'Russia and India in 1903' [‎29r] (59/68)

FIGHTING PLAGUE AT BOMBAY.
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weak constitution, unprotected by inoculation, has but
a faint chance of survival. Twenty thousand died in a
week of January, 1903. Albeit the plague is not new.
In the fifth and sixth chapters of the First Book of
Samuel there is a clear narrative of how it “ smote of
the people fifty thousand three score and ten men ”
among the Philistines eleven hundred years before
Christ. “Your mice {i.e., rodent of any kind) that
mar the land/’ mentioned in the fifth verse of the
sixth chapter, is proof that three thousand years ago,
as now, the source of infection was attributed to rats or
mice—to render which, in Arabic or in Hindustanee,
but one word is used.
The Plague Research Laboratory.
But if there is much connected with the plague
which remains a mystery, the averting or lessening
of its effects is another of the priceless services
rendered to the human race by that greatest Frenchman,
M. Pasteur. To have known him and to have seen
his work will always remain a privileged memory.
That that work goes on with discovery added to dis
covery, long after his death, we owe it that many tens
of thousands of our fellow subjects have been, and are
being either saved from plague, or given, if seized by it,
over ninety extra chances of recovery out of a hundred.
A great student of the Pasteur Institute is Mr. W. M.
Haffkine, C.I.E. His work was first to discover a
vaccine against cholera. To put it to practical test
Professor Haffkine came to India ten years ago. In
October, 1896, plague broke out in Bombay, and Mr.
Haffkine was sent by the Government of India to
investigate its causes, and to discover if possible some
means of dealing with the disease. Ever since then he
has been ceaselessly at work on the subject, and nothing
is more interesting than to visit the old Government
House at Pare!, the cotton mill covered suburb of