SURGEON-GENERAL HARVEY 229 



unnecessary under the principles of Unani medical 

 science." 



And among statements to be made to the 

 Plague Commissioners was the following, from a 

 native practitioner in Bombay (April 1 899) : — 



"I do not think the plague was imported in 

 Bombay from Hong Kong or anywhere else. I 

 attribute three sources of causes of outbreaks of 

 plague in Bombay : (a) The predisposing cause was 

 the Bombay Municipality ; (b) The exciting cause 

 was the Nature herself ; (c) The aggravating cause 

 was the Plague Committee." 



All these difficulties were well stated by Surgeon- 

 General Harvey, Director-General of the Indian 

 Medical Service, at the discussion on Haffkine's 

 discourse before the Royal Society, June 1899 : — 



"The people of England should consider the 

 difficulties attending the work of a bacteriologist in 

 India. . . . He had no doubt as to the value of the 

 inoculations. At Undhera he carefully examined 

 the results of the experiment, and, as far as he 

 could judge, there was no possibility of error. The 

 results in that experiment were such as to be 90 

 per cent, in favour of the inoculated against the 

 uninoculated. The natives of India were, however, 

 a strange people, and it was difficult to prophesy 

 how they would act. In Calcutta, the mention of 

 inoculations had driven in hot haste from the city 

 300,000 people, many of whom afterwards returned 

 and were inoculated ; while at Hubli he had seen 

 the inhabitants come in their thousands to be inocu- 

 lated and pay for the inoculations. The medical 



