VIII 



PLAGUE 



' I "HE bacillus pestis was discovered by Kitasato 

 and Yersin, working independently, in 1894. 

 Yersin's discovery was made at Hong Kong, 

 whither the French Government had sent him to 

 study plague : an excellent account of his work is 

 given in the Annales de tlnstitut Pasteur, Septem- 

 ber 1894. The first experiments in preventive 

 inoculation, in animals, were made by Yersin, 

 Calmette, and Borrel, working conjointly, in 1895. 

 They found that it was possible to confer on 

 animals a certain degree of immunity, by the 

 hypodermic injection of dead cultures of the bacillus. 

 These experiments were made on rabbits and 

 guinea-pigs. 



Haff kine's fluid was first used on man in January 

 1897. It is a bouillon containing no living bacilli, 

 and nothing offensive to the religious beliefs of 

 India. # He proved its efficacy on rabbits ; and 



* It is said that the Jains object to inoculations on the 

 grounds of religion ; and one or two witnesses before the 

 Plague Commission gave evidence to the same effect. But, 

 at Bombay, the high-priest of a great religious community 



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