Travels in Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria, and across the desert into Egypt ...

Query. Probably
OF PLAGUE. 381
the same active infection is not to be received
from the dead subject as from the living ? It being said, " that the
" most favourable and sure period for the propagation of plague, is
" during the state of fever.
A person long resident in Egypt assured me, " that the disease,
** for the most part, appeared among the inhabitants in the follow-
" ins: order.
" Blacks and negroes,
" Mamelukes and whites; and lastly,
" The natives of the country."
In these pestiferous countries, the precautions which the Christians
take, render them less subject to plague than the Mahome-
tans. Yet we are told, that out of 270 Greeks, inhabitants of
Cairo, seventy died of in
plague 1801. The Bedouin Arabs of the
desert, are said to be much less subject to plague, than the Fellahs,
or Arab inhabitants of towns and villages.
It is
generally remarked, that a deviation from a light
diet under
this disease, and after its recent disappearance, is frequently produc-
tive of mischief, in as much as it favours a relapse, or protracts re-
covery.
The danger is proportioned to the diminution of vital energy,
and extent of fever. Deaths happen from the first to the seventh,
and even eleventh days of the disease; the most frequent from
the fourth to the eleventh day: yet fatal terminations occur often
at the expiration of twelve or twenty-four hours. Among the
youths and middle aged there is said to be the greatest
deaths.
number of
In Egypt, the plague prevails when the Nile is low, about the
months of March, April, May, and June; at the latter end of
June, the disease is for the most part observed to be upon the de-
cline. At this period the weather is extremely hot, and the heat
generally continues during the months of July and August. In
June 1801, Eahrenheifs thermometer fluctuated in the shade at
Cairo, from 100 to 108 degrees; while in July and August the
highest was 106 degrees: the heat was oppressive, being reflected
from the neighbouring mountains of Mokkatam.
At Constantinople, the cold weather in winter is observed to put
a stop to plague. We have therefore seen, that the extremes of
heat and cold are unfavourable to the propagation of plague.
Since the trade with Egynt has been interrupted during the war,
Constantinople has suffered but little from plague for the three last