CH.IH ANALYSIS OF PLAGUE MATERIALS 37 



rats, nay even highly suspicious illness amongst one or 

 other member of the crew, had been, owing to the master's 

 negatory statements or from some other cause, either 

 overlooked or had been discovered only some time after 

 landing crew or cargo, or both ; and finally, ships have 

 come into port which during the voyage and on landing 

 had on board cases of suspicious illness, presumably 

 plague, in man or in rats, or in both. Dr. Bruce Low, in 

 Report and Papers on Bubonic Plague (Loc. Gov. 

 Board, 1902), has dealt in detail with all such cases, and 

 it is not my object to repeat what Dr. Low has already 

 ably and fully described, but I wish merely to point out 

 briefly some of the many occasions when the aid of the 

 bacteriologist is called in to help to make, or to verify, 

 diagnosis. In addition to these occasions — that is, when 

 bacteriological diagnosis is wanted of cases directly con- 

 nected with a ship arriving from an infected country — 

 there are a good many other occasions when in times of 

 threatened invasion cases of suspicious illness are brought 

 to the notice of medical officers of health in different 

 inland parts, which cases per se might be cases of Oriental 

 plague, and which might be such on account of their 

 having been in some indirect way in contact or in relation 

 with men or goods coming from a ship that had been 

 some time previously in contact with an infected country ; 

 that is to say, now and again isolated indigenous cases of 

 suspected or real plague may occur, and as a fact have 

 occurred, e.g. such as suddenly appeared in an hotel in 

 Glasgow in 1902, in Liverpool in 1904. It is unnecessary 

 to emphasise the importance of early recognition of such 

 indigenous cases in order to take at once the necessary 

 preventive measures. It is equally obvious that in 



