Report on the outbreak of plague in the state of Queensland, 1903. / Department of Public Health, Brisbane.

  • Queensland.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report on the outbreak of plague in the state of Queensland, 1903. / Department of Public Health, Brisbane. 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.

    17/28 (page 15)
    APPENDIX C. INFECTION AND ONSET. Note on Mosquitoes.—T\\e Plague Hospital premises swarmed with mosquitoes, mostly of the Culex type, and in spite of the use of nets and smoke fires, the patients were eonliuually bitten. A specimen of Anopheles was occasionally captured in the wards but no instance of Anopheles biting a patient or nurse was observed. It was reported by two of the nurses that th(>y had observed mosquitoes, after feeding on Case III., fall over apparently dazed on the bedclothes. However, on examining several mosquitoes caught just after feeding on this patient at various times, nothing resembling a bipolar bacillus was observed except on one occasion an appearance as of disintegrating bipolar bacilli mixed with stomach contents. At this time it was not found possible to discover bacilli in frequent smears of finger blood. From Case XV.. bipolar organisms were obtained via mosquitoes. Two Culices which had fed on the patient’s body when he was in articulo mortis were macerated in sterile wafer and subcultured. Pacilli were separated which stained in the typical bijjolar ma inerof B. Hestis. lost the stain in Gram’s method, and later on developed involution forms on agar resembling those of B. Pestis very closely. Unfortunately, an inoculation experiment on a guinea-pig was not carried out, but as the patient’s blood at this time contained numerous B. Pestis, it seemed extremely likelj^that the organisms isolated from the mosquitoes were B. Pestis. The nurses were being incessantly bitten, and though on one occasion there were three cases in the Avards with numerous //. Pestis in the general circulation, yet there was no case of infection amongst the stafl' this year. In this connection it is interesting to recall the case of a staff nurse who suffered from pestis in 1901 at the Plague Hospital. She was bitten on the face by a mos<[uito in the ward. At the .site of the bite a few days later (number not accurately recorded) an inflammatory sore developed Avith a central sloughing core. Then the submaxillary glands on the same side became enlarged and tender, and she develo])ed a typical attack of plague, which fortunately ended favonrably. The irritable mosquito-bite may have been subsequently infected by her hands; but. at all events, the agency of the mosquito in causing the infection cannot be altogether excluded.' Case X.—An interesting case was that of an employee of the Health De])artment engaged in handling rats. On a Tuesday, while engaged manipulating rats at the Bacteriological Institute, this man stabbed his hand with a pair of scissors. The wound was cleansed with o per cent, carbolic lotion, andhcaled rapidly. On the Thursday following (on which day one infected rat was found), while chopping wood at the rat cremation furnace, he was struck on the upper arm by a piece of wood. Avhich abraded the skin. On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday he complainecl of being “ seedy,” and ate A-ery little. On Sunday he felt ” very ill,” and his arm around the sore felt hot and painful; during the day this pain and soreness spread to the axilla. He was seen by the Commissioner of Public Health that evening, and the wound Avas treated with pure carbolic acid crystals. Neither then nor the next morning when he was examined by Dr. McDonald were his symptoms considered very suggestive of plague. On the Tuesday when examined he AA-as much improved, but that CA^ning he hal a severe rigor, and next day (Wednesday) clinical and b.acterioscopic evidence confirmed the case as one of pestis. On several occasions bacilli w ere found in tlie local sore, to which the pure carbolic was applied ou Sunday, and not once in the enlarged tender gbmds in the axilla.