Page 260 - ירושלים: גיליון רפואי

Fear and Isolation

The Cholera Epidemic in Jerusalem in 1865

Dan Barel

In 1865 a new threat to the country’s population appeared, in the form of a cholera epidemic.
The sanitary conditions in Jerusalem at the time were poor: drinking water came from water
cisterns in courtyards, some of which were contaminated, and the city had no sewage or
waste-disposal systems – Jerusalem suffered from pollution and dangerous sanitation.
Approximately 20,000 residents of all faiths lived in the city. The rapid growth of the Jewish
community aggravated the overcrowding in the Jewish Quarter, and the Mishkenot Sha’ananim
neighborhood had been established a few years earlier. Unlike the Old City, sanitation standards
in the first neighborhood outside the city walls were high.

In the same year, over one hundred thousand Muslims from across the globe made the
pilgrimage to Mecca to observe the Hajj. Many came from India and Indonesia where cholera
was rife. Due to the poor hygienic conditions in Mecca, a cholera epidemic soon broke out
there. Technological developments during this period saw the advent of fast steam boats and
railways, increased the number of pilgrims and shortened their traveling time, thus accelerating
the spread of infectious diseases, including cholera. The epidemic reached Eretz Israel at the
end of June on a ship from Alexandria that put into port at Jaffa. One in seven of Jaffa’s residents
died of the disease, which spread to the entire country. Opinions were divided in the medical
community as to the proper way to handle the disease. Some were opposed to giving patients
fluids, and some favored the method. Some claimed that it was important to give laxatives to
drain the toxins from the body, while others held that patients should be given antidiarrheals
to prevent fluid loss.

The previous winter had been unusually dry, and by the beginning of the summer Jerusalem’s
water cisterns were already empty. In July, a severe gastric disease began to appear in Jerusalem,
diagnosed as a form of dysentery by Dr Benjamin Rotseigal, Jerusalem’s only doctor at the time,
although the residents of Jerusalem refused to believe him. From within the local community,
organized groups sprang up to treat the sick and relieve the distress of the city’s residents, in
an expression of social unity that was unusual in cholera-stricken cities in the world at the time.

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