?PREFACE.
This compilation has been prepared for the purpose merely of bringing on
record the principal administrative features of the campaign against plague from
September 1896 to May 1897. Part I is divided into three chapters, which
relate respectively to (1) the period from September to November 1896 inclusive,
during which plague in an epidemic form may be said to have been confined to a
small portion of Bombay City; (2) the period from the 1st December 1896 till
the passing of the Epidemic Diseases Act on 4th February 1897, during which
plague became violently epidemic in the cities of Bombay, Karáchi and Poona,
and was beginning to spread from place to place in the Mofussil; and (3) the
period comprising the month of February and the early part of March, during
which the spread of plague was becoming rapid, extraordinary powers for dealing
with it were conferred on Government officers and the policy was initiated of
appointing special Plague Committees in large Municipalities to organize, subject
to the control of Government alone, extensive measures for the suppression of
the disease. In Part II the work of the five Plague Committees is sketched in
the first chapter, and the second is devoted to a brief account of a few of the
more important features of plague administration in the Mofussil from March
onwards. More detailed information regarding the measures taken in the
infected districts of the Mofussil and in Native States in this period is given in
Part III, which consists of a collection of reports. A full account of the measures
which proved so entirely successful in Sind is given in the report by Mr. A.
Wingate, C.I.E., Commissioner of that Province. Messrs. Ebden and Lely,
Commissioners of the Southern and Northern Divisions of the Presidency, re-
spectively, have submitted reports giving accounts of the plague administration
of the officers controlled by them; and the measures taken in the districts of
Thána, Surat, Kolába, Ratnágiri, Ahmednagar and Sholápur, and in the Native
States of Káthiáwár, Cutch, Kolhápur and Pálanpur, are narrated in greater detail
in reports or notes by Collectors, Medical Officers and Political Agents. In
Part III also is included a special report by Surgeon-Major F. F. MacCartie,
Health Officer of the Port of Bombay, regarding the medical inspection of persons
leaving or arriving at Bombay by sea.
In view of the recent recrudescence of plague, it has been considered un-
desirable to attempt in this compilation to deal with the medical and scientific
aspects of plague or with the results of the experiments of M. Haffkine, C.I.E.,
and Mr. Hankin. Nor has the time yet come to draw any general conclusions,
or to attempt to estimate the cost of the plague.
B 1135-a