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102 Possibty plague had something to do with this. The year 1321 Fasli (1912 A.D.) was the most disastrous since plague first entered the Dominions, and in that year the City was for the first time attacked by the epidemic. The total number of plague cases in 1912 was no less than 30,632 and the deaths numbered 27,367. The masterly manner in which the epidemic was handled and finally stamped out reflects on His Highness's government and on Lieutenant-Colonel H. E. Drake-Brockman, I.M.S., Director of the Medical Department, vast credit; but the evil effects of the scourge may possibly have had something to do with the great increase in the number of persons suffering from the four infirmities mentioned in the Census, and more especially with the fact that no less than 16,263 persons are returned in it as blind, while in the Census of 1901 only 1,344 persons were returned as suffering from that infliction. The Census for 1911 says that blindness claims sixty per cent, of the total afflicted in the State, and the number of women sufferers equals, and in some places exceeds, that of the men, and it suggests that smoky wood fuel in ill- ventilated kitchens has much to do with the loss of eyesight among the women.