Report of the Health Officer, Corporation of Madras Health Department.

  • Madras (India). Health Department
Date:
[1916]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Health Officer, Corporation of Madras Health Department. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    realise the aetiological dictum “ no rat, no plague ” and to set our houses in order. Every house holder owes it to himself and to his neighbour and to the community at large to see that nothing in his particular house tends to form a focus for the dissemi¬ nation of Plague. 14. Opinions differ regarding the usefulness of a rat destruction campaign. Some urge that a mere thinning in the ranks of rats is in itself of value ; others say that rats tend to multiply as fast as or even faster than they are killed. In any case, the de¬ struction of 300 to 350 rats per day, the average out-turn of the Corporation rat destruction staff, cannot make any real or appreciable impression on the myriads of the rat population of a vast rat shelter like Madras. Our main hope seems to lie in so building or altering all human habitations, go-downs, granneries, etc., as to make them rat proof so far as may be. 15. The new “ Notification system ” is a great improvement on the old “ Passport system ”, in so far as it saves people from the daily worry of Plague notifica- attendance at a Pass-port station. But the efficient working of the new system is, by no means, an easy task. So far as experience in Madras goes, evasions are only too easy. The majority of our plague patients and contacts, who came in, as they did, from infected localities, had no notification slips ; nevertheless, they had obtained rail tickets at Railway stations notified under the Plague Regulations. It is not humanly possible for a booking clerk to exercise the necessary vigilence in the few minutes prior to the arrival of trains, during which, at most Stations, tickets are issued. Furthermore, some time invariably elapses between the outbreak of Plague in any locality, and the declaration of the place as an infected area ; and perhaps some more delay occurs before notification is started at the nearest Railway station. During this interval there is nothing to prevent a person from such an infected area travelling to Madras without any notification at all : and it is a matter of common experience that many people leave an infected place simply to avoid Plague restrictions. To prevent such evasions, I strongly urge the institution of a Notification-checking-station at Basin Bridge, where notification slips can be checked simultaneously with tickets, and fresh slips issued to all persons coming from infected areas without notification papers. 16. The epidemic of Malaria which broke out in 1912 seems to be well on the decline, the number of attacks reported from the several hospitals Malaria. and diSpenSaries in the City during the year under report being 28,933, against 41,938 in 1915, 45,692 in 1914, 4,088 in 1913 and 20,512 in 1912. Some may attribute this to “ natural decline ”, whatever that may mean. “ Every “ disease that is born must die. Malaria has lived and is bound to die, antimalarial “ measures, or no anti-malarial measures.” I cannot prove that it is not so. But I may point out that while Malaria is generally prevalent throughout the Presidency, a steady and decided decline is observable just in those areas where a regular anti- malarial campaign has been carried on, namely, Ennore and Madras. “No mosquito, no malaria ” is the dictum on which all anti-malarial measures are mostly based. But besides Malaria, some diseases are definitely known, and some are suspected, to be com¬ municable to man by the agency of certain varieties of mosquitoes. To mention only a few of such, mosquitoes are reasonably suspected of the propogation of Elephantiasis, Dengue, Seven days’ fever ; the Yellow fever of America (nearer to us than ever—now that the Panama Canal is open) is definitely known to be transmitted by the ‘ Stegomyia' mosquito.
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