The quarantine laws, their abuses and inconsistencies. A letter addressed to the Rt. Hon. Sir John Cam Hobhouse / [Arthur T. Holroyd].

  • Arthur Holroyd
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The quarantine laws, their abuses and inconsistencies. A letter addressed to the Rt. Hon. Sir John Cam Hobhouse / [Arthur T. Holroyd]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/70 page 10
    were towed to the place of confinement. We were fifteen in number doomed to imprisonment, amongst whom Mr. An¬ drews and I were the only Europeans. Our quarters consisted of four small rooms on a first floor, and one was allotted to my friend and myself. Our place of exercise was a terrace, but from its situation, was exposed so much to the heat of the sun that we were only able to use it before sunrise and after sun¬ set. As it might be supposed, from being placed in such a confined abode, several of us suffered in health, and I as well as one of the Arabs was attacked with intermittent fever, malaria being generated partly from a nuisance which existed on the premises, and partly from animal and vegetable de¬ composition on the sea shore. I was informed that the Board of Health had shewn a great indulgence in permitting us to pass our quarantine here instead of in the Lazzaret, where the accommodation is said to be more limited and the inconveniences greater than in the house where we were detained. During our quarantine the plague was raging in the arsenal of Alexandria and in three Egyptian ships of war; and persons ill with the plague were daily brought from the latter to a jetty which projected into the sea from the Office of Health. Here they remained sometimes for two or three hours, awTaiting the arrival of the physician ; and when he had decided that they were labouring under the malady they were removed to the Parlatorio, and allow¬ ed to remain there until the evening, when they were borne off to the Lazzaret. Almost every case proved fatal in consequence of the extreme neglect and gross inattention shown by the attendants to the sufferers. Soon after the appearance of the plague at Beyrout, Hekekyan Effendi (now Hekekyan Bey) accompanied by Mucktar Bey, then Minister of Public Instruction, arrived there from Alexandria in a vessel of war belonging to Mahomed Ali Pacha. The plague at this time was, as I have already said, raging at the latter place. They left the ship and proceeded to the shore, intending to land; but Malnnood Bey, the Governor of Beyroot, having received intelligence of their intention, came to the shore and re¬ quested them to remain in their boat. lie then retired, but
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3