تقارير إدارية من الخليج العربي ١٨٨٣/١٨٨٤ – ١٩٠٤/١٩٠٥ [و‎‎٢‎٢‎٩] (٦٠٢/٤٦٢)

EESIDENCY AND MASKAT POLITICAL AGENCY FOR THE YEAR 1899-1900.
31
dicines and disinfectants could be obtained from ns on application. Among other
that roe^ ^ advised a caveful registration of attacks and deaths for the purpose of ascertain-
She FOgress of the epidemic.
45 The well -recognised and generally accepted principle that cholera follows the highways
0 -3 ' ■ n commerce has received a further and forcible
General remarks on the epi emic an man. illustration in the manner in which it spread
tl! ah the Province of Oman. Soon after the disease had assumed an epidemic form in
Mtrah and in fact before it had spread generally all over the place, it broke out on or about
+1^ 4tli October with great suddenness and violence at Suroor, which lies on the highway to
th 6 Sharkiyeh or the Eastern District of Oman and Oman Proper, having: been conveyed
thither by a caravan returning from Matrah, The suddenness of the invasion and the
/ruling rate of mortality there caused the people to be almost panic-stricken and to flee in
aU directions, the infection thus spreading to the neighbouring villages and hamlets and
eventually to the town of Simail itself.
The Wadi Beni Ruwaheh being a continuation of the "Wadi Simail was directly infested
from the latter place, the course of the advance of the epidemic being still in the westerly
direction. From Suroor the disease also advanced in a northerly direction to al-Khode, where
the first case occurred about the 17th of October, and which then became the centre for the
diffusion of the disease to Nakhl on the one hand and to the Batinch Coast on the other.
When th^ disease reached Nakhl first, the outbreak being more of the type of cholerine than
true cholera, was attended with hardly any mortality, but the second or subsequent outbreak,
which occurred about 20 days after the first one, was one of a very severe nature causing 450
deaths and giving the high ratio of 15 per cent, of deaths to population. A remarkable
circumstance in connexion with its advance to Nakhl is the fact of its having followed the
course of greatest communication, namely, through al-Khode instead of taking the shortest
course from Simail over the hills which are a ramification oi the Green Mountains.
From Nakhl the epidemic advanced in succession to Wadi Muawal, al-Awabi, and
ar -Rustak and from al-Khode it spread first to as-Seeb and thence to the whole of the Batineh
Coast in a north-westerly direction, the last place to be infected there being Sohar. It
spread from the Wadi Beni Ruwaheh in a westerly direction to Oman Proper and also to the
Sharkiyeh in which, however, Samad, Rawdeh and other places close to the Simail ^ adi were
previously infected through the disease advancing direct from Suroor. It may here be noted,
that the hamlets in the Akk pass through which the caravans passed on their way from Suroor
to the Sharkiyeh enjoyed absolute immunity throughout the whole course of the epidemic.
The disease appears to have spread to Wadi Hatat from Matrah through the village or Rui
whilst to Teiwee and Kalhat on the south-eastern coast from Masqat.
The total number of deaths due to cholera in Oman, as far as I have been able to ascer
tain and as may be seen from the accompanying
Mortality in Oman. statement No. VII, which has been compiled
partly from information kindly supplied by His Highness the Sultan of Maskat, but prin
cipally from information through other channels, may be approximately stated to be 12,231, I
regret to have to state that the statement is incomplete in some respects, but I submit it
as it is with the hope of its being able to give a fair idea of the extent and severity of
the epidemic in the interior. This enormous mortality was due in a great measure to the
intensity of the epidemic in many of the places it visited in its course, and the determining
cause of that intensity is easily found in the general practice which obtains in the interior,
of washing the dead quite close to the aqueducts. It must be remembered that with the
exception of some of the places in the Sharkiyeh which contain wells as an additional
source of water-supply, the principal means of irrigation are aqueducts fed by springs, all
the supply of water for domestic purposes being also obtained from them. When a dead
body is removed to one of these aqueducts for washing, a breach is made in the masonry of
the aqueduct quite close to the place where the body is, and the water allowed to run over it,
some of which evidently runs by the side of the aqueduct and eventually pollutes it Cholera
germs in abundance had thus an easy access to the water supply of most of the places
and gave rise to those sudden and violent explosions which in places like the Simaii
valley and Teiwee resulted in such alarming rates of mortality. This assumption is strongly
supported by the fact that on the Batineh Coast and at Maskat and Matrah where the supp y
of water for domestic purposes is drawn entirely from wells and where the dead are wasned
in houses, far away from the sources of water-supply, the rates of mortality were proportion
ately much less, that for the former or Batineh Coast being in the ratio of l'^ per cent, ana
for the latter or Maskat and Matrah together 2*9 per cent.
It may thus be seen that the recent epidemic of cholera with its heavy mortality
ing as it did an unusually severe epidemic of small-pox, which alone carried away over ,
souls, has had a highly deleterious effect on the health of the Province, which, i 1 ®
to be regretted, is likely to suffer still further from an early visitation of plague shonld tne
epidemic, which is now raging in Maskat and Matrab, extend to the interior,
M askat ; ■) A. S. Q. JAYAKAR, Lieut.-Ool., /. M, £.,
The Isi April 1900. J Sur 9 eon > Matkat.