84
Governments and Administrations have been communicated
as they were issued by the different Local Governments and
Administrations to the Governor-General in Council for
information, and under the orders of His Excellency in Coun-
cil these have been examined on their receipt, and in any
case in which they have been found to be in conflict with the
general principles which have guided the Government in
dealing with the plague the Local Government or Adminis-
tration concerned has been requested to cancel or modify
them. Experience in the working of the rules has been
mainly obtained in the Bombay Presidency to which, with
very few exceptions, plague has been hitherto confined,
and, in view of the fact that the Plague Commission under
Mr. Wingate accompanied by Dr. Cleghorn, Director-General
of the Indian Medical Service, have recently visited all the
infected areas in the Bombay Presidency and, after examining
the arrangements in force in each place, devised a set of rules *
of which the Government of India, subject to the remarks
made in paragraph 11 of this Resolution as to the principles
to be followed by Medical officers in detaining passengers,
approve, the Governor-General in Council proposes to take
the opportunity of communicating these rules to the different
Local Governments and Administrations with the suggestion
that they should be utilized as a model upon which to frame
rules for other Provinces.
2. The Government of India desire to express their con-
currence in the statement contained in Rule 3 of the rules as
to the measures which must be taken to combat an outbreak
of the plague. The essential measures to be taken are (1) the
early recognition of the disease in a locality, (2) the treatment
of the sick in places of segregation, (3) the removal of the
other inhabitants from the infected house, locality or area,
(4) their segregation for a specific period, (5) the disinfection
of their persons, clothing and personal effects, (6) the
disinfection of the houses in the infected locality and
their contents, (7) the improvement of the ventilation of the
houses, the abatement of overcrowding, and the prosecution
of general measures of sanitary reform.
3. One of the main difficulties which have to be contended
with in dealing with the plague is the absence of any efficient
organization for the detection of cases before the outbreak
has attained proportions which make it impossible to suppress
it for a considerable time. Considering the extent to which
* Printed on pages 92 to 102.