THE BUBONIC PLAGUE.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 3942, 6 January 1900, Page 5

THE BUBONIC PLAGUE.

ITS RAVAGES AT NOUMEA. SYDNEY, January 5. j Owing to the supply of tho Haffkiue | serum being so small, the Government ■ is unable to send anv to Noumea. 1 NOUMEA, January 5. Two further deaths from tho plague aro reported, those of a free European and a convict. The latter had been employed in cleaning infected quarters. Tho Government is forcing tho proprietors of premises in the infected parts of Noumea to destroy them. An international sanitary conference of | experts held in 1897 agreed that the bu- ! bonic plague is due to the presence of a 1 bacillus in the system, which Was idbnti- . fled at Hongkong in 1894 by Kitasato and < Yerain. It determined that the incuba- ’ tiou period of this bacillus is ten days, J and stated that not only is tho infection I conveyed by human beings in various ways, but also by rats and mice and-per-haps other animals, all of which are subject to tho disease. Both at Bombay and < Hongkong, immediately before and dur- i ing the plague there, the rats and mice 1 were observed to die in great numbers. r Iu Bombay, in January, 1897, the cases ' reported were 100 per day, of which 50 per cent, proved fatal. In Bombay city, a during the last visitation, 28,000 persons died of the plague, and in the Presidency ] of that name 100,000. Most of those affected were low caste Hindoos, who were very poor, and lived in the most insanitary surroundings. A report issued by authority in Bombay states that tho use of Professor Haffkine’s prophylactic produced a difference of 87.7 per cent, in tho j death-rate in favour of that portion of f the community treated by it. Tho pro- / phylactic is not properly speaking a serum preparation. It is fluid, and it is j obtained by cultures of the bacilli, which are then killed by heat. PROTECTING THE COLONY. A proclamation appears in this week’s “ Gazette ” declaring India and its dependencies and New Caledonia and its dependencies infected with bubonic , plague. The effect of the proclamation will be that vessels arriving here from the -j places declared infected will be sent into , quarantine, hut the period of detention ] will, of course, depend on circumstances. For many years the Health Officers at tho various ports have been inspecting all vessels that arrived from places outside the Australasian colonies, and now the Health Officers liave been warned to be more careful, and vessels arriving from , India and New'Caledonia will, in the ] words of the Act, bo “liable’to quaran- j tine.” Even if they are apparently free from disease, they can bo put into quar- , antinc, and kept under observation, tho ] object of tho Government being to keep ] out the plague, with, of course, as little loss and damage to the shipowners as possible. If the San Francisco mail liner , Mariposa has taken on mails at Honolulu - they will have to be fumigated, but it is j considered probable that the captain has . only landed mails and passengers, and ] refused to run auy risk by taking any- - one or anything on hoard. At Auckland j there is a building specially erected for fumigating mails, which is done by tho use of sulphur fumes.