262 



Dr. W. M. Haffkine. 



With the exception of the fourth day, cases of plague continued to 

 ■oGcur among the uninoculated group for seven days after inoculation, 

 their average daily strength throughout the week being 173; altogether 

 twelve cases occurred among them with six deaths; while in the 148 

 inoculated there was one case on the next day after inoculation, who 

 rapidly recovered, and one on the last clay of the epidemic, who 

 recovered also. 



Analysis of the Results of the Byculla Jail Experiment, 



A glance at the above table will show the progress which was made 

 in our information by that initial experiment, and how far it carried 

 us ahead from the state of uncertainty which surrounded the question 

 originally. 



The dose of prophylactic administered to the prisoners was 3 c.c. 



They all had the customary attack of fever from the operation, with 

 the discomfort accompanying that condition, — a headache in many 

 cases, nausea, loss of appetite for a couple of days, a feeling of fatigue 

 and lassitude, recalling a milcl attack of influenza, with swelling and 

 pain in the inoculated side. Did, however, all this make them more 

 susceptible to the disease than were their non-inoculated fellow inmates 1 

 It is certain that the results testify unmistakably to an opposite 

 effect. 



Further, the incubation period in plague appears to be on the average 

 five days, extending, however, not unfrequently up to ten. 



As to the few newly admitted (uninoculated) prisoners mentioned above, none 

 were subsequently attacked, and the cases of plague stated in the table refer all to 

 old residents, who were present in the jail on the day, and long before the day, of 

 inoculation. Had a case of plague occurred in any of the uninoculated new- 

 comers, it would not have been included in the comparison with the occurrences 

 among the inoeulated inmates, since such new-comer had been exposed outside the 

 jail to conditions of infection other than those which existed inside the jail. Not- 

 withstanding this, it was permitted that the number of the uninoculated new- 

 comers should be added by the jail authorities to the strength of the uninoculated 

 as quoted in the table, since this tended to weaken, and not to exaggerate, the pro- 

 portion of immunity obtained by inoculation. 



In a similar way, in the outbreak of plague in the second (Umerkadi) Bombay 

 jail, described below, one of the three attacks among inoculated persons, as reported 

 by the jail authorities, namely in a man named Sital Vary, prisoner No. 7542, 

 occurred after he had been set at liberty in the city. Had it been an attack in an 

 uninoculated person, it would not have been admitted into the comparison with the 

 inoculated, for the reason mentioned above, i.e., because the conditions of infection 

 outside the jail were not comparable with those in the jail. But as this was a case 

 in an inoculated subject, and tended to present the results in a less favourable light, 

 it was included in the record. 



Every prisoner attacked with plague and taken away to the isolation or plague 

 hospital was excluded on the subsequent day from the strength of those who 

 remained in the jail and were still liable to an attack. 



