upon him. He discovered by experiment that fleas 

 fed on plague-stricken animals contained plague 

 germs in their stomachs in a living state, and that 

 the germs freely multiplied there. He likewise 

 found that a proportion of the guinea-pigs he ex- 

 posed to the bites of these insects developed plague, 

 and died of it. ... At this stage in the investiga- 

 tions, the Government of India appointed a second 

 Plague Commission, composed of bacteriologists 

 from the Lister Institute, associated with an equal 

 number from the Indian Medical Service."- -Ban- 

 nerman. 



The Commission set to work, with observations 

 innumerable and experiments of great ingenuity. 

 They ascertained that neither contaminated food 

 nor contaminated soil was responsible for the spread 

 of plague in India. Slowly they drew the chain of 

 proof round the rats and the fleas. For example, 

 there was the tenement-house in Bombay, " where 

 some hundred people lived in a number of small 

 rooms. Rats died in the tenement, and living rats 

 disappeared. Two days after, the inhabitants were 

 so troubled with fleas that they had to forsake their 

 rooms and sleep in the verandahs. A few days 

 more, and plague appeared among them. A search 

 for fleas on the people revealed the interesting fact 

 that a large proportion of the capture were rat-fleas, 

 and that some of them contained plague-germs in 

 their stomachs." 



There is not space for a full account of the ex- 



16 



