222 



PLAGUE 



of argument will not hold good, it certainly is 

 Hubli ; for not only were the poorer, dirtier, lower- 

 caste people the first to be persuaded to receive inocu- 

 lation, but I made it my personal and special duty to 

 work amongst them. My first few thousand inocu- 

 lations were almost entirely amongst the lowest 

 and poorest of the people. The Brahmins are, 

 perhaps, of all castes, supposed to be the most 

 cleanly in their houses, habits, etc., yet the Brahmins 

 of Hubli (who at first, imagining themselves immune, 

 were the foremost and greatest perverters of the 

 truth concerning its efficacy, and the last to apply 

 for the protection inoculation affords), simply inun- 

 dated the various inoculation centres, as soon as 

 plague began to spread in their midst, clamouring 

 for the very method of which they had only lately 

 tried to prevent others from availing themselves. 



" Unfortunately, the average native, educated 

 or not, appears to have the very greatest aversion 

 to notifying any case of sickness — plague or other 

 — and hence, in my opinion, it becomes more 

 necessary than ever to protect the people by inocu- 

 lation, since they will not help to protect themselves 

 by the foremost and simplest of sanitary and 

 hygenic measures. # With so few police (and 



* Compare the account given by the Rev. H. Haigh 

 {Methodist Recorder, December 1898), of the plague at Banga- 

 lore : " The native population do all they can to elude the 

 vigilance of the authorities. In order to escape segregation, 

 the householders in many instances refrain from reporting 

 plague, and not infrequently bury the corpse secretly. Not 

 only is any spare piece of ground used as a burial-place, but 

 the body is at times thrown into a well or tank, or dropped 

 over the wall of some European compound. During one 

 week three plague corpses were found, badly decomposed, in 

 reservoirs commonly resorted to for drinking purposes." 



