(2) A thick mud-poultice should be applied to the bubo.
(3) The patient should be completely starved.
(4) If he feels thirsty, he should be given lime-juice in cold water.
(5) He should be made to lie in the open air.
(6) There should not be more than one attendant by the side of the patient.
We can confidently assert that, if plague can be cured by any treatment at all, it can be cured by this.
Though the exact origin and causes of plague are yet unknown, it is undoubted that rats have something to do with its communication. We should, therefore, take all precautions, in a plague-infected area, to prevent the approach of rats in our dwellings; if we cannot get rid of them, we should vacate the house.
The best remedy to prevent an attack of plague is, of course, to follow strictly the laws of health,—to live in the open air, to eat plain wholesome food and in moderation, to take good exercise, to keep the house neat and clean, to avoid all evil habits, and, in short, lead a life of utter simplicity and purity. Even in normal times our lives should be such, but, in times of plague and other epidemics, we should be doubly careful.
Pneumonic Plague is an even more dangerous form of this disease. Its attack is sudden and almost invariably fatal. The patient has very high fever, feels extreme difficulty in breathing, and in most cases, is rendered unconscious. This form of plague broke out in Johannesburg in 1904, and as has been already said, [2] only one man escaped alive out of the 23 who were attacked. The treatment for this disease is just the same as that for Bubonic Plague, with this difference that the poultice should be applied in this case to both sides of the chest. If there be no time to try the "Wet-Sheet-Pack", a thin poultice of mud should be applied to the head. Needless to say, here as in other cases, prevention is better than cure.
[2] Part II, chap. IV