PLAQUE IN AUCKLAND.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 821, 19 May 1910, Page 6

PLAQUE IN AUCKLAND.

The reported case of bubonic plague .at Auckland has been shrouded in a good deal of mystery by the Minister in charge of the Health Department. The suggestion is conveyed that the sufferer contracted the disease through contact with certain articles sent to a laundry from one- of the overseas vessels trading to the port; but beyond the fact that precautions have been taken in the matter of possible contacts nothing definite is known. It is a little singular that the ten cases of plague discovered at different times in Now Zealand have all occurred in Auckland. It rather suggests the idea that the laundry theory may not be the correct one, and points to the advisableness of a very thorough investigation by the Health authorities. A few years back the presence of the plague in New Zealand would have occasioned a good deal of alarm. To-day, however, it will have little more effect than to impress on householders and municipal bodies the necessity of clcauing up back-yards a,nd odd corners, and the more stringent enforcement generally by the Health Department of sanitary regulations. The plague has visited us before, but | it has been demonstrated that where a proper regard for 1 cleanliness is shown the disease makes no progress, We shall probably know something more about the circumstances surrounding the Auckland case within the next day or two, and in tho meantime no harm will be done by exercising the reasonable precaution of "cleaning up." No doubt the municipal authorities will sec that the city's inspectors take prompt steps where necessary to stimulate those engaged in this process.