PLAGUE IN INDIA. BS'B 



tain Bradley replied, :ind at length it came to this, that the Avhole 

 villao-e niioht remove to a camp on a certain piece of waste gronnd 

 within sight of where we stood if some lu4p were ^forthcoming for 

 the poorer villagers; it was all a question of expense, and as I was 

 again mistaken for the commissioner, I was looked at in a signifi- 

 cant yvny as we took onr leave. But to show how many are the 

 difficulties in the Punjab, next day a storm of wind and rain broke 

 which lasted thirty-six hours and was followed by two or three 

 weeks of intense cold. Camping out was of course imj^ossible, and 

 the effects of the cold snap w^ere seen in the abrupt rise of the plagiie 

 figures about a fortnight after from all parts of the Punjab and the 

 United Provinces. 



SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF EVACI ATION. 



Evacuation of i^lague-infected houses or village sites had been 

 adopted by the people themseh'es, Avithout any scientific advice, be- 

 fore the present plague; for example, b}^ the hillmen in Kmnaun, 

 and by the Marwaris, who. as AVliite reported in 18:i(), '' instantly 

 quitted a house on seeing a dead rat.'' The rats themselves, although 

 in India they are the symbols of sagacity, are usually surprised bv 

 'the underground venom, and are often seen trying to escape in a 

 state of delirium. A scientific explanation of the common practice 

 may be found, first, by including plague fully and frankly among the 

 Foil ])oisons, as I did in my History of Epidemics in Britain, fourteen 

 years ago, and, secondly, by applying to it the laws of soil infection 

 Avhicli have been worked out by Pettenkofer and his school. An 

 infection of the soil makes itself felt most inside dwelling houses, and 

 most of all overnight, because there is a natural movement of the 

 ground air toward the walled space. This was shown by the fact 

 that an escape of gas from a main iri the street would travel horizon- 

 tally through the pores of the ground toward the house opj^osite, and 

 b(? sucked up into it, sometimes to the danger of the inmates. Yon 

 Fodor observed the stratum of air next the floor of an unoccupied 

 cellar at Budapest day and night for a whole year, and found tliat 

 it always contained more carbonic iu-id than the ground air outside, 

 having attracted it from the soil around. In disu,-ed cellars, vaults. 

 or covered wells, the accunndation of cai-bonic acid is sometimes so 

 great as to asphyxiate those Avho enter them first. One reason for the 

 ground air streaming to and rising through the basement or floor of a 

 house is that the ground beneath is drier and more permeable, afford- 

 ing a free upward passage unless there be a concrete foundation or 

 a masonry plinth or stone paving. Another reason is that the air 

 inside a house is warmer and lighter, so that it yields to the pressure 

 of colder and heavier air outside and is thrown into an ascending 



