Further reports by Surgeon-General Hunter on the cholera epidemic in Egypt.
- Hunter, William Guyer.
- Date:
- 1883
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Further reports by Surgeon-General Hunter on the cholera epidemic in Egypt. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![■ • . ■ very cold (algiditis). Both lost their voices (aphony). They did not vomit, nor id they have diarrhoea. These details were given to me by the elder brother of these children, a young man of about 25, M. Joanni Kyriako, in presence of M. Patrino and the Greek priest, M. Pappamichael. I did not succeed in getting- any other reliable evidence concerning- this interesting case. (It should be here observed that cases of this kind have been noticed by writers on cholera, under the name of “dry malignant cholera.” “Some die,” says Dr. Desnos, “even before the evacuations have commenced, merely from the violence of the epigastric spasms and cramps.) 2. A week after the Greek Easter, about the 6th May therefore, a son of a man called Nikolai'des, 8 years old, showed the following symptoms: vomiting, then cramp, very cold skin, aphony. He had no diarrhoea, at least so far as the persons I questioned knew. He died, after an illness of six days in all, at Mansourah, where he was carried on the fourth day. These details I took down from the actual words of my informants, who used the words “ el tefcano ” and “spasmus” to designate cramp. 3. An Arab barber, called Ahdou, well known at Damietta, died about the 29th April, after being attacked by vomiting and diarrhoea. He was ill about two or three days in all. It seems he even went to his shop the day he died. M. Patrino knew this barber, and often went to him to be shaved. The barber’s neighbours all told M. Patrino that he (the barber) died of vomiting and diarrhoea. M. Joanni Kyriako confirmed M. Patrino’s statement. 4. A native tobacco-seller, called Bedri, died about a fortnight after the Greek Easter, towards the 13th May, after having been attacked by diarrhoea and vomiting. This fact was confirmed by the three persons I interrogated, who added that even on the morning of the day he died Bedri was able to do his business at his shop. 5. Lastly, M. Patrino states that two Greek women living- in the same Okelle as himself at Damietta were ill for two days at about the Greek Easter with vomiting and diarrhoea; but they afterwards recovered. 1 hold that these facts prove that cholera existed at Damietta as early as the end of April (just as it existed at Mahallet-Damara on the Bahrel at the beginning of April), as shown by the investigations of which my second Report is a short narrative. The following deductions may be made from the results I obtained :— 1. The cholera which became epidemic at Damietta on the 22nd June was not imported thither. 2. Cholera-centres existed long before the 22nd June in several places in Lower Egypt. 3. The cholera epidemic raging in Egypt is not Asiatic cholera, but a local cholera. I hope to expand these deductions fully in my final Report. (Signed) Dr. DUTRIEGX. Inelosure 4 in 14o. 1. “ Le Cholera de Damiette cn 1S83. Origins et De'veloppement.” Rapport adresse au Conseil Sanitaire Maritime ei Quarantenaire d’Egypte, par Ahmet Chaffey Bey et Salvatore Ferrari. Damiette, le 24 Juillet, 1883. LES deux Commissions Medicates don't les Soussignes faisaient partie, et qni sont arrivees a Damiette le 24 Juin, 1883, pour verifier 1’existence et la nature de la inaladie qui sevissait dans cette ville, ayant declare qne e’etait le cholera epidemique, le Conseil Sanitaire Maritime et Quarantenaire, dans la seance du 27 Juin, m’a charge de me rendre a Damiette pour cbercher d’etablir l’origine de l’epidemie cholerique. M. le Dr. Ferrari, Direct,eur de 1’Office Sanitaire de la ville de Damiette a ete invite a se joindre a moi pour aceomplir la mission qui m’a ete confide par le Conseil. Forts de cette eonfianee, et penetres de riiuportance qui se rattacho a 1’eclair- eissement de ce sujet, nous nous sommes livres a des reclierches longues et minutieuses, [1314] C 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24975370_0013.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
