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Plague in the Orient with Special Reference to the Manchurian Outbreaks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

Wu Lien Teh
Wu Lien Teh
Affiliation:
Director and Chief Medical Officer, Manchurian Playue Prevention Service; President, International Playue Conference, Mukden, 1911.
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1. Pneumonic Plague epidemics arise as a secondary manifestation of Bubonic Plague.

2. The prevalence of purely septicaemic cases towards the end of the epidemic is significant as a probable explanation of its decline and termination.

3. Subacute or chronic plague may exist among tarabagans (Arctomys bobac) in Mongolia and Siberia, giving rise to periodical outbreaks of bubonic plague in man, as a result of direct infection from injury due to skinning by trappers or marmot eaters.

4. The tarabagan is easily susceptible to pneumonic plague produced by inhalation of B. pestis in spray form.

5. The existence of Pneumonic Plague carriers has been proved in the 1921 Manchurian epidemic.

6. Rooms where patients have died of pneumonic Plague are not particularly dangerous. In all four instances recorded, sick patients travelling in railway carriages have not infected their fellow passengers.

7. Disinfectants and antiseptics, even in strengths above those usually employed, have very little effect upon plague sputum. Alcohol is the surest means of sterilising the hands and gloves in plague work.

8. We have cultivated B. pestis from seemingly dry sputum of partients.

9. The mask is the principal means of personal protection against Pneumonic Plague.

10. The problem of successful vaccination against Pneumonic Plague still awaits solution.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Hygiene , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , June 1922 , pp. 62 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1922

References

page 64 note 1 Tarabagans and their haunts are figured by the author in Journ. of Hyg. xiii, Pls. VIII–XVI (1913).—ED.

page 64 note 2 This statement will require modification in view of some interesting localised pneumonicplague epidemics recorded, e.g. Br. freight steamer Friary (which had 8 deaths out of a crew of 21 in 1901), Br. mail steamer Nagoya (which had 8 deaths out of a crew of 195 in 1919), two epidemics in the Gold Coast in 1908 and 1917, and others. (G. W. McCoy. American Journ. of Hygiene, 1, No. 2. The problem of Plague in the United States; Annual Report, Ministry of Health, London, 1919–20; Lancet, 25. x. 1919.)

page 70 note 1 Philippine Journ. of Science VII Sect. B, pp. 255–268.

page 72 note 1 American Journ. of Infect. Dis, XX, No. 2, 1916.

page 73 note 1 American Journ. of Infect. Dis. XX, No. 2, 1916.

page 73 note 2 8 Since the above was written, more contact animals have been examined and plague bacilli have been found in the blood. One Tarabagan T 12 which was placed in the same cage as T 10 died spontaneously on Sept. 12 {i.e. 37 days afterwards) showing at post mortem congestion of trachea and lungs and abscesses in pharynx and spleen, all with positive findings in the smears and cultures.