A treatise on plague : dealing with the historical, epidemiological, clinical, therapeutic and preventive aspects of the disease / by W. J. Simpson.

  • Simpson, W. J. (William John), Sir, 1855-1931.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A treatise on plague : dealing with the historical, epidemiological, clinical, therapeutic and preventive aspects of the disease / by W. J. Simpson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    plague, of resorting to isolation in hospital and segregation cam]is, which is opposed to the feelings of Hindus and Mahommedans alike. If contaminated food is an important factor in the pro- duction of plague, measures to secure purity should be introduced. But all these have to be proved for India. Seven years of golden opportunities have passed unutilised. If the first 18 months in which scientific study and research partly carried out by a scientific committee in India and partly by foreign commissions be excepted, no real and sustained efforts commensurate with the great issues at stake have been made to get to understand the disease and the manner in which it spreads, and no facts of practical value for the prevention of plague have come from India. It seems to have been considered a waste of money to spend 20,000 or 30,000 pounds in studying the disease and its prevention, though twice or three times that amount is but a small fraction of the vast sums spent for the most part uselessly on administrative and executive methods, which, effective enough, perhaps, in a country with a fully equipped sanitary service and when rigorously carried out at the commencement, have proved to be in India with its conditions of no avail. For preventive work nmch more light is needed on a subject involved in obscurity, and this can only be obtained by scientific research which shall be regular and systematic in its nature and which shall be closely associated with a skilled and special organisation devoted to plague administration and which shall not be confined to laboratory experiments. Plague requires scientific investigation outside as well as inside the laboratory. Research and administration in this matter need to go hand in hand. Each if worked on its own lines without reference to the other will accomplish but little, and that little is not likely to be of much practical value. In a disease such as plague the efforts of a sanitary 'service are only likely to be successful when directed into the proper channels by its close association with scientific research both in the laboratory and in the locality affected. It is unnecessary to dwell on the danger of the disease spreading to other countries or of the serious risk attendant on plague being allowed to spread without understanding the methods by which this happens. An optimistic opinion prevails that the disease will not spread and soon die out in India. This view has been strenuously held from the first and the continuance of the plague with its three million deaths has been a source of disappointment in this respect. Doubtless if held long enough this view will ultimately prove true, but it may not be in this