Medical Sketches of the Expedition to Egypt, from India

by Sir James McGrigor

AUGUST.

By the 12th of this month, the greater part of the army, after a navigation of the Nile, of nearly four hundred miles, arrived at Damietta, where we found one regiment of the English army, the 89th, and a general hospital, under charge of Dr Franks, the inspector. The troops at first were put into quarters there; but an encampment was afterwards formed on Rhoda, a small island made by the Nile, very nearly in the centre between Cairo and Ghiza. The Nilometer is on this island. As they landed, the troops were uncommonly healthy. Most of the hepatic and dysenteric sick had recovered on the passage, and the only disease with which they landed was slight fever, of which the cases were not numerous. This state of health continued but a very short time after the landing. In the course of the first week, most of the corps sent one-twelfth and some one-tenth of their strength to the hospital.

In three weeks, the sick of the army exceeded one thousand. A considerable number of ophthalmic cases appeared, but the prevailing disease was fever. In every corps it prevailed, and very few escaped it. In general it was of short duration, of two, three, or five, days at most, and rarely proved fatal. Ghiza appeared then to have been an unhealthy quarter, and the ground of the encampment was found to be swampy. We found the 89th regiment in garrison at this place, and so very sickly was that corps, that they could not muster fifty men on the parade. The sick of the army was sent into Ibrahim Bey fort, pleasantly situated on the bank of the river on the Cairo side. It had been occupied by the enemy as an hospital, and had been completely fitted up by them for the purpose. But it was neither (if accounts could be believed) a healthy nor a safe situation. A little before our arrival, the French had some cases of the plague in a ward of this hospital. On hearing this, every measure of precaution was taken, and the disease did not appear. It was remarked, that those sent to the hospital, ill of ophthalmia, dysentery, and hepatitis, rarely left it without an attack of the prevailing fever.

About the end of the month, preparations were making to embark the army for Rosetta, and not less than twelve hundred sick were embarked.

During the month the wind was most frequently from the N. The thermometer on the Nile, from the 1st to the 8th, was higher than we had found it at Ghenné. In the fort of Ibrahim Bey it moved from 80° 50″ to 90°. The sickness of the month was very considerable. Though we lost several men, yet the loss bore but a small proportion to the sickness that prevailed. Much of the sickness, and many of the deaths which subsequently occurred, we could trace to the situation near Cairo. Many cases of hepatitis did not appear, but of late many of dysentery; and, in some corps before quitting Cairo, ophthalmia prevailed very generally.

SEPTEMBER.

Early in this month, the greater part of the army was encamped in the neighbourhood of Rosetta. The 86th regiment and two companies of the 7th Bombay regiment went into garrison at Ghiza. Separate regimental hospitals were provided for every corps in Rosetta: but the number of sick appeared to be gaining ground, particularly the cases of ophthalmia, which disease was nearly confined to the 10th and 88th regiments. The number occurring in the artillery, 61st and 80th regiments, was inconsiderable; and the disease was very rarely seen among the Sepoys. Dysentery and hepatitis prevailed very generally in every corps; but the appearance of another disease occasioned the greatest alarm throughout the army.

On the morning of the 14th, I discovered a case of the plague in the hospital of the 88th regiment: Anthonio, one of the hospital-cooks, who had for thirty hours laboured under febrile symptoms, shewed me two buboes in his groins. He had no venereal appearance, and the fever was now attended with extreme irritability of the stomach. At the same time, I was shewn another hospital-servant, a Hallancore, who lay next to Anthonio. The Hallancore had been attacked in the night time, and, when I saw him, had much fever and pain in the axilla, though I could discover no swelling of the glands. As speedily as possible these two men, and six other hospital-servants, who slept in the same apartment, were removed to a house at the extremity of the town. A room was immediately allotted, in the hospital of the 88th regiment, for cases under observation.

To this every soldier, or follower, with febrile symptoms, was sent the instant that the symptoms were discovered. A minute examination was made, on the evening of the 14th, of all the men in the hospital, amounting then to one hundred and sixty-two, in order to discover whether any laboured under suspicious symptoms, but nothing was observed.