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Updated: May 9, 2025
When I learned we had lain close to a vessel with a case of plague aboard I laid in some plague medicine, on general principles and just to have an anchor out to windward. At the English drug store on the Escolta I bought a tiny bottle of Yersin's Antipest Serum and another of Haffkine's Prophylactic Fluid.
Two more seamen on sick report; and, to add to my worries, they are the very two I inoculated with the antipest serum and Haffkine's. Is this stuff worthless? May Tenth. Seamen Halloran and Kaiser died within an hour of each other this evening Halloran at nine-thirty and Kaiser at ten-eighteen. Put both bodies overboard immediately.
Inoculated second mate and the two seamen with Haffkine's. May Sixth. Mr. Matson died at noon today. Cook down with it; also another seaman, and Mr. Eccles, the second mate. Have altered ship's course and am running for Hongkong. Winds light and baffling. Have not made thirty miles today. Calm at midnight. Mr. Eccles died just as the watches were being changed.
It was all they had on hand and it wasn't much; but it is enough to save me and I intend to be saved if possible. I cannot afford to die now. I do not know how old the Haffkine's Fluid is; and the older it is, the longer it takes to render one immune. The antipest serum will render me immune immediately, but the duration of the immunity thus granted lasts, at the most, only fifteen days.
Accordingly I inoculated them with the antipest serum. Five p.m. Inoculated myself with Haffkine's Fluid. Seven-thirty. Seaman Ross died. Mr. Matson threw the body overboard. No services. Midnight. Mr. Matson is down with it. May Fifth. Mr. Matson very ill and delirious. Cook moping round like a drunken man; complains of severe headache. Wind blowing lightly from south-west. Everything set.
I must, therefore, first take a hypodermic injection of antipest serum to render me immune immediately and the next day follow with an injection of Haffkine's Fluid, which gives permanent immunity, but not for a week or longer when used alone.
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