September 15, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



345 



conditions are virtually exempt from the dis- 

 ease. Plague does not attack the gaol popula- 

 tion or the native army; it attacks the ordi- 

 nary civil population, because they live in 

 houses which are not rat-proof, because they 

 treat the rat almost as a domestic animal, 

 because large numbers of them refuse to trap 

 or kill it, and because they will not adopt the 

 sanitary precautions which are pressed upon 

 them. Plague has now been present in India 

 for fifteen years, and the appalling total of 

 nearly 7,500,000 deaths from it has been re- 

 corded. Of this the Punjab accounts for 

 nearly two and a half million deaths — almost 

 a third of the total. The tale of deaths in 

 the last ten years represents 1 per cent, of the 

 population of that province. When I think of 

 the sensation that was caused in this country 

 a short time ago by what was by comparison 

 a minor outbreak in Manchuria, resulting in 

 only 50,000 deaths, I fear that people in this 

 country do not realize the awful ravages that 

 this scourge is daily making among the Indian 

 people. Scientific research has established 

 that it is conveyed by rat fleas to human 

 beings. The two efl^ective remedies are in- 

 oculation and house evacuation. Professor 

 Haffkine has discovered a vaccine by which 

 comparative though not absolute immunity 

 can be temporarily secured. But by an un- 

 happy accident at Mulkowal several villagers 

 died of tetanus after inoculation. Inocula- 

 tion in India has never recovered from this 

 disaster. It is hated by the people and 

 avoided by them except when the disease is in 

 their midst. House evacuation is easier in 

 villages than in towns. Administrative ar- 

 rangements by which plague is now fought 

 include the provision of special plague medical 

 officers and subordinates, and they and the 

 district staff are on the lookout for the occur- 

 rence of plague, and when it occurs they visit 

 the locality, offer inoculation, give assistance 

 to persons to vacate their houses, advise rat 

 destruction, and so on. To the prevention of 

 plague there would seem to be no royal road. 

 The case is one in which lavish expenditure of 

 money is not called for, and would be useless. 

 But the provincial governments have spent, 



and are spending, a good deal. The United 

 Provinces have expended some £600,000 up to 

 date. The Punjab government is spending 

 about £40,000 a year. The improvement of 

 the general sanitary conditions under which 

 the population lives is more and more clearly 

 seen to be essential, and to improve them the 

 local governments are devoting all the money 

 they can spare. They have been helped to do 

 so by the grants for sanitation made by the 

 government of India. The scientific difficul- 

 ties are enhanced by the difficulty of over- 

 coming prejudice and ignorance, habit and 

 apathy. In some districts there is actually 

 religious objection to rat-killing and inocula- 

 tion. No better work can be done for India 

 than to offer example and instruction in prin- 

 ciples of life that appear to us elementary, and 

 to strive to exorcise the foes of progress — 

 superstition and resistance to prophylactics. 

 There are, I am glad to say, signs that the 

 sanitary conscience is beginning to awake 

 among the people." 



UNIVEESITY AND EDUCATIONAL NEWS 

 Professor Wilbur J. Phaser has resigned 

 as head of the department of dairy husbandry 

 of the University of Illinois to devote his 

 entire time to a professorship which he will 

 retain within the department. Professor 

 Praser has been head of this department since 

 its organization some fifteen years ago, during 

 which time it has grown until it now numbers 

 twelve members and its resources amount to 

 over fifty thousand dollars annually exclusiye 

 of receipts. 



W. C. EuEDiGER has recently been advanced 

 from assistant professor to professor of edu- 

 cational psychology in the Teachers College 

 of the George Washington University. 



The following new appointments have been 

 made at the University of Colorado : Max M. 

 Ellis, Ph.D. (Indiana), instructor in biology; 

 Arthur G. Vestal, B.A. (Illinois), instructor 

 in biology; Paul M. Dean, M.A. (Colorado), 

 instructor in chemistry; Harold E. Eobbins, 

 M.A. (Yale), instructor in physics; Whitney 

 C. Huntington, B.S. (0. E.) (Colorado), for 

 the past year assistant, instructor in civil 



