The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-10 00:00:00

depends upon the actual contact between the mem-
bers of a healthy community and those of one in
which the disease has already made its appearance.
Assuming the latter hypothesis to be correct, the
establishment of a quarantine wherever possible
would of course be the most likely means of check-
ing the further development of the epidemic ; and
as the hypothesis may be a true one, there are
many who, faute de mieux, urge its adoption.
Hithert, however, States have contented them-
selves with endeavouring to defend their own fron-
tiers after their own fashion, leaving their neigh-
bours to do just as they pleased. Now, how-
ever, for the first time, a proposal is made that all
the Powers of Europe should unite as against a
common enemy, and should endeavour, if possible,
to defend the pass by which it supposed the dreaded
epidemic invariably enters the Western Continent.
A report has just been addressed to the French
Emperor, signed by two of his Ministers, in which
a proposal, unquestionably novel, and, probably in
the opinion of many, startling, is offered not only
for the acceptance of his Imperial Majesty, but also
of the Governments of several foreign states. Some
years since, when the cholera first visited Europe,
the French Government despatched a commission,
consisting of eminent medical men, to Egypt, to
study the causes and character of the malady, and
to offer such suggestions as might occur to them
for preventing the further spread of the disease. The
information obtained by consular agents, and ratified
by the unanimous reports of physicians, all pointed,
we are now told, to the conclusion that the epidemic
was imported into Egypt by the Mahometan pilgrims
returning from their visits to Mecca and Djeddah.
Every year the cholera is said to exist among the
caravans of pilgrims arriving in the Holy Cities, the
predisposition to disease on their part being favoured
by their mode of life, encamping in vast multitudes
in the open air, and breathing the pestilential mias-
mata arising from the exposure to a torrid heat of
the putrefying remains of the animals which they
sacrifice. This year the number of pilgrims at
Mecca was unusually great, and the quantity of
animals sacrificed proportionably large, and hence
it is inferred that the virulence with which the fana-
tics were attacked by disease were heightened in a
corresßonding degree. Thinned in numbers by a
terrible pestilence, the pilgrims returned to their
homes, carrying with them, as is urged, to the
shores of the Levant the seeds of that disease
which has now spread across Europe. Under these
circumstances, then, it is submitted that it is the
duty of the European Powers to take precautions
against this importation of a deadly malady on
future occasions ; and with this view it is suggested
that a diplomatic conference should take place, in
which such of the European Powers as thought
proper should be represented, to devise such prac-
tical remedies as might seem best suited to prevent
a recurrence of the evil. One such remedy is
hinted at by those who have drawn up the report,
and it consists in the establishment at Djeddah and
Suez of sanitary administrations, possessing an in-
ternal character, and whose duty it should be to
impose such quarantine regulations as would have
the effect of preventing the cholera being transported,
as on previous occasions, to Europe. To the estab-
lishment of sanitary administrations in Egypt there
could be no possible objection, but we are at a loss
to understand why they should be of an interna-
tional character, or why a diplomatic conference of
the representatives of the European Powers should
be a condition precedent to the adoption of measures
which the Egyptian Government would without
assistance be able to carry into effect. But except
in the interests of the pilgrims themselves we con-
fess ourselves sceptical of the advantages which
would spring from the establishment of these ad-
ministrations. If on the occasion of each annual
pilgrimage the worshippers at Mecca suffer from the
cholera, surely it would have been at least as likely
that they would have brought home the infection in
any one of the preceding ten years as in the present
one. We are told, however, that they have suf-
fered more severely on the occasion of the last
pilgrimage than on previous ones ; but if so, is not
the fact probably referable to the same causes
which have called the epidemic into existence in
countries where, except as a rare visitor, it is
happily unknown ? Without attempting to deter-
mine the vexed question whether the development
of cholera depends on atmospheric influences or on
contagion, the unexpected appearance of disease in
so many forms during the present year must satisfy
every one that we cannot, with any appearance of
justice, attribute the appearance of cholera in
Europe to the contempt for sanitary regulations
habitually shown by the pilgrims at Mecca. If,
however, the blame does not lie at their door, to
what purpose should we establish an international
tribunal of health in Egypt?