Cholera epidemics in East Africa. An account of the several diffusions of the disease in that country from 1821 till 1872, with an outline of the geography, ethnography, and trade connections of the regions through which the epidemics passed / By James Christie.

  • Christie, James
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cholera epidemics in East Africa. An account of the several diffusions of the disease in that country from 1821 till 1872, with an outline of the geography, ethnography, and trade connections of the regions through which the epidemics passed / By James Christie. 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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    fact which was well known to every one in Zanzibar : It [cholera] came to us by the Masai or northern caravan route, and re-enters Africa at a point [Bagamoyo] only sixty miles south of where it first reached the coast [Pangani] in November last. When Dr. Bryden wrote his Report the important fact that the epidemic, previous to its appearance on the coast, had proceeded along the caravan route from the Masai country appears to have escaped his attention. The Zanzibar Report also states :— I trust that, in consequence of my previous letters, the Commanders of Her Majesty's ships of war coming to this station have been made aware of the very unhealthy state of the coast, and the danger of taking on board the cargoes [of slaves]. I have already informed the Resident at Aden in order that he may take any necessary measures should the disease enter the Somali country, or continue during the south-west monsoon. The primary object of the Official Reports from Zanzibar was evidently to supply to Government information concerning the epidemic area on the East Coast; but the facts recorded in them were sufficient to show that the conclusions arrived at by Dr. Bryden were at least premature; for the statement is distinctly made that the epidemic came to the coast from the west, along what is known in Zanzibar as the Masai or northern caravan route. I feel assured that Dr. Kirk would repudiate the conclusions arrived at by Dr. Bryden, and maintain, on the contrary, that the epidemic in East Africa was not air-borne, by the north-east monsoon of 1869, but was propagated along the lines of human inter- course, as he distinctly states, from the Masai country. In 1870 Dr. Bryden had not before him full details regarding the East African epidemic; but in January and February, 1871, a fuller account of the epidemic in East Africa, forwarded by me from Zanzibar to the Epidemiological Society of London, appeared in the