The Daily News. TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 1900. THE PLAGUE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 54, 13 March 1900, Page 2

The Daily News. TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 1900. THE PLAGUE.

Owixg to the comparative lull in the receipt of exciting war news public interest has been, for the moment a' any rate, diverted to the actual anc prospective dargers of the buboni plague. At the larger ports of thi colony active precautions are being taken, and preventive measures adopted such as are most likely to protect the colony from an invasion by this dreaded disease. The Premier, who is ujciiing if not the man for an emergency, Ik.s, with commendable promptitude, taken the necessary steps for the prevention of the plague spreading to these shores, and he can be relied upon to attend closely to the requirements of public safety in this matter. In Sydney, the authorities are wide awake to the peril that threatens the city, and the most complete and stringent precautions are being token in regard to the victims now there. That it will be an excspdingly slow and difficult tiling to stamp out this disease goes without saying, and Sydney is likely to be a " plague spot" for some time to come. It is questionable, too, whether with the utmost care the disease can be kept out of the other Australian ports (where, indeed, it may even now be dormant and on the edge of breaking out), and if so the possibility of keeping our own ports free will be unpleasantly remote. The Australian

Medical Gazette, in the course or au article on the plague, writes as follows :—" The public measures of prevention adopted at different places have comprised quarantine by lmd cordons or maritime, and general sanitation. Cordons appear to have been utter failures, outbreaks on land being more effectually dealt with by removal of the sick to special hospitals, and of the possibly infected to camps, followed by proper and thorough disinfection of the vacated premises. The maritime variety of quarantine has had a certain degree of usefulness, but in plague, perhaps more than in most diseases, its value is limited by the impracticability of enforcing it with sufficient rigour and completeness to ensure destruction of every possible source of infection. Attention to sanitary matters has proved to bo the most profitable means of prevention at otjr disposal, plague being essentially a ' tilth disease.' General cleanliness of stieets and premises, adequate trapping of drains, so as to at least oppose barriers to tho passage of rats from the sewers into houses, and vigorous domestic warfare against insect vermin, are tho 1 most important items under this head. I It is essential, of course, that these matters be attended to beforehand. ' The timo for stamping out an outbreak is not when the disease has gained a strong hold on the community.' Apart from personal cleanliness and care of the general health, a de-cided-measure of individual protection is furnished by Ilali'kine's prophylactic. Tins fluid, often wrongly called aserum, is a sterilised broth culture of bacillus pestis, containing both excreted toxines aud the dead bodies of tho bacidi. Its iujectiou, in the average dose of 2.5 cubic centimetres for an adult man, produces a mild febrile reaction lasting 24 to 48 hours, and a swelling at the site of injection, a little painful for two or three days, but after that merely a hard, painless lump, which gradually disappears. The claim that its use j has reduced plague mortality by 80 per tent, is well supported, aud the protection is said to last from six to twelve months afterinoeulation." The Evening Post publishes the following interesting account of an Arslraliau journalist's interview at pSydney with, J)l'. Yainndn, Japanese physician in charge of the well-known mail steamer Yawata Maru, and a gentleman who lias had special experience in dealing with the bubonic plague, more particularly since i s outbreak in .Japan : " You must understand," said the doi-tor, that there was not any plague in Japan until (.Holier of last year. L'Vom then up l > January lasf, it became very bad, mid in a eery short lime 40 ease:: were impelled in Osaka and in liol>». About, 90 per cent, of the : utter died. The Japanese Government doctors at once sot about (hiding out how the disease had been brought to the country, and where it emtio :row. All this lime the plague had been in«ing in Formosa, flung j kong, and Xowchut'.g. JA>r a time they were puzzled, but ovenluall/ I hey decided that it was i ouiuiunieated by] means of cargoes of old cotton wool from Bombay. You see the labouring classes handled the broken bales of wool, and most of this commodity was distribute:! through the town." Asked '.•is opinion of the rat theory of spreading contagion, l)i Yamadasaid, " Well, fciiey could not at first prove that it was by rats altogether that tho spread of the plague occurred in Japan. During the time of the outbreak, a great many dead rats were discovered, but these rats might have caught the disease through contact with the old cotton wool. Anyhow, the ra s helped to spread the plague in the cities, and the Government at once took strict; measures to stajpp out the iut-s. 'j,'hey !

offered so much per head for every rut j killed, and advertisements were in I serted in every newspaper throughout Japan offering premiums and rewards to those who would invent the best means of catching the rats. All the rodents caught were afterwards burned. I might tell you that rats when they once catch the plague snarl at and bite other rats, and the excreta from rats that have been bitten spread about, and tiies and mosquitoes and other insects get on to it, and thus spread the bacillus to man. It is easy to understand that these rats afflicted with the plague will get underneath the flooring of houses, and then when the flies come in contact with the excreta there is no stopping the disease being carried to man. The best way is to kill all the rats. It is for this reason very hard to trace plague rats, because they can travel into places where it ig hard to get at them, and when once there it is difficult to say where they have come from. I certainly think it would be wise in Sydney to adopt the same measures as we do in Japan, and catch and kill, by burning, all the rats."