TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION I. 
or 
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FRIDAY, AUGUST 18. 
The following Papers were read :— 
1. So-called Scurvy of South Africa. By Dr. A. J. GREGORY. 
Dr. Gregory said that he proposed to deal with the disease under the following 
heads: (1) Its incidence, extent, and distribution ; (2) its clinical characters and 
the effect of treatment; (3) the influence of diet ; (4) seasonal variation ; (5) prob- 
able infectiveness. Having dealt with the disease from these standpoints, he 
said: To summarise I may recapitulate my conclusions regarding this disease. 
They are: (1) In its clinical features it closely resembles mild scurvy, but may 
result in a considerable mortality; (2) it occurs in communities supplied with a 
sufficient fresh meat and vegetable dietary, and it does not necessarily occur in 
communities living on a dietary almost entirely deficient in these constituents ; 
(8) the employment of fresh vegetables and vegetable juices does not afford a 
specific cure for the disease. Cases may continue for long periods, although under 
a liberal anti-scorbutic diet; (4) the disease is characterised by a very high per- 
centage of recurrences ; (5) its incidence is greatest on the native races; (6) it 
occurs in the form of outbreaks and epidemics; (7) different outbreaks vary in 
intensity or virulence of type, indicated by a larger proportion of attacks and a 
greater fatality ; (8) the disease is marked by a distinct seasonal variation; (9) it 
is essentially a disease of aggregation or close association ; (10) there are indi- 
cations that the disease may be of bacterial origin and mildly infectious in its 
nature; (11) there are grounds for believing that a disease not entirely in accord 
with the accepted ideas of scurvy occurs in other parts of the world besides South 
Africa. With this I must leave the matter for further investigation, in the hope 
that it will be taken up by other and more able investigators than myself. 
Whether my views be right or wrong, I still think that the facts I have stated 
are sufficient to warrant further inquiry being made into the nature of scurvy—at 
any rate as we meet with it in this part of the globe. 
2. Plague in Cape Colony. By Dr. J. A. M1TcHett, 
Dr. Mitchell approached the subject from the point of view of the practical 
sanitarian. He detailed the history of the introduction of tke disease into the 
Colony in 1899 and its subsequent spread. Up to the present epidemics of the 
disease have occurred at Izeli (King William’s Town district), Cape peninsula, 
Port Elizabeth, Mossel Bay, East London, King William’s Town, Queenstown, 
Kei Road, and Knysna; whilst plague epizootics amongst rodents have occurred 
in Graaff-Reinet, Uitenhage, Burghersdorp, Seymour, Thomas River, Lady Grey 
Bridge, and Grahamstown. Port Elizabeth, East London, King William’s Town, 
and Uitenhage are still plague-infected. There have been 1,305 cases, with 665 
deaths, equal to a case mortality rate of 50°8 per cent, All the epidemics, with 
the exception of that at Izeli, where there were no rodents, were associated with 
epizootics of the disease amongst rodents. The disease has been observed in 
veld rats (Arvicanthus pumilio), cats, and in one dog. After tracing the con- 
nection between infected rodents and the occurrence of cases of the disease in 
man, and the mode of spread from infected centres to other centres in the Colony, 
Dr. Mitchell said that, from the history of the disease in the Colony, the following 
conclusions might be drawn: (1) That rats have, directly or indirectly, been the 
means of introducing the disease into the ports of the Colony; (2) that rats have, 
directly or indirectly, been the means of spreading the infection from infected 
centres in the Colony to other centres; (8) that in the majority of cases of the 
disease in man the infection has been more or less clearly traceable to infected 
rats ; (4) that rats have been the chief cause of the persistence of the disease 
in the infected localities. He also dwelt on the great danger of the introduction 
of plague by infected rodents into countries hitherto free from the disease, and 
