event_note History Timeline
1900
People in Mandalay being 'vaccinated' against the plague by a British physician in the early 1900s
A bubonic plague pandemic killed more than 15 million people around the world (mainly in India and China) in the early 1900s. It originated in Yunnan and killed thousands in Rangoon and Mandalay between 1905-6. This photograph shows people in Mandalay been "vaccinated" against the plague by a British physician. The vaccination was fairly ineffectual (and had serious side-effects). This photograph was probably meant to show the colonial authorities in a good light, looking after their new subjects in Upper Burma.