THE PLAGUE IN MANCHURIA.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 91, 30 March 1911, Page 2

THE PLAGUE IN MANCHURIA.

(Mukden Correspondent Shanghai Mercuiy.)

Dr Jackson, who was in charge of the plague hospital in Mukden, has died after a day’s l illness. As soon as lie took ill he knew bis end had come and he told his 1 colleagues so. He had been inoculated twice, but without avail/ His was a most heroic death, and it has made a great impression on both Chinese and. Foreigners. The Viceroy wept when he heard of it.

By the great kindness of Mr Willis, Consul-General of Mukden, & memorial for Dr Jackson was held in the Consulate on the Ist inst., and at the end of it, the Viceroy, who had specially asked to Ims given a public opportunity to do honor to Dr Jackson’s memory, read a very fine speech eulogising his heroic efforts and noble self-sacrifice for the good of others. Towards the end it was most pathetic to hear him appealing to the Spirit of Dr Jackson to aid them in saving the 20 millions of Manchuria from the awful calamity that threatened their extinction. When the present Viceroy first came to Manchuria there was a strong prejudice against him, but he has lived it down and in the most difficult position in the whole Empire he has acquitted himself much better than his critics prophesied and his kindness of heart and genuine sympathy with suffering have been a revelation to all. Practically all the cities and towns along all the railways and within a day’s journey of them have now become infected, and though in none

of them except Mukden and a few near Harbin is the death roll very large, still the numbers are alarming. On the 28th ult. there were 47 deaths in Mukden, but stran'ge to say on the two succeeding days there were only 16 each day. Thia great disparity may have been due to the fact that, as they were the last day of the old Chinese year and the first of the new, even the police and the plague inspectors would feel that they were entitled to slacken their efforts a little in the search for new cases. Besides, on the second day there was an exceedingly heavy fall of snow, which lasted all day, and which made it 'difficult for pedestrians to move about. Very wisely the merchants agreed to abandon the usual custom of paying new year calls, and' that will help to stop the spread of the disease. A Japanese doctor and his wife who were resident in Hsinmin-fu on the Chnese Railway have died. It is quite evident than that inoculation with the bubonic plague serum affords little or no protection in the case of the pneumonic plague.