Licence: In copyright
Credit: Plague in India / by Charles Creighton. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![tain Bradley replied, and at length it came to this, that tin; whole village might remove to a camp on a certain })iece of waste ground within sight of where we stood if some help were forthcoming for the poorer villagers; it was all a question of expense, and as I was again mistaken for the commissioner, T was looked at in a signifi- cant way as we took our leave. But to show how many are the difficulties in the Punjab, next da}^ a storm of wind and rain l)roke which lasted thirty-six hours and was followed by two or three weeks of intense cold. Camping out ivas of course im])ossible, and the effects of the cold snap were seen in the abrupt rise of the plague figures about a fortnight after from all parts of the Punjab and the United Provinces. SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF EVACUATION. Evacuation of plague-infected houses or village sites had been adopted by the people themselves, without any scientific advice, be- fore the present plague; for example, by the hillnien in Kumaun, and by the Marwaris, who, as White rejiorted in 1836, “ instanth'^ quitted a house on seeing a dead rat.” The rats themselves, although in India they are the symbols of sagacity, are usually surprised by the underground venom, and are often seen trying to escape in a state of delirium. A scientific explanation of the common practice may be found, first, by including plague fully and frankly among the soil poisons, as I did in my Histoiy of Epidemics in Britain, fourteen years ago, and, secondly, by ajiplying to it the laws of soil infection which have been worked out by Pettenkofer and his school. An infection of the soil makes itself felt most inside dwelling houses, and most of all overnight, because there is a natural movement of the ground air toward the walled space. This was shown by the fact that an escape of gas from a main in the street would travel horizon- tally through the pores of the ground toward the house opposite, and b(>. sucked up into it, sometimes to the danger of the inmates. Yon Fodor observed the stratum of air next the floor of an unoccupied cellar at Budapest day and night for a whole year, and found that it always contained more carbonic acid than the ground air outside, having attracted it from the soil around. In disused cellars, vaults, or covered wells, the accumulation of carbonic acid is sometimes so great as to asphyxiate those who enter them first. One reason for the ground air streaming to and rising through the basement or floor of a house is that the ground beneath is drier and more permeable, afford- ing a free upward jiassage unless there be a concrete foundation or a masonry plinth or stone paving. Another reason is that the air inside a house is warmer and lighter, so that it yields to the pressure of colder and heavier air outside and is thrown into an ascending](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22406967_0031.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
