Report on the outbreak of plague at Sydney [1900-1907] / by J. Ashburton Thompson, Chief Medical Officer of the Government and President of the Board of Health.
- New South Wales. Department of Public Health
- Date:
- 1900-1908
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Report on the outbreak of plague at Sydney [1900-1907] / by J. Ashburton Thompson, Chief Medical Officer of the Government and President of the Board of Health. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
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![45. This table does not show that plague in rats always preceded plague in man. Quite at beginning of the tirst outbreak no adequate search for plague-rats was made, and no systematic watch was kept on the rats during the 15 months which elapsed between its close and beginning of the second outbreak. During the latter, search began only after its first case had been notified, so that the position was almost the same as in 1900, when the disease first ajipeared here. But the ascertained facts on both of these occasions, although they did not absolutely demonstrate precedency of the epizootic, yet furnished very good ground for assuming it. (a) As soon as the nature of the first case had been ascertained (25th January, 1900), the public were requested by advertisement to report any unusual mortality or movement of rats which they might have observed. No response was made until 14th Pebruary—that is to say, during the interval of 29 or 80 days which elapsed before the second jmtient was attacked— when a Customs Officer drew attention to mortality among the rats at the wharf where he was engaged. On search, 3 or 4 carcases were found in which the infection of plague was identified, while wide spread of it among rats along that wharf-line was ascertained immediately afterwards ; and when, several weeks later, an inspector of imported fruit in employment of the Agricultural Department mentioned that he had first noticed an unusual number of dead rats at the wharf at which he worked in the same neighbourhood, as far back as the first week of January—that is to say, before attack in the first case—no other reason for doubting his account appeared than that he spoke from memory, {b) The first case of the outbreak of 1902 was not notified until the lOtli day of illness. It was then found that the patient's place of employment yielded 69 carcases of rats, all of which but one were so far advanced in putrefaction as to be useless for bacteriological examination; from which it was inferred that the disease had attacked the horde many days earlier. So, also, search along the Darling Harbour wharf-line revealed the presence of plague in the rats there as soon as it was begun—that is, 2 days after notification of the case referred to, and thus showed that the disease was already widely spread. (c) Onwards from conclusion of the 1902 outl)reak a systematic and thoroughly efficient watch was constantly kept on the rats, and this resulted in establishing presence of the epizootic both in 1903 and ]904 before any human being had fallen ill. 46. The time-relations, then, may, on the whole, be taken to have been in fact what in theory was required. If, now, we proceed to examine the place-relations, it will be found that the feature which distinguished areas on which cases occurred from others which yielded none, was the presence upon them of plague-rats. The record is set out in the next table :— Table V.—1900-4. First Period. tSecond Period. Third Period. Fourth Period. Cases. Infected rodents. Cases. Infected rodents. Cases. Infected rodents. Cases. Infected rodents. City of Sydney— Belmore Ward... 2 1 2 Bligh „ 2 3 Bourke ,, 26 2 8 5 1 1 22 Cook ,, S 1 19 Denison ,, 12 6 2 Fitzroy „ 2 2 3 Flinders 4 Gipps. „ 11 3 4 2 3 33 Lang „ 77 13 13 24 1 64 4 143 Macquarie ,, 17 1 26 13 6 Phillip „ 14 1 12 4 2 2 25 Pyrmont „ 5 6 5 11 Suburban Municipalities— Annandale 4 Alexandria 8 4 Ashfield Balmain Bexley ...](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21354704_0252.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
