid solution of perchloride of mercury, as in similar rooms not so treated. It is well- known to all sanitarians that acid perchloride of mercury will kill effectually all germs in places thus treated, so it was plain that the infection in these rooms did not reside in the floors. Thus the Commission ascertained that neither con- taminated food nor soil was the agent responsible for the spread of plague in India. We may now turn to consider the experiments made to determine whether the flea is the real transmitter of