COMBATING PLAGUE IN JAPAN.’ 
By SHIBASABURO KITASATO. 
(From the Institute for Infectious Diseases, Tokyo, Japan.) 
PLAGUE EPIDEMICS AND THEIR DETRIMENTAL EFFECTS. 
In 1896 the epidemic of plague which had previously raged in India 
and Hongkong invaded Formosa, which from that time became a source 
of the dangerous pestilence. In this insular possession of Japan, a 
condition was produced in which the eradication of the etiological factor 
became almost impossible, and the situation began to menace the mother 
country. However, strict enforcement of preventive measures and quar- 
antine precluded the entrance of plague from this into the main islands 
of Japan, but danger to our country was present from other sources, for 
the first case of plague encountered during this epidemic was found 
aboard a vessel which entered the port of Yokohama in 1896. The ship 
brought the dangerous germ from India and from southern China, with 
which regions Japan has frequent commercial intercourse. Since this 
event, steamers arriving at the same port and at Nagasaki and Kobe have 
brought in several cases of bubonic plague, but, as the discovery has al- 
ways been made in time and preventive measures and quarantine have 
been promptly applied, infection has been avoided for the time being. 
However, the origin of the epidemics in Japan has been located not 
in the patient but in inanimate objects. Incoming vessels from. the 
infected regions—that is, from Bombay and Hongkong—began to in- 
troduce into the country the plague germ mingled with their freight, 
which principally consisted of cotton. The Government being unaware 
of this dangerous importation, the freight was allowed to land and as 
a consequence the infection rapidly spread in the principal trading 
ports. At first the epidemic prevailed among rats; afterwards it at- 
tacked human beings, with the result that many human lives were sac- 
rificed, tens of thousands of yen of State money were expended, and the 
foreign trade of the country also suffered considerably. 
The principal epidemics in Japan have been as follows: The first 
outbreak was that during the years 1899 and 1900. It began in Kobe; 
"Read at the third annual meeting of the Philippine Islands Medical Asso- 
ciation, March 3, 1906. 
42210 =n 465 
