APRIL.
At the commencement of this month affairs wore a very unfavourable aspect. The plague, which first appeared in Rosetta, and had hitherto, with little exception, been confined to that place, at the present period had travelled as far as Aboukir on the one side, and as far as Rahamania on the other side, of Alexandria; and we had information that most of the intermediate stages, betwixt us and these two places, were infected. With so much severity did the disease rage at Rosetta, that, at the end of last month, it was found necessary to withdraw the commandant and every person from it, and the inhabitants shut themselves up. From information received by the Board of Health, they likewise found it necessary to place all those coming from Cairo and Ghiza under quarantine.
It was well known, that, in Upper Egypt, the plague was making dreadful ravages among the Mamalouks. The few cases which occurred in Alexandria made every one alert there, and a very strict police was kept up in the town by the commandant and by the Scorbatchie.
The weather in the beginning of the month was variable. The thermometer rose a little. It was rarely so low as 60°, and only once as high as 71° 50″. We had much high wind on twelve days. It rained on fifteen days, but the quantity which fell was not so great as in the last month. The sky was cloudy throughout the month.
On the 20th there was much loud thunder.
On the 1st, sixty-four invalids, from the Indian army, were embarked for England. The greater part were cases of blindness.
Both Mr Price and Mr Rice, who dissected the body of Signior Positti in the lazaretto, had been ill ever since; and this day they were so ill that Dr Buchan was sent in to relieve Mr Price, and Mr Moss to relieve Mr Rice.
On the 3d, a case of the plague appeared at Ghiza on a private follower, and another case was detected in the hospital of the 26th Dragoons at Alexandria.
On the evening of the 14th, Mr O’Farrel, who had charge of the pest-house at Aboukir, was attacked with the disease. This day all the hospitals were moved out of town, and encamped under the walls of Alexandria.
On the 6th, a Jewess dropped down dead in the streets of the city, and it was discovered that she had been ill for four days of the plague. Her husband, who concealed it from the Board of Health, was bastinadoed; and afterwards was sent, with his whole family, into quarantine. On the same evening an Arab’s family reported that one of them was ill of the plague. The person affected was sent to the pest-side, and the rest of the family to the observation-ground, of the lazaretto.
On the 7th, Mr Dyson, who on the 4th went to Aboukir to relieve Mr O’Farrel, discovered bubo and symptoms of the plague in himself.
On the 10th, a serjeant of the 61st, who had had the disease last month, and who, after recovering, officiated as in-steward of the pest-house in Alexandria, was again attacked with the plague.
On the 11th Mr Angle died, being the fourteenth day of his disease. He, three weeks before, went to assist Dr Buchan in the lazaretto.
On the 14th, symptoms of the disease were first discovered on Mr Moss in the lazaretto. Of the Jew family sent to the observation-ground on the 6th, which amounted to seven persons, two were sent to-day to the pest-side.
On the 15th the husband of the jewess died in an observation-tent, having glandular swellings, which were not discovered till after his death. He did not appear to be ill. Mr Cloran was accustomed, once a day or oftener, to examine those under observation, but nothing was discovered to ail this man.
On the 16th, he discovered some symptoms of the disease in another of the same family, and sent him in to Dr Buchan.
On the 17th, a deserter from the 61st regiment, sent to the regimental guard-house, where he was discovered to have the plague, was sent to the lazaretto, and the guard, amounting to nineteen persons, into the observation-ground of the lazaretto. This man confessed that he had slept one night near the pest-house at Aboukir. On the 19th Mr Moss died. On the 24th the plague was discovered in another Jew family. The plague of the Indian army, during the month, was as follows, viz.
| Assistant-surgeons | 4 |
| 61st regiment | 4 |
| 80th ditto | 1 |
| 7th Bombay ditto | 5 |
| Departments | 12 |
| Total | 26 |
On the whole, it was a pleasing circumstance to see so little of the disease among the native corps, as, when it did occur, it proved so much more fatal to them. From my correspondence with different gentlemen in the pest-houses it appears, that, during the month, bubo was not so constant a symptom, and that carbuncles were now frequent.
At first this symptom was seen in no case. Excepting the 61st regiment, the army was in a very healthy state. Fever was equally mild as in last month. Opthalmia began again to appear. In the last return there were sixty cases, fifty of which were Europeans. Of seventy-one men with ulcers, sixty were Europeans. The total sick of the army, at the end of the month, did not exceed three hundred; and in this are included every ulcer, accident, or less serious complaint, which prevents a soldier from appearing on parade.