Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Symptoms include fever, weakness and headache. Usually this begins one to seven days after exposure. There are three forms of plague, each affecting a different part of the body and causing associated symptoms. Pneumonic plague infects the lungs, causing shortness of breath, coughing and chest pain; bubonic plague affects the lymph nodes, making them swell; and septicemic plague infects the blood and can cause tissues to turn black and die.
The Great Plague of London, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. It happened within the centuries-long Second Pandemic, a period of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics that originated in Central Asia in 1331, and included related diseases such as pneumonic plague and septicemic plague, which lasted until 1750.
Dharavi is a residential area in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It has often been considered to be one of the world's largest slums. Dharavi has an area of just over 2.39 square kilometres and a population of about 1,000,000. With a population density of over 277,136/km2 (717,780/sq mi), Dharavi is one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
Waldemar Mordechai Wolff Haffkine, born Vladimir Aronovich (Markus-Volf) Khavkin was a Russian-French bacteriologist known for his pioneering work in vaccines.
The third plague pandemic was a major bubonic plague pandemic that began in Yunnan, China, in 1855. This episode of bubonic plague spread to all inhabited continents, and ultimately led to more than 12 million deaths in India and China, and at least 10 million Indians were killed in British Raj India alone, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history. According to the World Health Organization, the pandemic was considered active until 1960 when worldwide casualties dropped to 200 per year. Plague deaths have continued at a lower level for every year since.
The history of Mumbai can be traced back to 600 BC, with evidence of the first known settlement of the Harrappan civilization discovered in the region.
Acacio Gabriel Viegas was a medical practitioner who was credited with the discovery of the outbreak of bubonic plague in Bombay, India, in 1896. His timely discovery helped save many lives in the city and was credited with the inoculation of 18,000 residents. He was also the president of the Bombay Municipal Corporation.
Lieutenant-General Sir William Forbes Gatacre was a British soldier who served between 1862 and 1904 in India and various areas on the African continent. He commanded the British Army Division at the Battle of Omdurman and the 3rd Division during the first months of the Second Boer War, during which time he suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Stormberg.
The Haffkine Institute for Training, Research and Testing is located in Parel in Mumbai (Bombay), India. It was established on 10 August 1899 by Dr. Waldemar Mordechai Haffkine, as a bacteriology research centre called the "Plague Research Laboratory". It now offers various basic and applied bio-medical science services. The Institute opened a museum on its premises in March 2014 to showcase Haffkine's research and developments in microbiology and chart the history of the institute. The Institute received ISO 9001:2008 certification in 2012.
Bubonic plague is one of three types of plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. One to seven days after exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop. These symptoms include fever, headaches, and vomiting, as well as swollen and painful lymph nodes occurring in the area closest to where the bacteria entered the skin. Acral necrosis, the dark discoloration of skin, is another symptom. Occasionally, swollen lymph nodes, known as "buboes", may break open.
The fifth cholera pandemic (1881–1896) was the fifth major international outbreak of cholera in the 19th century. The endemic origin of the pandemic, as had its predecessors, was in the Ganges Delta in West Bengal. While the Vibrio cholerae bacteria had not been able to spread to western Europe until the 19th century, faster and improved modes of modern transportation, such as steamships and railways, reduced the duration of the journey considerably and facilitated the transmission of cholera and other infectious diseases. During the fourth 1863–1875 cholera pandemic, the third International Sanitary Conference convened in 1866 in Constantinople had identified religious pilgrimages to be "the most powerful of all causes" of cholera and again Hindu and Muslim pilgrimages were an important factor in the spread of the disease.
The Indian famine of 1896–1897 was a famine that began in Bundelkhand, India, early in 1896 and spread to many parts of the country, including the United Provinces, the Central Provinces and Berar, Bihar, parts of the Bombay and Madras presidencies, and parts of the Punjab; in addition, the princely states of Rajputana, Central India Agency, and Hyderabad were affected. All in all, during the two years, the famine affected an area of 307,000 square miles (800,000 km2) and a population of 69.5 million. Although relief was offered throughout the famine-stricken regions in accordance with the Provisional Famine Code of 1883, the mortality, both from starvation and accompanying epidemics, was very high: approximately one million people are thought to have died.
Events in the year 1896 in India.
The Russian plague epidemic of 1770–1772, also known as the Plague of 1771, was the last large-scale outbreak of plague in central Russia, claiming between 52,000 and 100,000 lives in Moscow alone. The bubonic plague epidemic that originated in the Moldovan theatre of the 1768–1774 Russian-Turkish war in January 1770 swept northward through Ukraine and central Russia, peaking in Moscow in September 1771 and causing the Plague Riot. The epidemic reshaped the map of Moscow, as new cemeteries were established beyond the 18th-century city limits.
Plague vaccine is a vaccine used against Yersinia pestis to prevent the plague. Inactivated bacterial vaccines have been used since 1890 but are less effective against the pneumonic plague, so live, attenuated vaccines and recombinant protein vaccines have been developed to prevent the disease.
The Chapekar Brothers, Damodar Hari Chapekar, Balkrishna Hari Chapekar and Vasudeo Hari Chapekar, also spelt Wasudeva or Wasudev, were Indian revolutionaries involved in assassinating W. C. Rand, the British Plague Commissioner of Pune, after the public of Pune was frustrated with the vandalism from the officers and soldiers appointed by him, in late 19th century. Mahadev Vinayak Ranade was also an accomplice in the assassination.
The San Francisco plague of 1900–1904 was an epidemic of bubonic plague centered on San Francisco's Chinatown. It was the first plague epidemic in the continental United States. The epidemic was recognized by medical authorities in March 1900, but its existence was denied for more than two years by California's Governor Henry Gage. His denial was based on business reasons, to protect the reputations of San Francisco and California and to prevent the loss of revenue due to quarantine. The failure to act quickly may have allowed the disease to establish itself among local animal populations. Federal authorities worked to prove that there was a major health problem, and they isolated the affected area; this undermined Gage's credibility, and he lost the governorship in the 1902 elections. The new governor, George Pardee, implemented public-health measures and the epidemic was stopped in 1904. There were 121 cases identified, resulting in 119 deaths.
The Persian plague epidemic of 1772–1773, also simply known as the Persian Plague, was a massive outbreak of plague, more specifically Bubonic plague, in the Persian Empire, which claimed around 2 million lives in total. It was one of the most devastating Plague epidemics in recorded human history. The outbreak resulted in the introduction of several quarantine measures for the first time in the Persian Gulf regions.
The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre occurred in 1902, in Hanoi, Tonkin, French Indochina, when the French government authorities attempted to control the rat population of the city by hunting them down. As they felt that they were making insufficient progress, and due to labour strikes, they created a bounty programme that paid a reward of 1¢ for each rat killed. To collect the bounty, people would need to provide the severed tail of a rat. Colonial officials, however, began noticing rats in Hanoi with no tails. The Vietnamese rat catchers would capture rats, sever their tails, then release them back into the sewers so that they could produce more rats.
Plague and famine have been recurrent features of life in the South Asian subcontinent countries of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. The two health disasters often go hand-in-hand. That failures to scientifically examine the remains of disaster victims can lead to misidentifications and misinterpretations is now recognised in the research literature. While forensic dentistry is taught in India, the use of odontology to help explain historical problems is in its infancy.
