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THE OUTBREAK OF PLAGUE IN JEDDAH.
1253 and old rails, but it requires almost to be rebuilt, and the report of the Commission recommends, in addition, that it should be prolonged some five metres. Its present length is 48 metres and its width 3’ 80 metres, except at the head, which is 7’ 8 metres wide. It has no railway. This pier serves for the landing of pilgrims going to the second or third cordons. The third landing stage (" De-Yr") is still further north. Its length is 117 metres and its width 3’ 40 metres ; the head has completely disappeared. It is of the same construction as the other two and requires thorough repair and also lengthening by some 10 or 20 metres, the water at its end being very shallow. There is no railway along this jetty. It is used for landing and re-embarking pilgrims for the third and fourth cordons. The fourth landing stage (IE1-Kat-el-Kurush") is situated at the inner end of a bay, between the fifth and sixth cordons. It is 80 metres long and three metres wide, with a head four metres wide. It is built on eight arches and piles of dressed stone on a concrete base. It is in fair condition, but two of the arches are cracked and the pier is not nearly long enough. At low tide there are only 20 centimetres (about eight inches) of water at the head, and almost constantly the pilgrims landing here have to jump into the water up to their waists and wade ashore. They may be seen doing so in Fig. 4. It has been proposed to lengthen this pier by 60 metres, at an estimated cost of over .&T.2700, but the inspection commission, for reasons which will be explained later, recommends the reduction of the long diameter of the lazaret to about one half of its present length, with consequent abandonment of the fifth and sixth existing cordons and also of this landing stage. Proposed new; landing stage.-At a spot between the present third and fourth cordons there is a small island a short distance from the shore and united to the latter by a sandy spit or causeway, except at high tide, when the island is completely cut off. The commission proposes to construct a new jetty, running over this causeway and out at the north end of the island. It will be almost in front of the second of the three disinfecting blocks to be described hereafter. There will thus still be four landing stages for pilgrims and, as will be shown in a later chapter, they will be quite as usefully and almost as symmetrically placed as at present. When once the pilgrims are landed they are conducted, with their baggage, to one of the three disinfecting blocks. These buildings and the measures applied there will be described in the next article. (To be continued.)
in Jeddah has been strictly confined to the native inhabitants of the town. A few other pilgrims did, however, develop the disease shortly after leaving Jeddah on their return journey home, and to these I shall refer again; but it is certainly noteworthy that, with plague epidemic, and fairly severely epidemic, in the town of Jeddah, the largest pilgrimage on record passed through that town twicefirst, on the way to Mecca, and later after the completion of the Haj-and yet scarcely half a dozen of the pilgrims contracted the infection. I am inclined to attribute this relative immunity to the facts that the pilgrims do not stay long in Jeddah-not more than a few days as a rule, though in some instances it may be for much longer ; that most of them lodge in houses specially built for the purpose, which are surveyed, cleansed, and whitewashed and put in order before the arrival of the pilgrims; and that those who are too poor to stop in houses camp out in the open air, where they are little exposed to the infection of plague either from contact with the inhabitants of the town or with rats. There seems to have been much difficulty in applying The Arab measures for the suppression of the outbreak. inhabitants dread European interference more than the disease ; the large majority of cases have only become known to the authorities after death and it is certain that many that recovered were never brought to the knowledge of the latter. Scarcely any of the cases have been removed to hospital. When a death from plague has become known the house where it occurred has been disinfected, but there must have been numbers of infected houses to which neither disinfection nor any other measure of prophylaxis was applied. Shortly after the revival of the disease in January it was proved beyond a doubt that rats were dying from plague and were in all probability the main channel by which the infection was being spread. A small reward, of the value of one penny, was offered for the bodies of dead rats, but there is no evidence at present that this measure led to any subThe medical staff of the town was stantial results.
strengthened and
an ample supply of plague prophylactic furnished to them, but the latest reports show that it was almost impossible to induce the people to allow themselves to be inoculated. In some instances the opposition to the authorities took a more active form and violence was used, In one case a native woman-possibly interpreting too literally the injunction to heap coals of fire on others’ heads-poured a torrent of hot ashes from a window on to the head of a disinfector who attempted to enter the house. Outside Jeddah the following known cases of plaguewhich undoubtedly contracted the infection in that townhave occurred. Three persons arriving in Mecca from Jeddah developed the disease and two of them died. Two pilgrims on the return journey to India were landed at Aden with signs of plague and one of them died. Two other cases in pilgrims returning from Jeddah to the Yemen were landed at Camaran. Finally, among pilgrims returning northwards by the Suez Canal, two cases of plague have been observed, both at the Egyptian lazaret of El Tor. There have thus been, so far as is known, only nine instances in which the infection has been carried from Jeddah, and these have not given rise to any epidemic extension of plague elsewhere. Had Jeddah been as deeply infected with cholera as it has been with plague, it is easy to imagine how very different and how infinitely more serious to the rest of the world the result would have been. Constantinople, April 24th. was
THE OUTBREAK OF PLAGUE IN JEDDAH. (FROM THE BRITISH DELEGATE TO THE CONSTANTINOPLE BOARD OF HEALTH.) THE outbreak of plague in Jeddah is beginning to subside. It will be recalled that the present epidemic, which is probably a revival of that which prevailed there last summer, began about Jan. 8th. At the date of my last letter the total number of cases recorded down to Feb. 3rd had been 23, and that of deaths 22. Since then the weekly returns have been as follows :From Feb. 4th to 10th......... 10 cases, 10 deaths. i
’
BIRMINGHAM. (FROM
OUR OWN
CORRESPONDENT.)
Our Hospitals and their Incomes. previous communications I have drawn attention to the comparative stagnation or actual diminution of the amount of subscriptions received by our hospitals, and on Friday last a most able article dealing with this matter and giving definite statistics appeared in the Birmingham Daily Post. The subject is one which must be of interest to all cities where there are many hospitals, and I have no hesitation, therefore, IN
The total number of cases since the reappearance of the disease has therefore been 330 and that of deaths 317. It is a remarkable fact that, with the single exception of a fatal case of plague in a Javanesepilgrim, the outbreak 1
THE
LANCET, Feb. 16th, p. 464.
2 I should be glad of this opportunity to correct a slight printer’s error which crept into my last letter. In column 2 of page 464 of THE LANCET, line 33, the word "Japanese" should be "Javanese." There are no doubt several Japanese Moslems; but during my stay in
Hedjaz last winter I did not come across, or indeed hear of, any pilgrims of that race. Javanese (a general term for pilgrims from the Dutch East Indies) are, next to Indians, usually the most numerous of all races in each year’s pilgrimage. the
in Jeddah has been strictly confined to the native inhabitants of the town. A few other pilgrims did, however, develop the disease shortly after leaving Jeddah on their return journey home, and to these I shall refer again; but it is certainly noteworthy that, with plague epidemic, and fairly severely epidemic, in the town of Jeddah, the largest pilgrimage on record passed through that town twicefirst, on the way to Mecca, and later after the completion of the Haj-and yet scarcely half a dozen of the pilgrims contracted the infection. I am inclined to attribute this relative immunity to the facts that the pilgrims do not stay long in Jeddah-not more than a few days as a rule, though in some instances it may be for much longer ; that most of them lodge in houses specially built for the purpose, which are surveyed, cleansed, and whitewashed and put in order before the arrival of the pilgrims; and that those who are too poor to stop in houses camp out in the open air, where they are little exposed to the infection of plague either from contact with the inhabitants of the town or with rats. There seems to have been much difficulty in applying The Arab measures for the suppression of the outbreak. inhabitants dread European interference more than the disease ; the large majority of cases have only become known to the authorities after death and it is certain that many that recovered were never brought to the knowledge of the latter. Scarcely any of the cases have been removed to hospital. When a death from plague has become known the house where it occurred has been disinfected, but there must have been numbers of infected houses to which neither disinfection nor any other measure of prophylaxis was applied. Shortly after the revival of the disease in January it was proved beyond a doubt that rats were dying from plague and were in all probability the main channel by which the infection was being spread. A small reward, of the value of one penny, was offered for the bodies of dead rats, but there is no evidence at present that this measure led to any subThe medical staff of the town was stantial results.
strengthened and
an ample supply of plague prophylactic furnished to them, but the latest reports show that it was almost impossible to induce the people to allow themselves to be inoculated. In some instances the opposition to the authorities took a more active form and violence was used, In one case a native woman-possibly interpreting too literally the injunction to heap coals of fire on others’ heads-poured a torrent of hot ashes from a window on to the head of a disinfector who attempted to enter the house. Outside Jeddah the following known cases of plaguewhich undoubtedly contracted the infection in that townhave occurred. Three persons arriving in Mecca from Jeddah developed the disease and two of them died. Two pilgrims on the return journey to India were landed at Aden with signs of plague and one of them died. Two other cases in pilgrims returning from Jeddah to the Yemen were landed at Camaran. Finally, among pilgrims returning northwards by the Suez Canal, two cases of plague have been observed, both at the Egyptian lazaret of El Tor. There have thus been, so far as is known, only nine instances in which the infection has been carried from Jeddah, and these have not given rise to any epidemic extension of plague elsewhere. Had Jeddah been as deeply infected with cholera as it has been with plague, it is easy to imagine how very different and how infinitely more serious to the rest of the world the result would have been. Constantinople, April 24th. was
THE OUTBREAK OF PLAGUE IN JEDDAH. (FROM THE BRITISH DELEGATE TO THE CONSTANTINOPLE BOARD OF HEALTH.) THE outbreak of plague in Jeddah is beginning to subside. It will be recalled that the present epidemic, which is probably a revival of that which prevailed there last summer, began about Jan. 8th. At the date of my last letter the total number of cases recorded down to Feb. 3rd had been 23, and that of deaths 22. Since then the weekly returns have been as follows :From Feb. 4th to 10th......... 10 cases, 10 deaths. i
’
BIRMINGHAM. (FROM
OUR OWN
CORRESPONDENT.)
Our Hospitals and their Incomes. previous communications I have drawn attention to the comparative stagnation or actual diminution of the amount of subscriptions received by our hospitals, and on Friday last a most able article dealing with this matter and giving definite statistics appeared in the Birmingham Daily Post. The subject is one which must be of interest to all cities where there are many hospitals, and I have no hesitation, therefore, IN
The total number of cases since the reappearance of the disease has therefore been 330 and that of deaths 317. It is a remarkable fact that, with the single exception of a fatal case of plague in a Javanesepilgrim, the outbreak 1
THE
LANCET, Feb. 16th, p. 464.
2 I should be glad of this opportunity to correct a slight printer’s error which crept into my last letter. In column 2 of page 464 of THE LANCET, line 33, the word "Japanese" should be "Javanese." There are no doubt several Japanese Moslems; but during my stay in
Hedjaz last winter I did not come across, or indeed hear of, any pilgrims of that race. Javanese (a general term for pilgrims from the Dutch East Indies) are, next to Indians, usually the most numerous of all races in each year’s pilgrimage. the