Report on the outbreak of the plague at Sydney, 1900 / by the Chief Medical Officer of the Government and President of the Board of Health.

  • Thompson, J. Ashburton (John Ashburton), 1848-1915.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report on the outbreak of the plague at Sydney, 1900 / by the Chief Medical Officer of the Government and President of the Board of Health. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    same time, however, the Eoard caused a communication to be addressed to the Premier, in which it was pointed out that possession of cultures of the microbe was indispensable to due performance of its appointed functions. During the ensuing year, repeated representations to similar effect were made. But it was not until March 12th, 1900 (Case J 4), that formal permission to keep, cultivate, and inoculate this microbe into animals was granted to the Board's micro-biologist by the Department of Lands, which administers the Animals' Infectious Diseases Act, 1888. In the mean- time, however, verbal permission to keep, cultivate, and inoculate animals wdth the microbe of plague had been given by the Premier (March, 1899), and was again given by the Premier (December, 1899) to the President; for it was easy to show that if a suspected case of plague were imj^orted, or occurred on shore, the Department would be in a dilemma in which it must either break the law by making cultures and inoculations, or fail in performance of its duty for want of power to use those means of investigation—means which were open to the rest of the world. It was considered that these permissions, although invalid in law, w^ould suffice to protect the Department in a case where an absolute necessity could be shown. They were relied upon when in October, 1899, it became necessary to examine certain cases which had arrived at Newcastle by the British-India Company's S.S. Ujina, from Calcutta, via Port Louis, Mauritius (which turned out not to be cases of plague), and again, in January, 1900, when the first case of plague occurred at Sydney. Prom this latter, indeed, the cultures in use at the laboratories during the epidemic were in part raised. During the same term now referred to, namely, from September, 1896, plague had been frequently discussed by the Board in relation to maritime traffic, and had also been a subject of communication between the Board and central health authorities in other parts of Australasia. These communications commenced in January, 3897, and were thenceforward continued. At the end of that year the International Convention which had resulted from the Venice Plague Conference was referred to the Board by the Government; after prolonged consideration it felt obliged to advise that the Government should not adhere to it, the law containing no provision under w^hich the plan of medical inspection permitted by the Con- vention could be carried out (see Section VII, p. 49). In March, 1898, Madagascar, Mauritius, Beunion, and the Seychelles Avere proclaimed to be places infected with plague, pre-existing proclamations having covered all other places with which New South Wales has communication, and whicii had so far been attacked. The gradual infection of a greater and greater number of widely-scattered ports and places was carefully noted, and its l^earing on the interests of this port considered; and in October, 1899, the Government was advised to intimate its willingness to adhere to those parts of the Convention wiiich provide for international notification of plague. Even earlier than the last-mentioned date it had become apparent, that, in all probability, Sydney would be attacked; and accordingly in January, 1899, the Board suggested that a member of the staff might be sent to Bombay to study the disease. The danger which threatened was the importation of ])lague by sea, and no other. The treatment accorded from the beginning to vessels arriving clean from ports infected with plague (that is, from May, 1894, when plague became epidemic at Hongkong) down to December, 1S99, was that accorded to such vessels by an earlier International Convention to clean vessels arriving from cholera-infected ports; a treatment which was also accorded by the A'^enice Convention to vessels arriving under the conditions now contemplated, that is, from plague- infected ports. But when it was announced that plague was epidemic at Noumea, a town which lies but from three and a-half to six days' steam from Sydney according to the class of vessel making the voyage, it became necessary to alter that method; and, while the regulations laid down in the International Convention were adhered to as far as possible, such vessels were compelled to lie at quarantine after arrival (whatever the state of health of those on board might appear to be) until expiration of the twelfth day from the day of sailing.^ This term was two days in excess of that prescribed by the International Convention, and was adopted merely because the Prench Colonial Office had issued instructions to Governors of Prench Colonies to impose it on vessels arriving at their Governments from plague-infected ports. But, in addition, attempts were made to kill any rats which might still remain on these vessels notwithstanding the efforts to
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