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infectious diseases. When a plague epidemic exists, our Institute, 
through governmental appointment, furnishes those commissioners and 
officials who are to take charge of the preventive and sanitary measures. 
It has a plague laboratory constructed in conformity with the most ad- 
vanced methods and in this place pest serum and vaccine are prepared 
for the use of the entire country. As a part of its work the institute 
gathers a number of physicians and surgeons throughout Japan in order 
to give them instruction in bacteriology and epidemiology. ‘The number 
who have finished this course at present amounts to 1,293, and these 
physicians are scattered throughout the country. At least a portion 
of them are now actually engaged in important work in hygiene and pre- 
ventive medicine. As these specially educated physicians and surgeons 
are distributed throughout Japan, it is a matter of ease in an emergency 
at once to gather several hundreds of commissioners. ‘To fight plague 
successfully requires a large number of trained men, and the country 
owes its thanks to the Institute for rendering so many available. 
Such, in brief, is the account of the organization of the preventive work 
which so far has been instituted in Japan. However, I must here 
express my sincere admiration and surprise at the manner in which your 
country is protected from pestilence. You have medical officials sta- 
tioned at the principal ports of the world which plague frequently 
haunts, so that inspections are made at the places from which vessels 
clear. I believe preventive measures against plague to be the most 
urgent need of the age, but in order to be of permanent good they must 
include, as is the case with the United States, not only temporary means 
for preventing the intrusion of the disease to be enforced at the ports 
of entry, but also medical officials to be stationed in infected regions, at 
which points any vessels starting for the country in question can be 
strictly examined. I am of the opinion that it would be advisable to 
place such officials at Indian and South China ports to which the plague 
outbreaks in Japan have been traced. 
In combating plague, the quarantine of ports, however strict and 
complete it may be, can not safely be relied upon and for this reason 
general provision throughout the country must be perfected against 
infectious diseases. As plague can not be classified with the ordinary 
ones of this class, the regulations to meet such emergencies in Japan 
were found in general to be unsuitable, so that the Government was 
compelled to remodel them in order to meet the condition. The prin- 
cipal features of the new regulations are as follows: ; 
1. Authority for disinfection, isolation, and quarantine is given. 
Measures looking to the prevention of the disease are to be enforced not 
only against the living patients and in respect to the houses and furni- 
ture occupied and used by those actually stricken with plague, as well 
as of those who are only suspected of having the infection, but also in 
regard to the bodies of those dead with plague. 
