Commercial. No. 29 (1883). Despatch from Sir Edward Malet, inclosing a report by Surgeon-General Hunter on the cholera epidemic in Egypt.

  • Malet, Edward, Sir, 1837-1908.
Date:
1883
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Commercial. No. 29 (1883). Despatch from Sir Edward Malet, inclosing a report by Surgeon-General Hunter on the cholera epidemic in Egypt. 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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    Inclosure 2 in No. 7. Memorandum by Consul Mie'ville on the Origin of the Outbreak of Cholera at Damietta. THE news from Damietta did not assume definite shape, or at least was not fully confirmed, until Sunday, the 24th June, on which day Committees of medical men left both Alexandria and Cairo in order to ascertain on the spot the origin and exact nature of the outbreak. The two Delegations joined at Damietta, and after a stay in the town of less than eighteen hours they came away, and reported that the disease was epidemic cholera, but that they were unable to say whether or no it had been imported. To show how the disease originated seems in these circumstances very difficult, but, after careful consideration, 1 submit that it is sufficiently clear that the outbreak is due entirely to local causes, and that it could not have been imported. The broad facts which lead me to this conclusion are, that for months past reports from the districts of Damietta and Mansourah have pointed plainly to the inference that,, should sanitary measures be not promptly taken, some dire calamity must, sooner or later, befall the population. Bovine typhus was devastating the district, though the natives denied all knowledge of it, and endeavoured to hide its very existence by having the animals slaughtered as soon as attacked, the tainted meat being sold for food, and the skins disposed of only too readily to clandestine dealers, who store them until favourable opportunity offers for their export. Animals dying before they could be killed were thrown by scores into the nearest canals, sometimes literally blocking the water-way, and these canals have all a common outlet—the Nile; and at Damietta, situated as it is on a semi-circular bend of the river, many of the carcases were caught in the reeds near the banks and left to putrefy in the sun and send off poisonous exhalations. The town itself, also, inhabited by some 34,000 souls, is poorly built, almost totally un-Europeanized, and always in a wretchedly bad sanitary condition. Again, at the time of the outbreak there was a great fair being held in the town,, called the Fair of Sidi Shattar, and, with a population already poisoned by living to a great extent during the previous three months on diseased meat, and having only tainted water to drink, I hold that it needed but this unusual agglomeration of persons to cause the calamitous sickness. On the other hand, we have strong presumptive evidence that the disease could not possibly have been imported. The nearest place known to be infected with cholera was Bombay, and we are assurer on high medical authority that there it was not of an epidemic character. The weeklj’ mortality from cholera in that city rose, it is true, in the beginning of May, somewhat suddenly from five to twenty-eight, but quarantine (fourteen days, inclusive of time at sea) was at once imposed in Egyptian ports, and this quarantine was not taken off at Suez until the 27th June, five days after the commence- ment of the outbreak at Damietta, though the weekly number of deaths in Bombay from cholera had by the 5th June once more receded to four. Since July 6, 18S2, I have had the honour to hold the position of British Delegate on the Sanitary Council, whose responsible duty it is to protect Egypt from the impor- tation of disease. Before I became a member cf this body, general and specific Rules of action had been framed by a Committee of its members. These Rules were duly adopted b_y the Board in the autumn of 1882, and have since that time formed the basis of its decisions. My voting power on the Board is very small, as I have only one voice among its twenty-two other members ; but, acting in accordance, as I believe, with the spirit and letter of the instructions conveyed to me from Her Majesty’s Government, I have uniformly endeavoured to secure that the Board should not capriciously set aside its own Rules, or, by imposing absurd or vexatious quarantines, go beyond them. Her Majesty’s Government, while approving my course of action, have, it is true, sent me from time to time fresh instructions in this same sense, but I have never received instructions to interfere with, or in any way to endeavour to over-ride, the Quarantine Regulations framed by the Board itself for the preservation of Egypt, nor have such Regulations in any single instance been relaxed in consequence of representa- tions, direct or indirect, from England. True, I have fought many a battle with my colleagues in the interests of British ship-owners and of the vast British commerce with the East, but I emphatically assert (and I might appeal to the official records to substantiate my assertion) that I have never for a moment allowed the interests of commerce to in any way take the first place to the danger of the public health. I have doubtless protested strongly and repeatedly