The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-08-18 00:00:00

THE CHOLERA IN EGYPT.

The Alexandria Correspondent of The Times, writing
on August 31, says :—Last night, in a low Arab
quarter of Alexandria, a native woman missed her
husband, and applied for him at the Government
Ambulance, where five out of six patients have
died. She was allowed to see that he was not there,
and she began crying loudly. The native popu•
lation then raised a cry that all the persons who
entered there were murdered with disinfectants.
A crowd of about four hundred gathered, who stoned
the ambulance building. The sole patient remaining
there escaped. The doc Ors sent for assistance. Two
English military police, who were passing, charged
and dispersed the crowd, one of the police being
wounded with a stone. The crowd afterwards re-
assembled, and began tearing down the am' ulance,
but, English troops arriving, order was EOM restored.

The following telegrams have been received at the
War Office :

"From the General Officer Commandinv in Egypt to
the Secretary of State for War. Dated Cairo,

Aug. 11.
"No fresh cases of cholera at Cairo, Helonitn, or
Suez, and toose undsr treatment doing well. One
fresh case occurred and died yesterday at El Wardan.
He was a patient suffering from diarrtice for four days
previously at Ramie!). There have been two fresh
cases, both patients under treatment for other diseases.
Troops in quarters there and at Alexandria remain
unaffected.
"The following deaths from cholera have been re-
ported :
"In telegram dated August 10—No. 79, Private
Walter Fox, Cornwall Regiment.
"In telegram dated August 11—No. 4,732 William
Place Chambers, Army Hospital Corps.
" August 12.—Satisfactory reports from all stations.
No fresh cars of cholera. General health of tro ,ps
good. Royal Sussex, at Ismailia, have only 15 ordin-
ary sick in hospital ; the Black Watch, at Suez, only
11; and Rifles, 12 ; two batteries of Artillery,
Hussars, and Mounted Infantry, at El Wardan only
22. Total average sick to strength in whole cotnroafff
9 47. Ono death of cholera at Cairo, attacked on
July 25. No. 747, Private Benjamin Butterworth,
Gordons."

The Daily Telegraph in a leader says :—The Egyptian
epidemic is happily abating, and, in place of delibera-
tions on the best method of dealing with it, we have
left to us only the more pleasant task of congratulating
the officers and men of our army of occupation on the
skill, the discipline, the unflagging energy, and
col courage which have marked their successful
struggle with its ravages. Nothing, indeed,
could he more creditable to their resource and
organising faculty than the accounts that have
reached us from time to time of the fears which
they have performed in this most deadly kind of
warfare—feats rendered all the more difficult from
the tact t> at they have been accomplished among a
people disposed both by natural temr.erament and
religious prejudice to thwart rather than resist the
humane efforts of their helpers. It is hardly too
much to say that most of the Egyptians who owe
their preservation from death to the eff rtsi of our
soldiery have been saved against their will. Even in
such a matter as the use of ambulances, our soldiers
have had to encounter and override the superstitions
of the Mohammedan population among whom they
were working ; while the very u=s ot the disillectants
employed to prevent the spread of contagion has been
resented on pleas o childish absurdity. In spite of
all these obstacles, however, there can be no doubt
that the labours of the English army of occupation
have been the means of saving many thousands of
lives.