Page 30 - PERSIAN 4 1899_1905

22 ADMINISTRATION REPORT ON THE PERSIAN GULF POLITICAL

APPENDIX A TO PART II.
REPORT ON THE RECENT EPIDEMIC OF CHOLERA IN MA8KAT AND MATRAH, WITH
A FEW GENERAL KEMAREB ON TflK EPIDEMIC IN OMAN.
Although the recont epidemio of cholera may be considered, at least as regards the towns
of Maskat and Matrah, to have practically terminated some weeks ago, occasional cases of tho
disease, though a few only in number, have continued occurring principally in Matrah until
lately, so that it is only now* that a sufficient interval has elapsed to warrant tho assumption
that the disease has died out This cannot, however, bo said in regard to some of tho distant
parts of tho province of Oman, to which the discasa has only recently extended, and though
the danger of its revival in Maskat through a fresh source of infoction must exist until the
whole province is clear of it, I do not deem it to he so great as to necessitate any further delay
in the sabmission'of this report.
That Maskat, and for that matter tho whole province of Oman, has hitherto enjoyed a
considerable amount of immunity from cholera caooot bo disputed. The great Arabian Desert,
which forms ono of the natural boundaries of the province and effectually isolates it from the
rest of the peninsula, has undoubtedly proved to be a great barrier against the advance of any
epidemic disease towards it by land, wliilst by sea, which is the only practical ohannel of
communication with the rest of the world, the means of intercourse, which until recently have
been principally restricted to dhows and other kinds of sailing vessels, have been uecessarily
of a 6low nature, thus reducing considerably the chances of a disease like cholera invading
Oman. Thus it is that during the nineteenth century Omau has been visited by only three
great general epidemics of cholera, including the recent one, and the disease has been imported
in every instance by sea. There may have been other limited local outbreaks in some of the
coast towns, but they must have been of too inrigniheant a nature to deserve any record.
The Brat epidemic in the nineteenth century owarred in 1821, and was evidently of a very
virulent type. There is no mention mado any­
Epidemio of 1821.
where as to how and whence the disease was im­
ported, but as it prevailed in an epidemic form about that time in India, the presumption is
great that it came from there either directly from Bombay or by way of Sind and the Mekran
coast, in both of which places it was then prevalent. Macnamara, in his Article on Cholera
Asiatic in Quain's Dictionary of Medicine, says
“ The disease was communicated from Bombay tid the Persian Gulf in 1820-21, and
travelled northward, but did not extend into Europe."
The great severity and malignity of this epidemic may be guessed from tho remarkable
suddenness with which death ensued, as is mentioned by Aitken in his Science and Practice
of Medicine—
tf When the cholera reached Maskat instances are given in which only ten miuutes elapsed
from the first apparent seizure before life was extinct."
Mohammad bin Ruzeik, in his History of the Imams and Sayyid6 of Oman (translated
by G. P. Badger), in giving a general description of the disease, also says—.
” Some who are seized die at once, others after two or three days; and only a few survive.
Great numbers in Oman fell victims to it"
The mortality appears to have been very considerable, and the only striking meteorologi­
cal condition present at the time was the great and almost (insupportable heat, a condition not
altogether unusual at the time of the year when the epidemic prevailed. Dr. Ruscheoberger, iu
his u Narrative of a voyage round the World during the years 1835, 1836 and 1837, ” quot­
ing the Asiatic Journal for 1822 as his authority, says that
“ In June 1821, when the cholera carried off 10,000 of the Saltan’s subjects, tbe heat was
almost nnsupportable, and the wipd was like a flame of fire. At midnight the thermometer
stood at 104°."
Tbe next great epidemic that swept over almost the whole proviuce was in 1865, and appears
to have broken out in Maskat on the 20th of May
Epidemic of 1866.
of that year. Tbe disease was reported to have
been imported from Zanzibar by a bugalow on which it broke out after leaving Lamoo, so that
ont of 85 souls only 85 reached Maskat; but it may be noted here that it was also prevalent in
Bombay in 1864-65, and therefore, the possibility of an additional and nearer souroe of infec­
tion ought not to be overlooked. By tbe 20tb of June there were 600 deaths in Maskat alone,
and on Soor on the coast no less than 1,700 deaths bad ocearred. The disease then extended
northward and westward, and bad evidently not disappeared from Maskat Provinces on the
27th September. 1 regret the want of any historical record of this epidemic and have had to
compile the above details, poor as they are, from the official records in the office of the Politi­
cal Agent here.
• Thu report fu begun about the end of Pebrouy. bol ecuM not be completed until now owing to preeiureof
work on account of tbo prevalence of jfop* and inflate**.