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

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.

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$disease is in Baghdad; for, being there, it may find considerable facihties for diffusing itself to other places; and though, in view of the experience of the last two centuries, we need not, I think, anticipate as probable that, if Plague should extend consider- ably in the Levant, it must therefore necessarily extend to any part of Western Eui-ope, still, any wide Eastern diffusion of the disease, esj^ecially if to the seaports of Turkey or Egypt, could hardly fail to excite alarm in Western Europe, and at least to cause much derangement of traffic. March 31, 1876. John Simon. 3.—Extract from the Annual Report of the Medical Officer to the Local Government Board for the year 1876 {Br. Seaton). Of foreign epidemics concerning which the Local Government Board were called on ii 1 1876 to give advice through their Medical Department, the only one requiring special mention is the Plague, which disease prevailed in Mesopotamia and extended to some places in Persia in the first half of the year. It subsided as usual in July, but has again, I regret to say, re-appeared during the present year. Mr. Simon's report for 1875 contains a most interesting memorandum by Mr. Netten Badclift'e on the modern history of that disease and its recent progess up to the then time of writing; and Mr. Badcliffe now contributes to my present report a further memorandum \_see p. 23 of these papers], in which he continues his narration to the middle of the present year (1877), and adds, at my request, a synopsis, from official despatches, of the so-called preventive measures adopted by the Ottoman and other Grovernments. In its bear- ings on questions of quarantine this account is full of interest. June 30, 1877. Edward C. Seaton. 4.—Extract from the Annual Report of the Medical Officer to the Local Government Board for the year lS71{I)r. Seaton). Adverting now to foreign epidemics, the progress of which it is the business of my office to watch, I may state, in continuation of what was said in my last annual report, that since the middle of 1877, np to which date I then carried the history of the late epidemic of Plague, there has been apparently a complete cessation of that disease in Mesopotamia. But during 1877 there were outbreaks of Plague of great severity, though confined to comparatively limited areas, in Northern Persia, including an outbreak at Besht and the district adjacent to that city, which for a time assumed such proportions as to cause alarm to the Bussian Government for the safety of Trans-Caucasia. The disease, however, completely subsided, and we have now no certain knowledge of its existence, whether in Persia, Mesopotamia, or the Levant- Particulars of these special outbreaks in 1877, by Mr. Netten Badcliffe, will be found [page 37 of these papers], together with an account of an outbreak of bubonic Plague in North-Western India in 1876-7, the existence of which was unknown to him at the time my last report was issued. July 31, 1878. Edward C. Seaton.$