Observations on the oriental plague, and on quarantines, as a means of arresting its progress, addressed to the British Association of Science, assembled at Newcastle, in August, 1838 / by John Bowring.

Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the oriental plague, and on quarantines, as a means of arresting its progress, addressed to the British Association of Science, assembled at Newcastle, in August, 1838 / by John Bowring. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    contagion entered into the minds of the Moslems. Sixty thou- sand families were visited by plague in Egypt in 1835, there was scarcely an instance of a patient being neglected or aban- doned by his friends and relatives. No dread of infection inter- fered between the kindness and charities—the attentions and hospitalities —of neighbour to neighbour, of wife to husband, of mother to child, of sister to brother, of sons to parents, of priests to worshippers, of man to man. But among Chris- tian Levantines, instances of inhuman desertion frequently occur ; among them the alarm for their own safety often leads to a coward cruelty, which stands out in sad contrast to Mahomedan devotion. To account for the conduct of the Mussulmans, the theory of the contagionists is this; that the belief in fatalism, the doctrines of irrevocable destiny, are the causes which induce the Mahomedan population to expose themselves unhesitatingly to the perils of the plague. But 1 could never discover that the doctrines of fatalism led them to subject themselves unnecessarily to other dis- eases and dangers. I never observed them wanting in pru- dence to avert, or sagacity to avoid the ordinary perils of life.* In the presence of inevitable suffering, no doubt the con- viction that the suffering was imposed by the irresistible will of Allah, affords support and comfort to the sufferer —but is such a state of resignation peculiar to the East ? The Mahomedans vaccinate willingly, both themselves and their children; in their maladies they seek with extraordinary eagerness and confidence the aid of me- * The Firman of the Sultan which establishes a Board of Health at Con- stantinople, has the following expressions :—“ Though to shun the evils with which God visits us would be to pretend to immortality ; it is allowed us to fly from the house we inhabit if that house be threatened with an earthquake, it is allowed us to pass rapidly by a wall which is about to tumble down, so ought we to preserve ourselves from the danger of the plague, for according to the spirit of the Noble Law (the Koran) the plague is like a fire which destroys what it touches,” And again, “ The body of the Ulemas have proclaimed in Council, that as Allah sends evils, so Allah can remove them, and there is nothing opposed to the Divine Law in man’s attempts to rid himself of them.”