PLAGUE IN INDIA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 336, 11 March 1910, Page 6

PLAGUE IN INDIA.

NEW ZEALAND DOCTOR'S EXPERIENCE. AWFUL MORTALITY. WHOLE VILLAGES WIPED OUT. Dr. Arthur de -Renzi, who has just returned to L'ilristchurch after upending six years amongst the natives of the Punjab distiict in India, has some very interesting experiences to relate. After serving in tlio South African war, he was engaged in bacteriological work in London, and was then selected by the Secretary oi State for India for Special W3rk in connection with the plague. The had gradually spread up country irom Bombay into the Punjab, wnich for ages has been the most warlike province of India, and from which the best fighting material in the Indian | Army is recruited. The plague was at- | tended by appalling mortality in the ' Punjab, and the Imperial Government, in conjunction with the Government of i .India, decided that somethingi would have to be dor>e to check its ravages. A scheme was prepared, by which the whole population of that territory should be offered protection against plague by inoculation with the proved prophylatic. a kind of protective vaccine discovered by Professor Hafi'kine. It was this work that Dr. de Renzi was selected to undertake. Suspicion sometimes took the shape of a belief that ■the doctor had been sent out by the British to poison, or otherwise kill, the whole population. On the whole, however, the expedition, was on admirable pterins with the natives, tiiousands of whom willingly submitted to inoculation.

Evcrythirir went well, until a most unfortunate incident occurred at Mul■kowal, an obscure village in the Punjab, where another British doctor was Joins' the sirae kind 01 work. The officer inoculated nineteen villagers, and it was thought that the operation was successful, but in five days, to the officer's .••nsternation, every one of them had died of tent<mus. It was some time before the cause of the disaster was ascertained. It was then discovered that a native assistant, in opening a bottle of vaccine, had dropped the cork on to the germ-infested ground, replacing the cork .in the bottle of vaccine. He was too frightened to admit his negligence, and germs of tetanus were transmitted to the men inoculated. The .suspicious native mind was aflame immediately, and thft idea that the doctor sahib had coine to kill swept so rapidly through the districts that it got a start which rendered purs'.it almost hopeless. The poor natives—those who were engaged in the campaign against the plague—were bitterly disappointed. The ascertained deaths alone in that part of the district xiunibered between 30,000 and 40.000 a' week, and there must have been many which were never reported. ■lnoculation was still carried on as x'ar ,as possible.

Experiments were made to discover the cause that led up to the spread of the plague, and a conclusion was arrived at that rats caused the disease, and that fleas conveyed it from rats to human beings. A scheme was then prepared for destroying rats in the vast territory which was being dealt with, and a house to house disinfection was iheorun. The death rate had risen nppallinslv to 30,000 a week. On several occasion Di. cTe Kenzi* rode through vi|; lage after village inhabited bv the with hardly a soul to speak to. Most of the bodies of th« victims were Iving in the houses unburied. and the work of having them attended to was horrible.