Medical Sketches of the Expedition to Egypt, from India

by Sir James McGrigor

The soil in most places is argillaceous or sandy, and in some calcareous; but every where there is a strong mixture of a salt: in most places there are incrustations of it to some depth. The quality of the atmosphere, and the proportions of its different constituent parts, I regret that I never had an opportunity of ascertaining.

The cultivated part of Egypt, particularly the Delta, is a very rich country; in fertility and luxuriance of soil yielding to none under the face of heaven. The art of husbandry is there but imperfectly known; and at their harvests there is a very great destruction of vegetable matter, from which hydrogene gas, or hydro-carbonate, is extricated in great quantities. Under similar circumstances, in America as well as in India, I have seen a bad fever of the intermittent or remittent type appear. But in Egypt, after the subsiding of the Nile, which in many places had covered a great extent of country, there is a great exhalation from the mud, and from the putrid animal and vegetable matters left behind. The effluvia of these substances, acting on the human body, will readily account for much disease. If we add to these the extreme filth of the inhabitants of Egypt, their poor diet, their narrow, close, and ill-ventilated, apartments, generally much crouded, with the extreme narrowness of their streets, and the bad police of their towns, we will not be astonished if a fever, at first intermittent or remittent, should have symptoms denominated malignant, superadded to the more ordinary symptoms of the disease. If an imported contagion should make its appearance at the same time, and under the above circumstances, we expect a most terrible disease.

The dry parching wind, which comes over the desert, and which at certain seasons blows in Egypt and in Arabia, is well known, and was often severely felt by the army on their march, both across the desert and the isthmus of Suez. The whirlwinds of sand roll with great impetuosity, are very troublesome, and insinuate fine sand and dust every where. It is hardly possible to keep the minute particles out of the eyes.

The dews, which fall in Egypt, I always heard were very heavy, and were a cause of the diseases of the country. I had occasion too, more than once, to hear the natives attribute much to them as the cause of their diseases; with what justice I will not pretend to decide. From some experiments which I made in India, on the Red Sea, and lastly in Egypt, I am inclined to think that they are equally heavy in the two former as in the latter quarter. After weighing it carefully, I took a piece of lint, twelve inches square, exposed it for a night to the dew, and, by weighing it in the morning again, ascertained the quantity which it had gained. I am aware that this is by no means a nice experiment, and that in the performance of it several particulars demand attention; but it is sufficient to our purpose, and I learned by it, that, in the island of Bombay, on the Red Sea, and in Lower Egypt, the quantity of dew which falls is nearly equal.

It ought to be mentioned, that, during the year we were in Egypt, the season was not the usual one. There was a greater overflow of the Nile. It rose higher on the Nilometer than it had done for several former years, and it was remarked to be much later in subsiding at Rosetta.

The fall of rain at Alexandria was greater than on former years; and, at Rosetta, the rains were in setting in later than usual. The season of the plague set in much earlier than usual.[2]

In general, the Thebaid, or Upper Egypt, is healthier than the Lower. Never were troops more healthy than the army when encamped near Ghenné.

Ghiza, the ancient Memphis, at the time the army disembarked there from Upper Egypt, we found to be a very unhealthy quarter. For a considerable time, and immediately before the arrival of the Indian army, it had been the station of large armies: alternately of Turks, Mamelukes, French, and English. From all these armies a number died at Ghiza, and there was much filth and noxious effluvia. We saw there enough of putrid animal matter to generate contagion. Whether this was or was not the cause of the fever which prevailed, I will not attempt to decide. One circumstance may be mentioned. We were here joined by a detachment of the 86th regiment under Colonel Lloyd, which, for some months before, had been doing duty with the Vizier’s army, which never was healthy. That the circumstances which existed at the time of our occupying Ghiza were the cause of the fever is manifest from this, that, subsequently to the army going to the coast, the garrison left in it found Ghiza a most healthy quarter. The same objections are to be made to Rhoda that are applicable to any marshy situation.

The 86th regiment found Damietta healthy, till the Turkish troops came down in great numbers from Cairo; but, at this period, the British troops were removed from it.

Rosetta is not a healthy quarter. It is one of the largest and worst-built towns in Egypt. There is hardly one street in it. There are only narrow dirty lanes, with high houses overhanging each other, and the passage frequently interrupted by houses in ruins. It is, on two sides, surrounded with swamps. The river is in the front, and behind, it is nearly encompassed with burying grounds.