Commentary: Dr Choksy's dilemma

In the angry letter he wrote to the Lancet in July 1900, Dr Choksy’s irritation obscures the background of the study he describes. That, we thought, might be a good point to start. In the first months of the new century, what was happening in Dr Choksy’s city? The plague had devastated Bombay for nearly 3 years. The earnest Imperial narrative of this period details the muscular strategy to contain the epidemic. By July 1900, when Dr Choksy wrote his letter, Bombay was resigned to the plague. Nothing seemed to help. If the prophylactic inoculation (Waldemar Haffkine’s vaccine) worked, it did not reflect in the death rates except in small interned communities. (Besides institutions like prisons, and the armed forces, there were very few of these.) The ‘large’ numbers inoculated made up less than one-tenth of the population. DR CHOKSY’S DILEMMA 659