PLAGUE IN THE EAST

Grey River Argus, 8 April 1911, Page 1

PLAGUE IN THE EAST

AN APPALLING DEATH-ROLL-Bubonic plague has been /pandemic in India for about a decade; It began at Bombay in 1896. Six years later the annual death-rate was above half a million, and in three years it was above the millipn line: 1904 1,143,993 1905 ;. 1>069,140 1907 1,3;&,892 _ it Is acknowledged (says the "Manchester Guardian") that the official figures must be ibelow the mark, probably much below, and, accordingly there is reason to believe that tlie total plague mortality of the past fourteen years cannot be estimate at less than 9,000,000. , Against sucfi figures as these the recent, figures from Manchuria are comparatively insignificant, and 'happily the pneumonic plague is a winter disease, while the ibub'onic variety follows an ascending curve during the. first three or four months in the year, touching its highest point as a rule at the end of March or the beginning of April. There is, of course, the further fact that pneumonic plague is no respecter of colour or race. It destroys the European with the Asiatic, whereas in India the prevalence of bubonic plague raises no panic among the white population. " '