PLAGUE SYDNEY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 72, 24 March 1906, Page 5

PLAGUE SYDNEY.

THREE MORE CASES. Three additional cases of plague,making: five in all during the present outbreak, were reported yesterday (says the Sydney "Daily Telegraph" of Saturday last). The patients are:—Charles Loaney, aged 21, residing at Darlington; Ethel Eady, aged 23, residing in the city; and Bella Williams, aged 20, residing in the city. All three were employed in the premises whence the patient of the previous day came, and the whole five cases have arisen from the same area of infection. While the first two patients have the disease in a severe form, the three dscovered yesterday are stiffering from mild attacks. -The new patients were removed to the Coast Hospital during the afternoon. MELBOURNE, Friday. Allusion was made to-day to the outbreak of plague in Sydney at a meeting of the Board of Health. The chairman (Dr. Norris) said he had just received a report from Sydney on the outbreak. Prior to that day, the last report received by the Board from New South Wales was in July last year. In tfie report just to hand it was stated that plague-infected rats and mica had been found in Sydney in July, August, September, November, and December last year, and in every month of the year. An indefinite hint had been given to the Board that such rats had been found on coastal steamers. He had written to the Board in Sydney, stating that hitherto the practice had been to discontinue the application of the Board's regulations against plague when it was not known that plague-infected rats were being found in other States, and for the future he proposed to recommend that the re- ( strietions should be maintained—not until it was not known that infected rats were found, but until it was known that such rats were not being found. (Hear, hear.) That would mean a revolution in the policy of the Board, but there was no option until Federal quarantine laws were passed. In several States restrictions now differed greatly, and it was desirable that there should be a unification. The restrictions would then become less irksome.