8

No. 86 OF 1875.

FROM

          SURGEON-MAJOR A. N. HOJEL,

                          GENERAL DUTY, BOMBAY,

                                 ON TEMPORARY DUTY AT TANNA,

To

         THE SANITARY COMMISSIONER,

                                  BOMBAY.

Tanna, 29th May 1875.

        SIR,

     In compliance with your request I have the honour to submit some remarks
upon the outbreak of cholera at this station.

     2. On the 13th of April last, a man was brought from Násik suffering from
cholera, and he died in a few hours after his arrival. I was not then in Tanna,
so I am unable to say what measures were taken.

     3. On the 15th May a boy was brought by train from Tallegaon (near
Poona) in an advanced stage of cholera of a bad type; he, however, made a good
recovery, and the house, No. 32, Ghaty Alli Street, in which he was located, was
thoroughly fumigated, the floors scraped, and the walls white-washed. All excreta
as soon as passed were disinfected, and the soiled clothes burnt in my presence.

     4. With a view to prevent, if possible, the importation of fresh cases, I
wrote to the Collector asking him to caution the station-masters, along the line
of rail, of the danger of allowing sick people to enter the trains; at the same time
I placed myself in communication with the municipal authorities, and arranged
for the erection of a temporary shed near the railway station, and some distance
to the leeward of the town. The policemen on duty at the station received
directions to detain any sick people alighting from the trains until I had seen
them; and if they turned out to be suffering from cholera I should have had them
removed in a dooley, which was in readiness, to the shed above alluded to.

     5. On the 20th May, having received information that cholera had broken
out in several villages in the Collectorate, I endeavoured to impress on the
municipal authorities the necessity of placing their house in order so as to be in
as favourable a position as possible to meet a deadly enemy which might any day
knock at their gates. The chairman of the managing committee met my advice,
as to the sanitary measures which should be adopted, with a polite assurance
that everything that I recommended should be immediately done. But I regret
to say that the assurance was not followed by action. Mr. Cumine, the Assist-
ant Collector in charge of the Sudder station, very kindly lent all the weight
of his official position to the forwarding of my views; his advice, like mine,
was politely received, but not acted upon. The police authorities were, how-
ever, more obliging, for the Chief Constable immediately acted on my suggestion
of placing men on all the principal roads leading to the town, so as to intercept,
and prevent entering the town, any people that might be suffering from cholera,
or coming from villages known to be infected.

     6. On the afternoon of the 21st May two fresh cases occurred in the
town: one in the house mentioned in paragraph 3, and the other in a house exactly
opposite. Both these houses were fumigated, whitewashed, and the floors
scraped and cow-dunged, and disinfecting powder freely used. The soiled
clothes were burnt in my presence.