Deaths due to bubonic plague in India 1896-1904

The Third Plague Epidemic began in the mid-1800s in Yunnan, China, (an area that is still a natural reservoir for the Yersinia pestis bacteria) and had a huge death toll across Asia in the next century. While plague was confined to the Yunnan region for some decades, the mass displacement and social upheaval caused by the Taiping Rebellion saw millions flee the area , bringing the disease to other parts of the country. A plague epidemic then emerged in British-controlled Hong Kong in 1894, where merchants then unknowingly transported infected rats to other parts of the empire along various trade routes.Arrival in BombayThe first Indian cases were reported in Bombay (present-day Mumbai), and the Bombay Presidency suffered more losses than any other region in India (although there were some individual years where the state of Punjab reported more deaths). As with most disease or famine outbreaks in the region, the British authorities were slow to react, and their eventual response was in many ways too late. In some cases authorities even facilitated the spread of the disease; with multiple accounts of the military forcing healthy people into quarantine camps, evicting and burning homes of the afflicted, or by using such excessive force that the public would refuse medical help.Spread in IndiaLack of understanding among the Indian public was also to their own detriment. Some religions in India forbid the killing of rats, while some people simply refused to acknowledge that they were sick. As the plague in Bombay spiraled out of control, many fled to other parts of the country, taking the plague with them. It is estimated that there were over one million deaths in India by 1902, and almost one million further deaths in 1903 alone. The first four months of 1904 also saw over half a million deaths, almost matching the entire total for 1902. Plague would remain endemic to India for the next few decades, and there are varying reports of up to 10 or 12 million total plague deaths in this time. The public health measures taken to combat the plague in the early 20th century would mark the beginnings of India's public health system, and some of the quarantine measures put in place by the colonial government were even used in 2020 during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

19世纪中叶，第三次黑死病疫情起源于中国云南省（该地区至今仍是鼠疫耶尔森氏菌的自然宿主），在随后的一个世纪里，亚洲各地遭受了巨大的死亡人数。尽管黑死病在几十年内局限于云南省，但太平天国之乱引发的大规模人口流动和社会动荡，使得数百万人逃离该地区，将疾病带到了国家的其他部分。1894年，英国控制的香港爆发了黑死病疫情，当时商人沿各种贸易路线无意中将感染的老鼠带至帝国的其他地区。首例印度病例报告出现在孟买（今孟买），孟买省在印度各地遭受的损失超过了其他任何地区（尽管在某些年份，旁遮普邦报告的死亡人数更多）。与该地区大多数疾病或饥荒爆发时的情况一样，英国当局的反应迟缓，且其最终应对措施在很多方面都为时已晚。在某些情况下，当局甚至助长了疾病的传播；有多个关于军队强迫健康人进入隔离营、驱逐和焚烧患者房屋，或使用过度武力以至于公众拒绝接受医疗援助的报道。在印度蔓延过程中，印度公众对疾病的认识不足也对他们自身造成了损害。印度的一些宗教禁止杀害老鼠，而有些人简单地拒绝承认他们生病。随着孟买地区的黑死病失控，许多人逃往国家的其他部分，将疾病也带去了。据估计，到1902年，印度已有超过一百万人死亡，1903年单独就有近一百万死亡。1904年的前四个月也出现了超过五十万的死亡人数，几乎与1902年全年的死亡总数相当。在接下来的几十年里，黑死病在印度将持续流行，关于这一时期总共有1000万至1200万黑死病死亡人数的报道各不相同。20世纪初为抗击黑死病采取的公共卫生措施标志着印度公共卫生体系的起点，殖民政府实施的某些隔离措施甚至在2020年COVID-19大流行期间得到了应用。