Professor Koch on the Plague.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue 7367, 15 November 1898, Page 4

Professor Koch on the Plague.

A RAT DISEASE. A short time since Professor Koch delivered a lecture at Berlin on the subject of the plague. He dealt especially with his discovery of a plague centre in the hinterland of German East Africa, whither the disease had been introduced from Uganda. After giving a survey of the recent epidemics in Mesopotamia, Persia, China, and India, the lecturer pointed ont that the view entertained 10 years ago that the plague was no longer a danger to the nations was now shown to be untenable. A rich harvest of results had been reaped from the study of the plague with the aid or modern means of investigation. The disease had been demonstrated to be caused by bacteria, and useful lessons had been drawn regarding the best methods of combating its ravages. There were excellent prospects of progress in the direction of creating artificial immunity. The part played by rats in the dissemination of the plague had been elucidated, so that it might be said that the plague was really a rat disease. One. question, howelver, to which a satisfactory answer had not yet been given related to the ultimate origin of the disease. The old explanation that it was found wherever dirt and social misery prevailed was inadequate. There must be places where It was endemi3,~and whence it was transplanted to districts that had hitherto been free from infection. Former outbreaks could ba traced back to Mesopotamia. where the plague had never entirely disappeared. But whence came the Chinese plague 1 It could be proved that its endemic centre was in Hn-nan. Thibet was a second centre, and the latest outbreaks in China," as in India, had their origin there. The third centre was on the west coast of Arabia, in the vicinity of Mecca. This centre had a special importance, in view of the numerous pilgrims who visited it, but it was, after all, doubtful whether the plaane was endemic in the neighborhood of Mecca. The constant cases which occurred there might only be survivals of the disease as introduced by large masses of people from abroad. Nothing had hitherto been known of any other plagne centre besides these enumerated, but Professor Koch now claimed to have discovered a fourth centre inEquatorial Africa. It bad been found that a devastating disease prevailed at-Kfasiba, ■ in the extreme north-west corner of German East Africa close to the Victoria Nyanzv Suspecting that ib waa the plagtie, Professor Koch proceeded from India to Eist Africa, in order to make Investigations. With the help of Br Zapitza, who made a special expedition to KJseiba, he bad been ehabled to Identify

the disease as the bubonic plague. In the case of five persons who haddled from the disease, anatomical preparations were obj tained and the blood and lymphatic glands of plague-stricken patients were bacterlologicafiy examined. Ail the ordinary features of the bubonic plague were present. Nine onb of the ten of those who were infected died. The disease was communicated to rats and to monkeys. It was fonnd that an outbreak of the plague among rats frequently preceded a human epidemic, and in fact the rat plague might always be regarded as a warning. A further observation has been made which was of importance. The inhabitants of Kissiba lived almost entirely on bananas. The banana groves were so thick that they admitted neither light nor air and were perfect breeding places of the bacillus. It would be most interesting if the physiologists could investigate the processes of nourishment and metabolic change which attended an almost exclusive diet of bananas. It had been discovered, however, that Kassiba was not an original plague centre, but that the disease had been introduced from Uganda, as the reports of missionaries who resided there showed. It had existed for a long time in Uganda, but it had recently moved in the direction of Buda. Its introduction to Kissiba had been traced to a native who had visited a friend in Uganda. He returned home and died of the plague, and of a large number of natives who attended his funeral many were infected and perished. It was a favorable circumstance that for the present Kissiba lay somewhat out of the ordinary caravan route. The extension of the plague in Equatorial Africa had been very remarkable, and Dr Stuhlmann had told Professor Koch that Emin Pasha had found what were probably cases of it in Wadelai. Slave caravans above all carried it to distant regions which had been exempt from its ravages. Uganda had at present little traffic which went eastwards; but when the railway was constructed it would be brought into closer connection with the coast, and there would then be a danger that its plague centre might be connected with the trade routes of the world. It was comforting to reflect that the plague cculd not survive the spread of civilisation, and it might be anticipated that within a measurable distance of time the last plague centres would disappear.