Report on the epidemic of plague from 22nd February to 16th July, 1897 / by J.A. Lowson.

  • Lowson, James A.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the epidemic of plague from 22nd February to 16th July, 1897 / by J.A. Lowson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    some of whose friends had died from the plague in Bombay, arrived at Ahmedabad from that city and stayed in the house of a friend outside the city wall. Up to this time there had been no case of plague in Ahmedabad. Three days later, still perfectly healthy, they left for a village in Baroda, where they were afterwards discovered perfectly well. Two days after they had left Ahmedabad, four of the inmates of the house in which they had stayed were attacked with plague. In this case, no other source of infection could be traced. At another village, Akhada, several people returned from Bombay bringing with them various goods and chattels. No other people from Bombay arrived in the village at that time, a few days later two of the friends with whom they were staying were stricken with plague. In this case, one is forced to the conclusion that the infection must have been carried by the clothing. Laboratory experiments on the artificial infection of clothing indicate that as a rule the power of infection is lost in about ten days, but the question as to how long the infecting medium may retain its activity in clothes in ordinary circumstances depends on a variety of con- ditions (1) the amount of soiling; (2) the amount of moisture in the atmosphere; (3) the way in which the clothes are packed, especially as this may affect the amount of exposure to air and sunlight. Experiments with infected clothing, in which the bacilli appear to die very rapidly, will always remain a difficulty, but with the noted instances on record, where clothing has carried infection even after the lapse of some considerable time, it is necessary in practice to take the most stringent precautions to ensure the disinfection or destruction of all clothing coming from infected people, and all infected clothing coming from an infected area. Infection of and by grain {?)—The question of infection by grain has on many occasions been brought into special prominence, and the experiments of Mr. Hankin in India have some bearing on this point. He has found that artificially infected grain usually loses its infecting power in less than eight days. In considering this question, however, it is necessary to demonstrate that grain becomes affected naturally. The examination of grain which has not been artificially infected has hitherto always led to negative results, and until we can find out infecting power in grain not artificially infected, it is scarcely necessary to press the point. It is certainly impossible to arrive at any very definite conclusion at present on this matter. In practice in dealing with plague, attention is claimed by so much that is of undoubted importance in connection with the following well-known facts, that for the present these minor channels of infection, though matters for careful observation and experiment, should not be allowed to distract attention from the following :—(1) That man gives off the virus by his excretions; (2) that he infects his neighbours directly or indirectly from infection of floors, clothes, or contents of the house and by various “ carriers ” ; (3) at the same time he may also infect rats through the same media, the rats may then infect a house in a fresh locality of the town or village and so lead to further infection of men. The further infection is often of a more severe type than the case which was the original source of infection. The latter part of this state- ment (3) is again one difficult of proof. In Macao, however, several instances came under my notice where I had little doubt that some such method of infection played a part. In dealing with all these questions concerning infected cases, it is usually very difficult to obtain anything like complete evidence that communication with man has not occurred. In one house, however, where isolation had otherwise been carefully maintained, rats were found to have entered the house and to have died of the plague ; they, in turn, had evidently brought about the infection of two Chinese servants who certainly had not held communication with the outside world for some considerable time. The infection of rats usually follows infection of a distant locality by men. Nowhere has this been more decidedly proved than during the late epidemic in India, where the infection of the rats has unfortunately followed the introduction by man, from a primary seat of infection situated at considerable distances from the secondary area of infection. So strong is the evidence of infection of and by rats that I am strongly of opinion that even those who do not believe much in this power of infection of houses by rats would remain no longer than they could possibly help in a rat-infested house during a plague period. Although there are usually other means of transmission of the infection,