THE PLAGUE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 95, 7 May 1900, Page 2

THE PLAGUE.

SYDNEY'S OUTBREAK. ji £5

(PUB PEBSS AB3OCIATION.J (Received 6,10.15 a.m.) Svdnkv, May 5, A number of quarantined wharvec, ncluding the Union Company's, will be released next week. Those in a hopelewly bad condition will be demolished, Four cases of plague prophylactic liave been received and distributed to the various colonies. Mr. Lyne beL lOV !u ™ e ? were all intended for New ml but " » n qu»ring. The Government is advised that a quantity of Yerab's curative serum has been shipped, and more is Mowing.

(Received 6,0 p.m.) Sydhbi, May 6. Fresh cases are:—Annie Johnston; Prymont; Elsie Heiffermann,Newton! John Hardwicke, Moore Park, Yersin's serum, already despatched, is sufficient for 40 to 60 patients, with a further supply ordered. There axe between 400 and 500 patients, Mr. Lyne, in an interview dealing with Mr. Reid's criticisms re the resumptions, asked:—" Would Mr. Reid have waited for a Bill, which would have taken two or three months to pass, when there is power in band onabling me to take a necessary measure for the public safety V He deprecated making the plague a party question, What he had done he did with his whole heart, and felt that the people would almost unanimously approve. Mr. Lyne states that he ascertained that the only effective way of d—ling with the Darling Harbour wbarvis is to burn them all excepting five, k start wilt be made burning to-morrow, If the plague is to be stopped it can only be done by the most strenuous efforts. The Government had started drastically, and were not going to be laggard now.

(Received 7, 1.18 a.m.)

Sydkiy, May 6. Fresh cases are: Charles Lewisham; Michael McHale, Paddington ; John Ferghan, Paddingten,

THE DISEASE AT FORT SAID,

Received 5, 10.15 a,m.

Oaiko, May 4. Plague has broken out at Fort Saidt Troops stringently guard steamer! carrying pilgrims. NEW ZEALAND'S PRECAUTIONS. Wellisgton, May 5. Dr. Baldwin has wired to Mr. Ward from Auckland that the case there has been definitely decide 1 not to be one of plague. The time allowed for pulling down the first batch of condemned buildings has expired, and a number are still standing. The Council intends to prosecute the owners at once. Latei. Dr. Fyffe writes to the Post combating the views of Mr. G. Fowlde, M.H.K., as expressed in his telegram from Auckland. He points out that Messrs. Mason and Gilruth are both skilled bacteriologists, and that after examining the Auckland boy they both idvised the Government not to call the case one of plague till they had mora data to go upon, and that now their diagnosis was confirmed by Auckland medical men.

Among tho buildings condemned today was a boarding house for which £2 a week rent was paid. The Commie* sioners called it a disgraceful hole. Dr. Fyffe, leporting to the Colonial Secretary, mentions a) the most striking features of his inspection the way in which the bye-laws were contravened regarding stables, Out a large number of houses were unconnected with drain* age system, especially in the poorer d parts of the city, and that there was a crying need for cheap houses for the really poor. He suggests that if priv<tto enterprise cannot supply this want the City Council or tha Government should step in.

Auckland, May 6. Dr. Bedford, chairman of the mediae! stuff of the hospital, says that many meuibors of the medical profession consider the appointment of bacteriologist is so important that it should rest with the professors of the British Universities, otherwise no confidence would be. felt in decisions arrived at. The development of the supposed case bis been quite unlike that of plague. There are many reasons against its being plague, and it is hard to find any for,

TREATMENT OF GARBAGE. A NOTABLE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT. On scientific authority the spread of bubonic plague and other pestilences being in a great measure attributable to insanitary conditions, the matter of the treatment of house refuse becomes of supreme importance. The person who throws dead domestio animals into the street adjoining his house menaces his own and tho public health, and the borough council that carries the house refuse away does not imprsve the sanitation of the people if their dumpheaps become just tho reverse, from an olfactory point of view, of beis of violets. According to the report from the City Surveyor's office for 189">, in America they have ed a systom of deiling with rubbish which in much ahead of anything in v.igue in a d around Sydney. Mr. Alboit E. Woolf, of .New York, has discovered a purifying liquid called electrozone, which is obtained by the elect'olytic treatment of sea water The process is that of perfect decomposition and disinfection, sterilising polluted water, or puiifying decayed or dead organic substance*. An article in tho EUciricd tinyhuer]

by Mr. T, 0. Martin, deals with an experiment on a large scale with electrozone. He states: — "During December, 1893, the Street Cleansing Department began to dump garbage at Biker's Island, it being evidently much more handy and convenient to do so than to tow the stull' into the Atlantic. It has been estimated that New York furnishes over 8,000 cubic yards of choice garbage every day, with constituents in different proportions, as ashes, 30 per cent,; paper, 20 per cent.; street sweepings, 20 per cent. ; kitchen refuse, 20 per cent.; wood, 10 per cent. It has been estimated that by the following midsummer over 1,000,000 cubic yards had accumulated in the reclamation, covering an area of thirty acres to a depth of ten to twelve feet. " While the days were cold, this was a matter of indifference to the neighbourhood ; but by May and June the whole mass was in a condition that might well be called infernal; in fact, fermentation went so far that at many points smoke curled up, and an egg could be cooked anywhere a few inches down. The stench was awful. I have been informed that it was nauseating three miles away on the open waters of the sound, while residents at College Point, nearly two miles off, and elsewhere became loud in their outcry. " The task of reducing Biker's Island to a sanitary condition began on June 20,1894, when urged forward by the anxious authorities. Mr. Woolf ran alongside the crib a barge on which h»had installed a moderate electrozone plant, capable of delivering about gal per hour of that liquid. All round the river waters were black and noxious, the tides doing little to improve things. But Mr. Woolf, imitating the Bismarckian policy of frying Paris in its own fat, took that water into his tanks, to be purified and showered back on to the stinking, smoking, fermenting mass from which ft slowly oozed. " The operations over these offensive and putrescent deposits were continued ; and on July 26, after inspection, the author states' that over the surface of the whole thirty acres, in a brief three weeks, with his half-dozen little squirts, Mr. Woolf has brought < death to every foul germ, gas, and odor, and that the wotk of purifying infiltration is steadily and successfully going on.'" The Oity Surveyor, in his report for 1895, as the following excerpt shows, proffered some advice ga the matter of electrozone:—"The use of detractors is being freely discussed, and frequent reference is made to their

successful use in Europe. Such plans require costly apparatus of great "—capacity, end the same is true of the plan tried at St. Louis and some other places of treating the garbage with steam under high pressure and with naphtha, or in kindred ways. One cannot but wish success to all such efforts, but it does seem that the miraculous werk done by the electrozone tuggesta a further and larger application of it in garbage disposal."