"The town of Hubli--a mercantile town of over 50,000
inhabitants--was attacked by plague in an epidemic form at the
commencement of the monsoon rains. The average rainfall between
April and October amounts to more than 28 inches. Under these
circumstances, although a large and weather-proof health camp
had been prepared for emergencies, complete evacuation of the
infected townsite was impossible; and the attempt to effect it
would have led to the severest hardships and to the immediate
spread of the disease into surrounding villages and districts.
It was for this reason that the determination was formed to make
a bold and comprehensive experiment with the prophylactic, and
not on any _à priori_ grounds. If this experiment had failed,
the results, judged by the actual mortality among the
uninoculated, would have been appalling. _All possible sanitary
measures in the shape of disinfection, unroofing of houses, and
segregation, were applied concurrently with inoculation, as
Government are already aware; but the rate of mortality among
those who held back from inoculation rose at one time to a
height which, I believe, has never been approached
elsewhere...._
"However, the experiment, in the hands of Dr. Leumann, did not
fail, and it has afforded a demonstration of success which is of
Imperial importance. Many thousands of lives have undoubtedly
been saved, and at the present moment the plague mortality is
merely sporadic, and Hubli is steadily regaining its normal
population and trade, though surrounded by infected villages."
The Hubli report must be put at full length, for the vivid picture it
gives of plague in India, and of the difficulties besetting the
magnificent work of the Indian Medical Service. It is a story that Mr.
Kipling ought to write. And it is to be noted that Surgeon-Captain
Leumann, who saved Hubli, recognised the extreme importance of other
methods than inoculation--disinfection, isolation of cases, evacuation
of infected districts. He says:--
"While paying the highest tribute to the value of Mr. Haffkine's
inoculation method, which I claim, here in Hubli, to have put to
perhaps the severest test to which it has yet been subjected, I
am of the opinion that individual protection is, on however
great a scale conducted, of less importance to that of general
protection and hygiene (considering each method separately, that
is to say), for it seems to me more radical, if not more
rational, to eradicate a disease than to leave it to pursue its
course and only protect people against its ravages."
Sanitation, therefore, was Dr. Leumann's faith. Now for his works:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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