Plague : papers relating to the modern history and recent progress of Levantine plague / prepared from the time to time by direction of the president of the Local Government Board, with other papers ; sented to both House of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty.

  • Radcliffe, Netten.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Plague : papers relating to the modern history and recent progress of Levantine plague / prepared from the time to time by direction of the president of the Local Government Board, with other papers ; sented to both House of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty. 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.

    23/82 (page 17)
    The village of Namaz is composed of 46 houses, containing a population of 280 inhabitants, and a garrison of 135 zaptieh (police force). The Kaimakam (Lieutenant-Governor) of the district resides here, while the Mutessarif (Governor) of the Assyr lives at Mikaiel. On quitting Namaz Dr. Pasqua left there Dr. Agop Effendi, who had been detached from the hospital of Mikaiel for this purpose, and after returning to Jeddah he was informed by the Vali (Governor-General) of Yemen, who had made a tour of inspection in the Assyr, that the outbreak had entirely ceased. This news was, moreover, confirmed by a report from Dr. Agop Effendi dated on the 22nd October, on the receipt of which by Dr. Pasqua the quarantine applied at Jeddah and Mecca on arrivals from Yemen was removed. The public health at Mecca was carefully watched all the while. No untoward event occurred there, either amongst the natives or amongst the pilgrims. On former occasions plague visited the Beni Sheir, viz., in 1816 and in 1853. In 1816 it was brought there by the Egyptian army, but to that of 1853 no origin has yet been assigned, and Dr. Pasqua believes that tlie late outbreak is due to a like cause, and he discards the idea of its importation from elsewhere, because the inhabitants of these elevated regions do not mingle with those of the lowlands, and, being Wahabbis, are thus excluded from intercourse with the true believers. To this interesting account Dr. Dickson adds a remark made by Dr. Parzniclii, in a report to the Central Health Department, dated from Djerzan, in Arabia, on the 18th December 1874, that the localities lately attacked by the outbreak of plague had been previously visited by famine. On the 24th March 1875, Dr. Paduan telegraphed from Bagdad to the General i875.-Th« Board of Health, Constantinople, that several fatal cases of plague had occurred at phrates. Diwanieh, on the Lower Euprates, since the month of December, As already related, Diwanieh was within the district in which plague had been prevalent in the spring and summer of 1874, and the town had then suffered somewhat severely from the disease. On the 12th April, Dr., Paduan again telegraphed to the Board that two days before cases of plague had been seen by a military medical officer stationed at Samava, south of Diwanieh, while on a tour of inspection, in a place called Umulnidjrin ; and also that the Mutessarif of Hillah had reported that the disease had spead to Shinafieh, on the eastern border of the Bahr-i-Nedjef. A cordon sanitaire had been placed round the district of Samava, and the huts in which the cases had occurred at Umulnidjrin had been burned. Dr. Paduan added an expression of opinion that this appearance of plague was a continuation of the previous year's outbreak. The cases of plague reported in the district of Samava and the appearance of the disease at Shinafieh were the commencement of an extension which spread over the districts, on both sides of the Euphrates, immediately south of those which had been afi^ected in 1874. On the west bank of the river the malady spread throughout the district lying between the stream and the Sea of Nedjef; and on the east bank it spread throughout the district which lies in the angle formed by the Shat-ei-Hai and the Euphrates, and along the whole course of the river Hai to the Tigris. I'liis district is inhabited by the Montefik Arabs. The disease appears to have occupied a wider area in 1875 than in 1874, but the mortality it occasioned in the first-named year as com- pared with the last-named year is not yet known. Immediately on the news of the appearance of plague in the Samava district reaching Constantinople, the General Board of Health there gave instructions for a medical commission to proceed from Bagdad to the infected district. The ad interim reports only of this com- mission have as yet been communicated to this Department. Surgeon-Major Colvill, attached to the British Residency at Bagdad, under instructions from H.M. Consul- General and Political Agent there, also visited the infected district. I append so much of the report prepared by Mr. Colvill on the results of his visit as is necessary for the purpose of this memorandum. The report is of peculiar interest and value from the account it gives of the localities traversed on the Euphrates and the state of the river between Lamlum and Samava, and for the information it contains regarding the prevalent disease. In December 1875 a few cases of a bubonic malady, presumably plague, were reported by the Saniary Administration at Bagdad to have occurred at Azizie, near It Hane, on the Euphrates.* At the beginniug of the present year (1876) plague again became active in Meso- isre. potamia. The re-appearance of the disease there was announced in the third week of Eebruary; but the disease had been present in that town on the 1st January, one [* This was an error ; the Azizie referred to is situated on the Tigris, See the 4th foot note, Memo. No. 2.— J.N.R.]