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No.B.P./1075 OF 1897.
From
E: GRAY, ESQUIRE, I. C. S., Barrister-at-Law,
Collector of Kolába;
To
THE COMMISSIONER, S. D.
Alíbág, 4th August 1897.
SIR,
History of the Plague in
the Kolába District.
I have the honour to submit a report on the sub-
ject noted in the margin in compliance with your
No. B. P.-164 of 10th June 1897.
2. Among the few statements which experience shows may safely be made
regarding the bubonic plague is that it is slow in establishing its hold on a
locality. The district of Kolába, which lies on the south side of Bombay harbour,
was untouched by the disease for many months after it had been ravaging Bom-
bay,-notwithstanding the large daily traffic which exists between the two.
Deaths of persons already affected by the disease, who availed themselves of the
facilities for traffic, and left Bombay with the intention of returning to their
own villages did indeed occur in many places throughout the district. The first
ascertained death of this kind at Alibág took place on 27th December,-the next
not until 7th February,-and it is not till the middle of March that Alíbág, the
head-quarters of the district, was found to be in the grasp of the disease. But
before this two other places had become affected-Uran and Panvel-both early
in February.
3. The whole history of the plague has already been given in (i) the
daily telegraphic reports to Government of the numbers of attacks and deaths at
various places, and (ii) the weekly progress reports submitted under the directions
of paragraph 6 of Government Circular No. 1095/572 P., General Department, dated
the 1st March 1897. The present report can do but little more than sum-
marise the information already thus recorded.
4. The places in the district where the disease took root are Uran, Panvel,
Alíbág and Theronda, a village in the vicinity of Revdanda, to which the
infection ultimately extended. It also appeared in Murud, the capital of the
Janjira State, under the Political Agency attached to the Collectorate of Kolába.
A separate report regarding the epidemic at this place was submitted to you, for
the information of Government, under this office No. B.P./641, dated 14th June 1870
A few indigenous cases occurred at the coast village of Awas, north of Alíbág,
and a considerable number at Akshi, the village immediately on the south side
of the Alíbág creek, where eventually it was found necessary to place a hospital,
which however treated only one or two patients before the epidemic ceased in the
village.
5. It is probably safe to say that wherever it has appeared, and whether
it has become epidemic or not, the plague has invariably been due to connection
with Bombay or other centres of infection. The disease began at Mora, in the
Uran Petha, the point nearest Bombay, early in February and thence, aided
by fresh importations from Bombay, slowly spread over the island of Karanji.
Uran is in daily steam communication with Bombay, and in December and
January, when the plague was at its height in Bombay, crowds of business men
and others with their families took refuge there. The first victims at Mora were
the Koli women who carry baggage from the jetty into the town, and to whom
the infection was no doubt conveyed from the bedding or wraps of passengers
from Bombay. At Panvel, also in close communication with Bombay, several
introduced cases led, at the end of February, to a general epidemic. There were
isolated cases in Panvel villages among persons newly arrived or returned from
Bombay, Panvel and Uran, but the disease obtained no foothold. It has not
everywhere been easy nor possible to trace the connection of the first indigenous
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