FEBRUARY.
This was a very cold and wet month; yet the number of sick continued to decrease, except in the 1st and 7th regiments, in which corps the plague continued to rage. Throughout the month, the sky was cloudy; we had high winds, on 19 days it rained, and on some of these as heavily as in the monsoons in India. The thermometer moved between 55° and 63°. On the 13th, for the first time, the following cases of the plague were dismissed cured from the quarantine-hospital; viz. two Sepoys, one drum-major, and one woman, from the 7th regiment, and two Arab servants of the pest-house. At this period, too, six were dismissed from the pest into the quarantine-hospital.
Till this day no native of India, who had entered the pest-house, ever returned. But so much was the dread of the distemper now lessened, that a volunteer in-steward, for the pest-house at Aboukir, came forward from the 7th regiment.
On the 24th, the commissary’s clerk at Rosetta got the disease. Of five Europeans, whom we had left at Rosetta, two caught it and died. The disease here raged with the utmost violence.
On the 28th, Signior Positti, an Italian, came from Rosetta, and lodged at the house of Mr Fantouchi, the Swedish consul in Alexandria. It was discovered two days after that he had the plague, and he, with the surgeon attending him, was immediately sent to the Lazaretto. Signior Positti died on the day of his admission. Almost all the cases of plague, which subsequently appeared in Alexandria, could be traced to this case as a source.
The whole number of cases of plague, which occurred in the army during this month, was only twenty one. Fever appeared in all the reports. It was accompanied with the inflammatory diathesis, and it was in general slight.
Of hepatitis and dysentery, the number of cases was still less than in former months. Ulcers, which in the Indian army were hitherto very rarely seen, prevailed at this period. Of rheumatism and pneumonia there was an increase.
On the whole, in the course of the month, there was a decrease of sickness, and a considerable decrease of the mortality. On the 1st of the month there were seven hundred and five in the report; and on the 28th only three hundred and twelve, or about one in twenty-six.