In the section: Infectious diseases mentioned in table VII-7 two cases of plague are registered. These two cases were girls aged 7 and 9 respectively. They were admitted on the fifth day after the beginning of the clinical manifestations. The youngest girl was admitted with an axillary bubo and periglandular involvement. The girl aged 9 suffered from an inguinal bubo. These patients died 16 and 12 hours after admission respectively. The diagnosis plague was based on the clinical manifestations and confirmed by colleagues who had experience of plague patients. In one case the Yersiniae pestis could be observed in the thick film which was made of the peripheral blood. A culture of the blood was not possible.
The place of residence of these two girls was the ketjamatan Imogiri in Bantul. The admittance of these girls took place in March and January 1955. They belonged to the last victims of the plague epidemic which had raged in Java since 1945.
This plague epidemic was most violent in the D.I. Jogjakarta and the Province of Central-Java during the period 1949-1951. After 1951 the epidemic gradually diminished. Because of the difficulties entailed by the revolution no registration figures of the Plague Fighting Service concerning the period before 1951 were available. In the D.I. Jogjakarta the violence of this epidemic was at its greatest in the years 1949 and 1950. This appears from the data concerning the number of patients admitted to Bethesda hospital. During this epidemic the patients suffering from plague were admitted and nursed only in this hospital. In the period 1945-1951 489 patients suffering from plague were admitted, viz. 363 adults and 126 children aged under 14. In 1949 the greatest number of plague patients were admitted. In that year 227 of the total number were admitted. The data concerning the admitted patients are collected in table IX-22.
Table IX- 22
Survey of the number of patients, suffering from plague and admitted in Bethesda hospital at Jogjakarta in the period 1945 - 1955.
Mortality among these plague patients was 67%.
The place of residence of these patients was as follows:
- Jogjakarta 370
- Sleman 59
- Bantul 7
- Gunung Kidul 5
- Unknown 48
In 1952 and 1953 no plague patients were admitted.
In 1954 and 1955 only 2 and 4 patients respectively were admitted to Bethesda hospital. These 6 patients had their residence in the ketjamatan Imogiri, Bantul. The last active focus of plague in the D.I. Jogjakarta before the epidemic dwindled out. Since the year 1950 some preliminary figures of the Plague Fighting Service concerning the numbers of registered plague cases with lethal course were made available. In the years 1950 up to and inclusive of 1955 the annually registered cases were 1804, 742, 617, 205, 62 and 17 respectively. These figures concern the cases in which the cause of death was established postmortem by the official of the Plague Fighting Service via puncture of the spleen.
In September 1951 the last case of plague was registered in Kulon Progo.
In December 1952 the last case in the city of Jogjakarta and in 1953 the last case in Sleman was registered. In the kabupatens Gunung Kidul and Bantul this happened in 1955.