The Washington bee., 1893-12-16
cHoLERA's ENDEMIC HOME.
Not India, but Arabia is the Real Breed
ing Place of the Plague.

ing Place of the Plague.
Shocking as are the statistics of NOR
tality among pilgrims to Mecca report
ed in the Str from Tunis q few days
ago, where of 5000 who set out but
half the number returned, the death
rate Of this year Is but little greater
than that Of ordinary years. The
health officials of Bombay and other
Indian cities have for some time been
collecting facts and statistics to show
that India does not deserve the i'll
reputation it has of being 1.-The endemic
home of cholera" but that Arabia is
the home of the plague, and they are
preparing to make strenuous efforts
to arouse the Arabian authorities and
convince them of the fact, and to have
them apply remedy. Some of the
statistics printed in the Bombay Ca
zette reveal terrible state of affairs
According to the official returns of
the Health Officer of Bombay, of 91,-
900 pilgrims who left that city for
Mecca during the past eight years
only 10000 have come back. Thirty
pilgrims in every hundred have per-
| tshed in every year of that period, and
very many of those who survived to
return home have come back only to
| die of disease contracted on the pill
grimage. The facts adduced 60 to
prove that the pilgrims do not carry
| disease with them from India. There
| Is rigid inspection at Bombay before
embarkation, and every pilgrim is re-
quired to pass a medical examination,
to undergo certain quarantining
process, and to possess certificate Of
good health. The mortality on the
voyage from Bombay to Arabia is very
small. 1t is after the pilgrims have
entered the holy cities, and during the
return, that the mortality Is great.
A record is kept by the British Con-
sui ut Jeddah Of the number Of pill
grims arriving at and departing from
that port. with such particulars as will
insure general Identification. The fig
ures of this record fully corroborate
those of the Bombay officials An
average estimate of mortality of one
third among the Indian pilgrims in
each year, when there is no general
epidemic of cholera, is clearly estab
lished, and the belief is expressed,
founded on such corroborative statis-
tics as are obtainable, that fully one
third of all pilgrims to Mecca perish
in every year.
|
cholera plaques which periodically
sweep around the world "have their
origin in the filth Of Mecca and Medi-
na." There is great scarcity Of
water in these places, and the quality
of the little obtainable is bad. The
famous Holy Well at Mecca offers the
most complete conditions for spreading
disease. 1t ordinarily contains but lit
tie water. One of the most essential
devotions in the pilgrimage is to bathe
in and drink of the water from this
well, and it's brink is always crowded
with pilgrims, some drawing it's water
and pouring 1t over their persons,
others dipping 1t up In cups and gourds
and drinking it. The water used For
bathing runs directly back into the
well, and thus diseases are directly
spread.
The authorities did for g time this
year close up the well. Drainage in
the city there is little or none, and the
most ordinary sanitary precautions
are utterly disregarded by the choked
! crowds of pilgrims. Not alone cholera
is thus bred and spread, but the holy
cities are hotbeds of smallpox and
other like terrible diseases. The same
conditions are true of Ell Tor, Jeddah
, and Camaran, and the Indian health
officials will, for the protection Of its
people as well as for the sake of the
country's reputation, make strong en-
deavors to induce the authorities of
the holy places of pilgrimage to take
an interest in drainage and general
sanitation; to have more scavengers
even if they have to have fewer priests.
They think that the Western nations
might proftably take an interest in
the condition Of things In Arabia, and
the result of their Investigations will
be offered in the hope that steps will
be taken to crush out the cholera
plague In what they assume to prove
is its real endemic home.-New York
Sun.