Plague : papers relating to the modern history and recent progress of Levantine plague / prepared from the time to time by direction of the president of the Local Government Board, with other papers ; sented to both House of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty.
- Radcliffe, Netten.
- Date:
- 1879
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Plague : papers relating to the modern history and recent progress of Levantine plague / prepared from the time to time by direction of the president of the Local Government Board, with other papers ; sented to both House of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![far more numerous, and the bodies of all those who have died have, with few exceptions, been buried within or near to the site of the affected village. The custom of the country with regard to the disposal of the dead is to burn the body beside the most convenient mountain stream terminating in the Ganges. But from this good practice the people have deviated in regard to bodies dead of any pestilence, small-pox, cholera, plague, which are buried. Of all countries the Himalaya is least suited to the burial of the dead. For, by reason of the rocky sub-soil, it is seldom possible to dig a grave more than two feet deep; and, as a rule, the pestilent dead are lain in shallow trenches in the surface soil of the field nearest to the place of death, or of the terrace facing the house, or even of the floor of the house itself. This bad practice is begotten of fear, no doubt, but has been long established as a custom handed down from previous generations, and«cannot easily be chane-ed. Fear of taking the pestilence strengthens the desire to dispose of the body with the least possible amount of handling, and it is pushed into the trench and covered up. But sometimes, with regard to plague, fear masters all other feelings, and the body is abandoned unburied to be eventually drawn in portions about the village site by animals and birds. Such management of the dead is sufficient to account for the continuous existence of the active principle of plague disease, sometimes dormant from want of opportunity, but ever ready to affect persons suitably prepared, by any cause producing a low or bad state of health. The only apparent cause likely to produce such a state of health in any member of a family affected in the outbreaks described in the histories is the unwholesome condition of the houses, by reason of their being utilised for three purposes, namely, as habitations, as granaries, and as cowsheds. The result being a vitiated state of atmo- sphere in and around the habitations certainly conducive to ill-health amongst the residents, and more especially amongst the women and children of the house who would be more continuously influenced. This utilisation of the house for three purposes, while it should, on strict sanitary principles, be reserved for one, would be likely, even with the best possible management, to be a cause of disease. For it has, I believe, been conclusively shown that the habitation of cavalry soldiers above their well-kept stables has been conducive to contagious fever amongst the men. But with the bad management of the ignorant or careless Kumaun peasant, the result must be detrimental. His autumn grain, partly unripe in unfavourable seasons, and always damp . . . is stored about the sleeping apartment, in open porous vessels or baskets, to slowly ripen and dry; a process often attended with some amount of fermentation, resulting in the production of gases which vitiate the air of the close room. The lower portion of his house and its immediate pre- cincts for many months of the yeai', are much encumbered with manure. The exhalations from the cattle rise into the sleeping apartment, their fluid excretions sink into the ground below the house. These unwholesome conditions within and around the habitations would assuredly conduce to outbreaks of contagious fever amongst the residents in any country. That in Garhwal and Kumaun they conduce to outbreaks of plague disease is due to the fact that the germs or active principle of that disease are in wide-spread existence throughout that country. These same insanitary conditions do in some instances conduce to the prevalence of a form of contagious fever called sanjar by the people. This sanjar may be something less formidable and fatal than plague, certainly it is less feared than plague, but it is often fatal after a very few days' illness, the deaths mostly occurring amongst the members of one family in a village. And from the character and general result, as described to me of this sanjar disease, I think it also may be plague, ending in death before the characteristic swellings appear. Taking sanjar and plague together it would appear that contagious disease ending in speedy death is a pretty common form of disease at all times present somewhere or other amongst the villages of Garhwal and Kumaun. And I do not see how this can be prevented, so long as the homes of the people are mismanaged as described. For a time there may be a lull in the prevalence of these fatal contagious diseases, but so long as the conditions conducive to a general bad state of health remain unchanged there will be danger of fresh outbreak commencing, probably in some very old and much neglected tenement. This tendency to commencement of the disease in a house of great age is shown [in several of the histories]. Excepting inasmuch as any bad quality of the grain commonly consumed by the people may conduce to a low state of health, I do not think the prevalence of plague disease can be due to any peculiar condition of this or any other article of food. At the same time I should say that Dr. Watson, a careful observer, is of opinion that the prevalence of plague in Garhwal and Kumaun may be due to the generation of a fungus in decaying grain. [Dr. Watson's statement and arguments are given in a paper headed General Remarks on Mahamari, which is appended to Mr. Planck's report]. It is undoubtedly true that rats are sometimes found dead in the houses of families about to suffer from an outbreak of plague. I have seen several of these dead rats in and about infected houses. They are not the strong black Norway rat which lives in the sewers of Europe, but a more delicate looking grey species. All I have seen appeared to have died suddenly, as by suffoca- tion, their bodies being in good condition, a piece of rag sometimes clenched in the teeth ; and I think it likely that they may have died from the same cause of vitiated atmosphere as produces the bad state of health conducive to attack of plague in man. The best record of this death of rats will be found in the Bintola history, a.nd it may be noticed that the dead rats were described as being found in the morning on the floor near to the sleeping people. It seems probable that their ordinary places of exit may have been closed. If dying of poisonous grain I should think they would be likely to die in their holes or hiding places. I have seen some live snakes near to infected villages, and one particularly live snake which came out of an infected house; but I have never](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24751388_0058.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
