"تقرير عسكري عن جنوب غرب بلاد فارس، يتضمن أقاليم خوزستان (عربستان)، لورستان، وجزءًا من فارس" [‎٦‎١] (٤٦٦/٩٤)

61
Medical Report on Bushire for the year ending Sid March 1873.
Bushire, tlie chief seaport town of Southern Persia, lies in the 29tli
parallel of north latitude, and is situated at the
Situation. extremity of a peninsula twelve miles in length by from
four to five in breadth on the north-east shore of the Persian Gulf. It is not,
I should say, elevated more than 20 feet above sea level, the centre of
the town being about the lowest, and the Armenian quarter, in the north
corner, the highest ground. The houses are flat roofed
XT
ouses * and closely packed together, and generally not less than
two stories in height; the ground Hoor being solely for winter residence, and
the upper apartments for use in the hot months of the summer and autumn.
Sanitary"^ arrangements in Bushire are of the most primitive and meagre
description, the consequence of which is a deplorable
Sanitation. want of cleanliness in the general aspect of the town,
whilst here, there, and everywhere are sources of effluvia which make their
presence painfully known to more senses than one. The sewage is com
monly conveyed from the necessary by means of a rude conduit into a pit
dug in the street, which is seldom provided with proper means of outflow,
and which is sometimes emptied, but not unfrequently allowed to re
main full, and another dug in the vicinity. The process of emptying is most
obnoxious to passers by, for the streets being, as a rule^
not more than seven or eight feet wide, the pent-up focal
exhalations meet the olfactories in a most concentrated form. Streets here are
at best mere lanes, so that the town, though it at one time contained twenty
thousand inhabitants, does not cover an area of more than half a mile square.
There are, I think, twelve different places of sepulchre within the walls
of the town, and some of the graves are not more than
urial grounds. three feet in depth. Moreover, each burial place has
several stone and lime encasements builfc on the surface, wherein are stored
dead bodies for eventual transmission to Karbala. The walls of these recep
tacles are very slim, and now and then observed to be holed through either
by the vicissitudes of the weather or by accident, the corpses in very rickety
coffins thus becoming exposed.
During the cholera epidemic, which raged here some two years ago, intra
mural interment was for a time prohibited by the local authorities; but the
prohibition subsequently became a mere farce, and now there is not the least
obstacle thrown in the way of those who revert to the old custom. Most of the
grave-yards are traversed by a street, encroaching on which are numerous
graves; and, indeed, it is not rare to see the pathway passing over the buried
remains of some of the dead.
The wells in town are without exception brackish, and supply water fit
w only for very ordinary purposes. At the south corner
a er-supp y. ^ a 2 ar g. e tank, the gift of a native merchant, for
* These remarks on the sanitation of Bushire apply equally to all large Persian towns, and in
the cases of Muhammerah, Shustar, and Dizful must be emphasised. Where the shumdl ceases to
blow with force, i.e., within the first belt of lower hills, and in situations where the ozone of the
atmosphere is not in sufficient quantities to neutralize deleterious organic emanations, disease must
periodically effect its ravages, and may be one of the many causes at work to keep the population
of Persia at its present low figure.
^ In 1873 the unsanitary state of the Persian barracks from (1) the accumulation of ordure in
their vicinity, (2) overcrowding (under 6 square feet per man), (3) under feeding, (4) poor
clothing, (5) contact between sick, dying, and unaffected was such that in 11 months out of a
regiment 700 strong, 200 had died from intermittent fever; 260 were non-effective, and 200 alone
fit to bear arms.