582 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



accommodate only 50. In a hut seven feet in length, breadth, and 

 height five men were found, and several instances are given where 

 similar conditions obtained. In our barracks 600 cubic feet per 

 man is the minimum space allowed. In these bastis the space runs 

 from 157 to 49 cubic feet. This would be bad enough if every- 

 thing were clean and sweet in and about the huts, but, as the med- 

 ical board puts the case, ' here we find an allowance per head going 

 as low as practically one thirtieth of that given in barracks, and no 

 ventilation, with filth ad libitum both in the room and in its sur- 

 roundings, to say nothing of the filthy persons of its occupants, the 

 sewage in the adjacent drains, and the accumulated filth in the 

 neighboring latrines; and to this may be added the fact that the 

 subsoil on which the huts are built is soaked through and through 

 with sewage matters and littered with garbage and filth of all kinds.' 

 The narrow gullies which give access to these huts are in keeping 

 with the general character of the bastis, and we may well wonder 

 that epidemic disease is not always present." 



The probabilities are that the plague will continue in Bombay, 

 Calcutta, and Madras until it dies out from want of susceptible 

 material. It is not at all likely, with the conditions in these cities, 

 such as have already been described, that sanitary measures suffi- 

 ciently energetic to destroy the bacillus will be resorted to. For 

 some years to come these cities are likely to harbor the infection, 

 and will remain, as they are now, nurseries for the disease. 



The plague has not confined itself to the large cities of India, 

 but has spread all over that country. It has extended into the 

 northwestern provinces, has crossed the frontier, and passed into 

 Baluchistan and Afghanistan. In many of the interior cities it has 

 proved quite as fatal, in proportion to the population, as at Bom- 

 bay and Calcutta. At Poonah the mortality has during some weeks 

 been as high as eighty per cent of the cases, and four hundred 

 deaths a week have been reported. At Sholapore, in the Punjab, 

 far to the northwest of Bombay, the disease has prevailed in epi- 

 demic form. 



With the plague widely diffused over the Indian empire, what 

 measures have been taken to prevent its spread to other parts of 

 the world? There are two routes by means of which the disease 

 may pass from India to Europe. One of these is by ship through 

 the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, and the Mediterranean; the other is 

 overland from the northwestern provinces of India through Af- 

 ghanistan into southeastern Europe. In fact, there are three over- 

 land routes from northwestern India into Europe. One of these 

 leads from Lahore, the capital of the Punjab, through Afghanistan 

 into the Transcaspian Province of Russia. The Transcaspian Rail- 



