1901 - 2 .] Plague Research Laboratory of Government of India. 1 27 
•of the vaccine, the double test in the decanting room, and the final 
trial which takes place ten days after bottling. Each department 
keeps an accurate record of all operations performed, with the result 
of the tests, and the whole is copied into a large register forming a 
history of each brew from the actual making of the broth to the 
despatch of the vaccine to the operator. By referring to this 
register we have been able frequently to convince an inoculator 
that the appearance of abscesses in his patients has been due to his 
own shortcoming and not to ours. That the processes are suitable 
to the conditions of the country and climate is manifest from the 
results obtained, as the following extract from the half-yearly 
report to Government for the first part of 1900 will testify. The 
report is written by Mr Hafikine, as Director-in-Chief, and is the 
last that I have access to. Referring to the question of the sterility 
of the prophylactic, he says: “Of the 2139 brews manufactured 
during the first half of the year, 152 were rejected upon the results 
of the examination made before they had reached the bottling room, 
and one was rejected subsequently on account of its weakness. 
The arrangement followed in the laboratory was that the material, 
bottled and closed with india-rubber stoppers, and made ready for 
despatch, was kept in the laboratory at least a fortnight after its 
preparation ; and ten days after the bottling, samples of each brew 
were re-tested for sterility. 
“In this way it was detected that out of 1987 brews passed into 
the bottling room as sterile, 4, or about 1 in 500, got contaminated 
subsequently, and were rejected; the 1983 others had remained 
sterile, and were declared fit for distribution to operators. 
“These details warrant the presumption that no contaminated 
bottles are issued from the laboratory. 
“ The above results were obtained by an effective supervision 
over each part of the preparation, and by the duties being dis- 
tributed amongst an adequate staff of officers.” 
The above remarks refer only to the operations as carried on 
in the new laboratory, which was not in existence when the Indian 
Plague Commission visited Bombay. This fact should he kept in 
mind by anyone studying the elaborate report of that Commission. 
Having described the process of manufacture of the plague 
vaccine, I should like to lay before this Society a short account 
of what can be accomplished by its means. 
