On the epidemiology of the plague / by E. H. Hankin.

  • Ernest Hanbury Hankin
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the epidemiology of the plague / by E. H. Hankin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/44 page 54
    The known facts bearing on the case are as follows: In July and August, 1896, about two thousand fakirs came to Bombay from northern India on their way to a religious festival at Nassik. They encamped for the most part in and near the temple compound of Walkeshwar in Bombay. But during the day they spent their time begging among the Bunnias (grain dealers) and Bhattias, in Mandvie, the district of the city where the plague first appeared. The attention of the Com- missioner of Police was drawn to these fakirs owing to the primeval simplicity of their costume. They hotly protested against interference, saying that they always wore the same clothing in the Himalaya Mountains from whence they had come. On being asked in what part of the Himalayas they lived they replied Garhwal. At least four of them gave this reply. They somewhat outstayed their welcome, and during August the Bunnias of Mandvie combined together and paid the railway fares of 800 of them who had not previously started, to Nassik, where the festival was to commence on the 13th of that month. At its commencement the outbreak of plague, that began about this time, was almost wholly confined to the Bhattia and Bunnia communities who had been especially in contact with the Garhwali fakirs. In the week ending the 25th August three suspicious deaths from fever and pneumonia occurred in Walkeshwar where the fakirs resided. Of these one was a servant and two were “ mendicants.” These reasons for suspecting the fakirs to have imported the infection are to be found in the Report of the German Plague Commission. * Probable similar origin for earlier Indian outbreaks. Another consideration, it appears to me, can be put forward bearing on the question. The origin of the outbreaks of plague that occurred in western India, in the years 1812 and 1836, needs to be explained as much as the origin of the Bombay outbreak of 1896. On the two former occasions there was no plague in Hong Kong. Neither did these Indian outbreaks commence in sea-ports, which had it been the case might have been a ground for suspecting an importation from abroad. Can these two former outbreaks have been due to the wanderings of fakirs? The Garhwali fakirs only visit western India on the occasion of the Nassik festival, which is held at. twelve-yearly intervals. Consequently if the former Indian outbreaks of plague had been caused by Garhwali fakirs, they should have occurred in years in which the Nassik festival was held. The year 1896, the date of the | Bombay plague, was such an occasion. Counting backwards, by twelve- yearly intervals, we find that the Nassik festival was held in 1836, the year of the Pali plague, and in the year 1812, the year of the Gujerat outbreak. It is at least a striking coincidence that of the eight twelve-yearly festivals held during the nineteenth century at Nassik, three should have coincided with outbreaks of plague, and these the only outbreaks that happened.
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