Cholera in Egypt / by F. M. Sandwith.

  • Sandwith, F. M.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cholera in Egypt / by F. M. Sandwith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    News of this reappearance reached the Sanitary Board of Egypt on August 30th, by a report dated Medina July 25th, and formed the basis of much discussion on September 4th and during the following weeks* The Turkish official figures for this year’s pilgrimage reached 50,000, of whom some 16,000 either started from Egypt, or passed through Egyptian territory on their way to the Holy Places. But the Egyptian official document from which I am quoting believes that the total number of pilgrims at Mecca reached from 80,000 to 100,000 during the feast days which fell on February 19-23 in 1872. Need- less to say, the slumbering pest which was only waiting for its victims to assemble, broke out once more at Mecca in February and spread without delay to Yembo, and Hodeida, but Jeddah and the sea route appear to have been quite free from the disease. The Grand Caravan of Cairo, numbering 1,130 souls, reported 24 deaths from cholera between Mecca and Medina, and after leaving Medina five deaths from ordinary sickness. More than 9,800 pilgrims were conveyed homewards through the Suez Canal, and some dismay was caused in the month of April by finding six dead bodies in the canal, presumably due to non- choleraic causes, but summarily disposed of by the captains of steamers who feared to be placed in quarantine at Port Said. The pilgrims returning to Egypt in 1872 numbered 2,043 by sea and 1821 by land, their dates of arrival extending from March 23rd to May 22nd. When news reached Egypt of the 4,000 deaths which took place at Medina, and on the road between Mecca and Medina, a quarantine detention was ordered of 20 days at El Wedj, and another 10 days in case of necessity at Moses’ Wells. The then Quarantine Board of Alexandria, consisting of 17 Europeans and one native member, not unnaturally took credit to themselves for preventing an introduction of cholera into Egypt by these measures. Mecca, and the rest of Arabia, were believed to be clear of the disease in April, but in June it broke out near Suakim, and spread to Tokar, Kassala, Berber, and Dongola, accounting for 1,970 official deaths between June and November. Dr. Demechf says that there was an outbreak of cholera in the Soudan in September 1872, travelling down the Nile from Dongola, and reaching Korosko in the first days of November, Egypt proper escaping invasion. During the summers and autumns of 1871-72 cholera was expending its chief intensity in European Kussia, where 633,318 victims were registered, and a quarter of a million people died. In 1873 the epidemic was very destructive in Austro-Hungary and Germany, and was directly followed in 1874 by the International Sanitary Conference at Vienna, which decided, among other things, against the supposed efficacy of land quarantine. Europe remained free of cholera from 1874 to 1883, but in 1875 an unexplained outbreak occurred in Syria, ranging widely over the interior and along the coast towns, and lasting * Mesures prises en Egypte a raison du cholera. Alexandrie, 1872. t Blue Book, No. 38 (.1883), p. 57.