India, Oct. 22 -- Bubonic plague strikes Bombay in August 1896. Medical surveillance began at the Poona railway station on September 30, 1896, but the first local plague cases were not recorded until December 1896. The colonial government imposed military searches and compulsory sanitary measures. After the Epidemic Diseases Act (Act III of 1897) received the Governor-General's assent on February 4, 1897, the Governor of Bombay appointed Indian Civil Service officer Walter Charles Rand chairman of the Poona Plague Committee by notification on March 9. Systematic operations commenced on March 13, 1897.

Rand oversaw an intervention that included house-to-house inspections, the removal of suspected patients to hospitals or segregation facil...