; 
; 
} 
1 
Feb., 1915.] The Second Indian Science Congress. ei 
experience. You will also poe —— ress ready to accept help, if 
in a practical way. n point one such instance in this 
ei ill 
— run by a 
Officer, and well run His reward, and [ am e he deems 
it ample, is the knowledge that ne Toe saved ‘the lives of iaalends of 
his fellow townsm 
Tuer PLaGuE EPIDEMIC. 
But I find that I mag strayed from the strict letter of my text, 
which was to prove the —— ce of a knowledge of Biology to the 
medi Ie 
cal and epee _ n India nnot, I think, do better than 
illustrate besa ez aby alenwiion to ‘the history of plague in India 
during rece’ 
Before a neni ‘broke out in Bombay in October, 1896, no medical 
man dia imagined that the disease had any practical significance 
H arded it as she nature n antiquari uriosity 
to be looked for only in remote Himalayan villages, and not feared 
the civilised countr dus ly in India h 
ate rnme 
It stands to reason, then, that oe plague het Bombay it was 
some time before it was diagnosed, and still more time had to elapse 
before anyone knew what to do to arrest its p hi to 
acquire our prese owledge of its d spread, of its curious 
seasonal prevalence, of its association with rats, of its non-infectious 
nature. Small der then, that our e prevention proved a 
costly and miserable failure, ohn the researches of Haffkine placed in 
ried hands the well-known anti-plague vaccine, and the work of the 
ague Co sion and others showed us what to do in the way of 
ommiss 
hygienic precaution 
Tuer Puacue Rat. 
It early became evident that rats had — to do with t 
Spread of plague, and t Reema let evidence, by which ot 
Pace he cir 
complicity was established, forms an interesting chapter in a” history 
i e to touch on 
ai 
* eplinee at first sight to be many species. visited the British earea 
hi Home, and saw Mr. Oldfield "Thoma on this subject, and 
. destired me that any rat I sent from B bay would be likely to 
ther a mus rattus us 1 
Hee tant of our houses and bedroorns, in fact alm na a , omaha animal 
@ cat, and the other is a wild and shy creature inhabiting sewers rs and 
rarely j und floors only a res —— and in consequence comes more 
are ye contact,with m as doubtless because the rats in Britam 
the species mus Pansies : that plague did not spread in Glasgow 
