Egypt was suffering from an epidemic of cholera in the summer of 1902. The news of cholera in Egypt makes one apprehensive lest through carelessness the disease should be brought into Palestine, although the quarantines are supposed to be enforced strictly on all lines of communication by sea or land. Toward the last of September the rumor got about that cholera was in the country and that cases had appeared as near as Hebron, twenty miles south of Jerusalem. By the middle of October rumor was persistent that Ludd and Jimzû were affected by the fell disease. English physicians in Jaffa published and circulated a poster instructing the people as to means of prevention. The Jerusalem government issued orders to the villages to clean the village streets and burn up the refuse. This would be a boon under any circumstances. The city streets were put into an excellent condition of cleanliness. Whitewash was freely used on the walls of the buildings, especially in the Jewish quarter. In a day or two Jaffa was reported to be infected by the cholera and, as the days went by, rumors came from one after another village that it was attacked by the scourge, which the natives call the yellow air. They give it this name because of their belief that it is a pestilential breath traveling in the air. One day, when the refreshing west wind was blowing up from the sea, a peasant in our village expressed the hope that the wind would change soon, as he feared that it might bring up the yellow air from the infected villages down in the Mediterranean plain. This ignorance of the real nature of the disease accounts, together with a fatalistic carelessness about observing the right precautions, for the awful hold that it gets on an Eastern country. It thrives best in the lowland country and least in the highlands, not being supposed to ascend over two thousand feet with any likelihood of persistence. But it was often carried to greater heights, causing much anxiety. Hebron, for instance, is over three thousand feet above sea-level. The bacillus has its greatest opportunity in running water, as at springs. In order to attack the human being it must enter the alimentary canal, usually, of course, by the mouth. A weakened constitution, excessive fear, nervousness and chills from great or sudden changes of temperature, make favorable conditions for its seizure of the individual. It usually begins with a diarrhea, which, if unchecked, is rapidly succeeded by the peculiar cholera discharges and a physical collapse that is as complete as the weakness induced by days and weeks of other severe diseases. Relief has to be prompt, the temperature restored and the discharges checked very soon in order to afford any reasonable hope of recovery. Most foreigners escape attack by attending very strictly and conscientiously to the proper precautions and heeding early indications, without allowing themselves to be disturbed by unnecessary fears. But they should be personally sure that only cooked food is eaten, no raw fruit or vegetables; that all water, for whatever purpose destined, be boiled, whether it is to be drunk or used to wash the person, hands, face, teeth or body, or used to wash clothing or dishes. When cholera is in the vicinity unboiled water should not be used for any purpose.
The people in our own village prohibited the approach of any persons from the village of Ludd. These local prohibitions through the country multiplied, making a set of quarantines that prevented travel and trade in many of the country districts. Our native village physician was taken by the government and placed in charge of the quarantine station at Bâb el-Wâd, which is on the Jerusalem-Jaffa carriage road. The railroad trains between Jaffa and Jerusalem were forbidden to stop anywhere between Bittîr and Jaffa. Some friends in Jerusalem feared to come out to visit us, only ten miles away, for fear that quarantine might be imposed at any moment, thus preventing their return to the city. However, that necessity did not arise during the whole time the disease was in the country. But to the north of us we were cut off from Nâblus, to the east from the Jordan country, to the west from the villages and cities in the plain. Jerusalem was cut off from Hebron on the south. To have cut us off from Jerusalem would have made a very tiny island of our neighborhood. So long as we were part of the large island of which Jerusalem was the center, and our district remained free of the scourge, we were in a very happy case compared with what might happen any day. The peasantry in the villages west of Jerusalem depend a good deal on the sale of vegetables, fruit, bread and milk in the city, but soldiers prevented them from coming in to pursue their usual business.
October closed with very conflicting reports as to the nature of the sickness that was taking the people off, some declaring that it was not cholera, but only similar; that it was this and that other thing. The governor called together the merchants of Jerusalem and urged them to maintain regular prices, but they replied that this was their opportunity. He forbade any rise in wheat. However, prices on most foodstuffs and imported supplies began to rise. The train service on the Jaffa-Jerusalem line was discontinued. People rushed to the shops in the city and bought up canned goods and groceries. Camphor rose in price also, as the natives bought it to make little camphor-bags, which they would smell frequently. Men were stationed out on the paths leading to our village to prevent the entrance of people from suspected districts. In Jaffa some deaths were reported in the dirty section about the boat landings. Gaza reported the highest mortality, forty a day. Some of the inhabitants of Gaza moved out on the seashore and lived in tents. No deaths occurred among them. Ramleh set about providing its own cordon, and although it was very near some of the worst of the afflicted places, it kept itself free from the epidemic. Some Gaza men who essayed to reach Jerusalem were put under arrest.
By November 5 the general impression was that the cholera was lessening its violence. The people of Ludd were getting straitened for food. The hospital and medical service of Miss Newton of Jaffa were a great blessing. She sent medical assistance to the people in Ludd also and was very prompt in getting in food supplies to the quarantined villagers. The dearth of food in Hebron threatened to cause a rise of prices beyond the reach of the poor. But some of the officials wishing to come to Jerusalem, the quarantine was lifted for a day to accommodate them, when some wheat slipped into Hebron from Jerusalem. In Jaffa the English church was open twice a day for special prayers for the cessation of the cholera.
We were greatly saddened toward the middle of November by the news that Mrs. Torrance, wife of the physician in the Scotch Mission at Tiberias, had fallen a victim to the cholera.
Some travelers who were having hard work getting through the country on account of the crisscrossing of the quarantines, were in a hotel in Nazareth when, during the night, a man came up to that hotel from Tiberias and developed a case of cholera. The hotel guests found in the morning that they were quarantined in the house. By the earnest use of talk and money they got the privilege of passing the time of their quarantine in some tents. They feared that, if they remained in the hotel and more cases developed, their detention might be lengthened indefinitely.
Some Jifnâ men who had been in Jaffa for weeks evaded the quarantine regulations and returned to their village, which was one hour north of us. Their own relatives were the first to drive them back with stones. The neighbors reported the facts to the police in Jerusalem and soldiers came out and shut up the quarantine jumpers in caves until they could be returned to the quarantine station at Bâb el-Wâd to pass the legal number of days.
On November 18 we heard of a man who had come from es-Salṭ to Jerusalem and died, of cholera apparently, in Khan es-Sulṭân. This was the cause of some worry, but no cases resulted. On the 19th, as we were thinking that the colder weather would check the disease, we heard that it had increased considerably in Jaffa. On November 20 our village physician returned for a short visit to disprove to his family the report that he had succumbed to the cholera. He had about a dozen or fourteen people in quarantine at Bâb el-Wâd, who were taking that tedious way of journeying. The government provided tents at two and a half or three francs per day. Each person secured his own food by post carrier from Jerusalem or elsewhere. The claim is now made that the cholera got into the country through the faithlessness of the quarantine official south of Gaza. He is accused of having let through seven thousand persons at a bishlik (eleven cents) apiece. The story of how the cholera entered Ḳubâb is illustrative. That village and the village of Barrîyeh use the same fountain for water, the ‛Ayn Yerdeh. Cholera was in Barrîyeh, and one mother who had lost a little child wished to keep its garments. She took them to the ‛Ayn Yerdeh to wash them. Very soon a score of Ḳubâb people were victims of cholera, and three hundred in all died in that village. The doctor reported the people in the villages as very eager for instructions and obedient in observing them when the disease was at its height. He says that there were no tears, only great desire to escape the dreadful enemy. He went to the different villages near his station and, standing outside, summoned the shaykhs and chief villagers within hearing distance, where he exhorted them to use the necessary precautions. The Moslems have the custom of washing the corpses of their dead. This contributed much to the spread of the disease, as the flushings of water, vile from the body of the cholera victim, carried the germs all about the house floor and infected a considerable space. The physician’s orders were to bury the deceased, clothing and all, and cover with six baskets of dry lime. Then all articles used or defiled by the sufferer were to be burned.
Friday evening, November 21, some Jaffa Christians sought to flee from their city and come to Râm Allâh, but the Râm Allâh people drove them back with threats and stones. Some of the Râm Allâh people recommended a cordon for all roads about the village, but the poorer inhabitants declared that they could not stand the increased price of living that would ensue. December 3 we heard that some Constantinople physicians had visited Jaffa and declared the disease not cholera but malignant typhoid fever. It made little difference to the generality what they chose to call it. By December 6 cholera was reported at Jericho. It was reported at an end in Ḳubâb but continuing in Jaffa with a very variable death-rate. By the middle of December six thousand deaths had been reported in Gaza. The reports from Jaffa always minified the number of victims. One physician stated that, when the reports said fifteen a day, he knew there were from fifty to seventy a day. It was said that Moslems were evading the government’s orders regarding instant disposal of the corpses and secreting their dead, in order that they might carry out the custom of washing and otherwise preparing the body for burial. Hunger probably played an important part in the death-rate. The outside world never knew the facts. By the middle of January the cholera was announced at Turmus ‛Âyâ, a little south of ancient Shiloh. But the disease had done its worst for the country for that season.
The work of Miss Newton in Jaffa and vicinity was very effective and impressed the Moslems greatly. One leading Moslem in Jaffa tried to collect money for the suffering, but met with no very generous response. He exclaimed of this English woman, “Do you mean to tell me that the Moslems, all of them, will go to heaven and this noble young woman will go to hell? Her shoe is purer than their souls.”