Page 39 - PERSIAN 4 1899_1905

RESIDENCY AND MASFAT POLITICAL AGENCY FOR THE YEAR
18W-1900. 31
that medicines ana disinfectants could bo obtained from us on application. Among other
measures 1 also advised a caioful registration of attacks and deaths for the purpose of ascortain-
ing the progress of the cpidemio.
The wcll-rccognised and generally accepted principle that cholera follows the highway*
General remarks on the epidemic in Oman. of commerce has received a further and foroible
. illustration in the manner in which it spread
through the Province of Oman. Soon after the disease had assumed an epidemic form in
Matrah, and in fact before it had spread generally all over the place, it broke oat on or about
tho 4th October with great suddenness and violenoc at Suroor, which lies on the highway to
the Sharkiych or tho KaBtern District of Oraau and Oman Proper, having been conveyed
thitbor by a caravan returning from Matrah. The suddenness of the invasion and the
alarming rate of mortality there canted the people to be almost panic-stricken aud to flee in
all directions, tho infection thus spreading to the neighbouring villages and hamlets and
eventually to the town of Sim&il itself.
The ^ adi Beni Ruwaheh being a continuation of the Wadi Simail was directly infested
from the latter place, the course of the advance of the epidemic being still in the westerly
direction. Prom Suroor the disease also advanced in a northerly direction to al-Khode, where
the first ca6o oocurred about the 17th of October, and which then became the centre for the
diffusiou of the disease to Nakhl on the one hand aad to the Batinch Coast on the other.
When th*» disease reached Nakhl first, the outbreak being mere of the type of cholerine than
true cholera, was attended with hardly any mortality, but the second or subsequent ouibreak,
which occurred about 20 days after the first one, was one of a very severe nature causing 450
deaths and giving the high ratio of 15 per cent, of deaths to population. A remarkable
circumstance in connexion with its advance to Nakhl is the fact of its having followed the
.course of greatest communication, namely, through al-Khode instead of taking the shortest
course from Simail over the hills which are a ramification or the Green Mountains.
From Nakhl the epidemic advanced in succession to Wadi Muawal, al-Awabi, and
ar-Rustnk and from al-Khode it spread first to as-Seeh and thence to the whole of the Batiueh
Coast in a no rib-westerly direction, the last place to be infected there being Sohar. It
spread from the Wadi Beni Ruwaheh in a westerly direction to Oman Proper and also to the
Sharkiyeh in which, however, Suund, Rawdeh and other places close to the Simail Wadi were
previously infected through the disease advancing direct from Suroor. It may here be noted
that the liamlets in the Akk pass through which the caravans passed on their way from Suroor
to the Sharkiych enjoyed absolute immunity throughout the whole course of the epidemic.
The disease appears to have spread to Wadi Hatat from Matrah through the village of Rui
whilst to Teiwee and Kalr.at on the south-eastern coast from Maskat.
The total number of deaths due to cholera in Oman, as far as I have been able to ascer­
tain and as may be seen from the accompanying
Mortality in Oisaa.
statement No. VII, which has been compiled
partly from information kindly supplied by His Highness the Sultan of Maskat, but prin­
cipally from information through other channels, may be approximately stated to be 12,231. I
regret to have to state that the statement is incomplete in some respects, but I submit it
as it is with the hope* of its being able to give a fair idea of the extent and severity of
the epidemic in the interior. This enormous mortality was due in a great measure to the
intensity of the epidemic in many of the places it visited in its course, and the determining
cause of that Intensify is easily fouad in the general practice which obtains in the interior,
of washing the dead quite close to the aqueducts. It must be remembered that with the
exception of some oi the places in the Sharkiyeh which contain wells as an additional
source of water-supply, tbe principal means of irrigation are aqueducts fed by springs, all
the supply of water foe domestic purposes being also obtained from them. When a dead
body is removed to one of these aqueducts for washing, a breach is made in the masonry of
the aqueduct quite ciofe \o the place where the body is, and the water allowed to run over it,
some of which evident?/ runs by the side of the aqueduct and eventually pollutes it Cholera,
germs in abuudance had thus an easy access to the water supply of most of the places
aud gave rise to those riaddeu and violent explosions which in places like the Sunail
valley and Teiwee resulted in such alarming rates of mortality. This assumption is strongly
supported by the fact that on the Batiueh Coast aud at Maskat aud Matrah where the supply
of water for domestic purposes is drawn entirely from wells aud where the dead are washed
in houses, far away from the sources of water-supply, the rates^of mortality were proportion­
ately much less, that for the former or Batinch Coast being in the ratio of 1 4 per cent, and
for the latter or Maskat and Matrah together 2'9 per cent.
It may thus be 6ecn that the recent epidemic of cholera with its heavy mortality follow*
ing as it did an unusually severs epidemic of small-pox, which alone carried •way over 6,000
souls, has had a highly deleterious effect on the health of the Province, which, it is much
to be regretted, is likely to suffer still further from an early visitation of plague should the
epidemic, which is dow raging in Maskat and Matrab, extend to the interior.
MA6KAT; *1 A. S. G. JAYAKAR, Zieut.-Col, L Jf. S.,
The 1st April 1900. J Civil 8urjeon, Mat i at.