Abstract
The Egyptian plague epidemic of 1834–1835 stands at the conjuncture of multiple streams of change affecting the Indian Ocean World (IOW), the Ottoman World, Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, and northeastern Africa. The epidemic and its multiple consequences affected the medical debates between contagionists and anti-contagionists, fostered debates over the efficacy of quarantines and lazarettos, helped to determine how particular European medical ideas spread in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East, and ultimately contributed to international cooperation on sanitary regulations.1 Beyond its medical and demographic dimensions, this epidemic also had important economic consequences. The recent rise of steamship navigation and increasing interest in free trade meant that seemingly capricious quarantine regulations in the Mediterranean and on Indian Ocean routes affected trade in cotton, the speed of transportation, and, soon, navigation in the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal.2 New understandings of the epidemic influenced regional diplomacy, with Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, and Austria taking part in complex negotiations whose powerful consequences extended into the IOW.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
E. Ackerknecht (1948), “Anti-Contagionism between 1821 and 1867,” Bulletin of the History of Mediane, 22: 562–583
E. A. Heaman (1995), “The Rise and Fall of Anticontagionism in France,” CBMH/BCHM, 12: 3–25
Anne Marie Moulin (2009), “The Construction of Disease Transmission in Nineteenth-Century Egypt,” in The Development of Modem Medicine in Non-Western Countries: Historical Perspectives, ed. Hormoz Ebrahimnejad (London and New York: Routledge), pp. 42–58
Mark Harrison (2006), “Disease, Diplomacy and International Commerce: The Origins of International Sanitary Regulations in the Nineteendi Century,” Journal of Global History, 1(2): 197–217
David Todd (2008), “John Bowring and the Global Dissemination of Free Trade,” The Historical journal, 51(2): 373–397.
Alison Frank (2012), “The Children of the Desert and the Laws of the Sea: Austria, Great Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and the Mediterranean Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century,” The American Historical Review, 117(2): 410–444.
Great Britain, Foreign Office (1843), Correspondence Relative to the Contagion of Plage and the Quarantine Regulations of Foreign Countries, 1836–1843 (London: Harrison)
R. C. Prus (1846), Rapport à l’Académie de medecine sur la peste et les quarantaines (Paris: Chez J.-B. Baillière).
D. Panzac (1985), La Peste dans l’empire Ottoman, 1700–1850 (Leuven: Editions Peeters), p. 365
A. Marsot (1982), “Muhammad Ali’s Internal Politics,” in L’Egypte au XIXe siècle, ed. R. Mantran (Paris: Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique), p. 164
J. McCarthy (1976), “Nineteenth-Century Egyptian Population,” Middle Eastern Studies 12(3): 1–39
Compare L. Kuhnke (1990), Lives at Risk: Public Health in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Berkeley: University of California Press), p. 204
Panzac’s later views, see his (1987) “The Population of Egypt in the Nineteendi Century,” Asian and African Studies, 21: 18–19.
J. Bowring (1840), Report on Egypt and Gandia, British Parliamentary Papers, Reports from Commissioners, Vol. 11 (London: Printed by W. Clowes and Sons for HMSO), p. 92
Antoine-Barthelemy Clot-Bey (1840), De la peste observée en Egypte (Paris: Fortin, Masson), pp. 111–112
F. Mengin (1839), Histoire Sommaire de l’Egypte (Paris: Didot), p. 472.
J. Del Plato (2002), Multiple Wives, Multiple Pleasures: Representing the Harem, 1800–1875 (Madison: Farleigh Dickinson Press)
S. Marmon (1995), Eunuchs and Sacred Boundaries in Islamic Society (New York: Oxford University Press)
E. Helal (2010), “Muhammad Ali’s First Army: The Experiment in Building an Entirely Slave Army,” in Race and Slavery in the Middle East, ed. T. Walz and K. Cuno (Cairo and New York: American University in Cairo Press), pp. 17–42
K. Fahmy (1997), All the Pasha’s Men: Mehmed Ali, His Army and the Making of Modern Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
G. Baer (1969), Slavery and Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press), p. 165
K. Cuno (2010), “African Slaves in Nineteenth-Century Rural Egypt,” in Race and Slavery, ed. T. Walz and K. Cuno (Cairo and New York: American University in Cairo Press), pp. 77–98.
A. Mikhail (2008), “The Nature of Plague in Late Eighteenth-Century Egypt”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 82(2): 250–254.
Kuhnke, Lives, p. 79; M.J. Reimer (1997), Colonial Bridgehead: Government and Society in Alexandria, 1807–1882 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press), p. 69.
A. F Bulard de Méru (1839), De la peste orientale (Paris: Locquin), pp. 16
R. Cattaui (1931–1936), Le Regne de Mohammed Aly d’après les archives russes en Egypte (Cairo: Cairo University Press), Vol. 2, pt. 1, 266
S. Voilquin (1866), Souvenirs d’une fille du peuple, ou la Saint-Simonienne en Egypte—1834 à 1836 (Paris: Sauzet), pp. 250–251.
S. Watts (1997), Epidemics and History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), pp. 16–17
D. Ayalon (1946), “The Plague and Its Effects upon the Mamluk Army,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1(1): 7–73.
M. LeGall (1999), “Louis Frank’s Memoir on the Traffic in Negroes in Cairo and on the Illnesses to which they are Subject upon arrival there,” in Slavery in the Islamic Middle East, ed. S. Marmon (Princeton: Marcus Wiener), p. 85
G. Sotira (1802), “Mémoire sur la peste observée en Egypte pendant les années 7, 8 et 9,” Mémoires sur l’Ágypte (Paris, an XI), 4: 156–210
T. Walz (1978), The Trade between Egypt and Bilad as-Sudan, 1700–1820 (Cairo: Institut Français d’ Archéologie Orientale du Caire), p. 204.
R. R. Madden (1829), Travels in Turkey, Egypt, Nubia and Palestine in 1824, 1825, 1826 and 1827 (London: Henry Colburn), Vol. 2, p. 174.
M. Lafere (1834–1835), “Pathology of the Plague,” The Lancet, 2: 645.
S. Jagailloux (1986), La médicalisation de l’Egypte (1798–1918) (Paris: Editions Recherches sur les civilisations), p. 227
Reimer, Bridgehead, p. lii; Voilquin, Souvenirs, p. 307; E. Lane (1944), The Manners and Customs of the Modem Egyptians (London: J. M. Dent), pp. 30–31
Sophia Lane Poole (1842), An Englishwoman in Egypt, Vol. 1 (London: C. Knight), p. 112.
Henry Dodwell (1967), The Founder of Modern Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 235
Robert Ilbert (1996), Alexandrie, 1830–1930, Histoire d’une communauté citadine, Vol. 2 (Le Caire: InstitutFrançais d’Archéologie Orientale), p. 757.
Voilquin, Souvenirs, p. 244; G. Alléaume (1989), “Linant de Bellefonds (1799–1883) et le Saint-Simonisme en Egypte,” in Les Saint-Simoniens et l’Orient, ed. M. Morsy (Paris: Edisud), p. 126.
Bulard de Méru, Peste orientale, pp. 56, 171, 322–323; Prus, Rapport, p. 584; Voilquin, Souvenirs, p. 271; P. Régnier (1989), Les Saint-Simoniens en Egypte, 1833–1851 (Cairo: Amin Fakhry Abdelnour), pp. 91
Voilquin, Souvenirs, p. 271; Poole, Englishwoman, p. 150; James Ewing Cooley, American in Egypt (New York: D. Appleton, 1842), pp. 402–3
John David Ragan (1998), “French Women Travellers in Egypt: A Discourse Marginal to Orientalism?,” in Travellers in Egypt, ed. Paul Starkey and Janet Starkey (London: I. B. Tauris), p. 224.
R. R. Madden (1841), Egypt and Mohammed Ali (London: H. Adams), pp. 254–258
Jagailloux, Médicalisation, pp. 225–229; L. V Kuhnke (1982), “The Decline of Plague in Egypt in the Nineteenth Century,” History of Science and Medicine, 17 (Spec 1), 116–120.
R. T Ridley (1998), Napoleon’s Troconsul in Egypt (London: Rubicon Press)
L. Frank (1802), Mémoire sur le commerce des nègres au Kaire, et sur les maladies auxquelles ils sont sujets en y arrivant (Paris: A. Kœnig)
J. Tagher (1851), “Le Docteur Dussap, un Français ‘original’ d’Egypte,” Cahiers d’Histoire Ágyptienne, 4(4): 342–346.
D. Panzac (1989), “Médecine révolutionnaire et révolution de la médecine dans l’Egypte de Muhammad Ali: le Dr Clot-Bey,” Revue du monde musulman et de la méditerranée, 52–53: 95–110
A. Moulin (1989), “Révolutions médicales et révolutions politiques en Egypte (1865–1917),” Revue du monde musulman et de la méditerranée, 52/53: 111–123
G. N. Burrow (1975), “Clot-Bey: Founder of Western Medical Practice in Egypt,” Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 48: 251–257.
William Blizzard (1832–1833), “Gallery of Medical Portraits: Clot-Bey,” Lancet, 2: 88–91.
Ridley, Proconsul, pp. 642644, 684–685, 635–636; Antoine-Barthelemy Clot-Bey (1840), Aperçu Général sur l’Ágypte (Paris: Fortin), Vol. 1, p. ix
Georges Ciorănescu (1981), La Mission de Stanislas Beilanger dans l’Empire Ottoman (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies), pp. 113
L. Stephen and S. Lee, eds. (1917), Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press), Vol. 2, pp. 984–988
G. Bartle (1994), An Old Radical and His Brood (London: Janus), pp. 44–48
A. I. M. Ali (1972), The British, the Slave Trade and Slavery in the Sudan 1820–1881 (Khartoum: Khartoum University Press), pp. 5–21.
Bowring, Report, included his “Observations on the Oriental Plague and on Quarantines” in an appendix; John Bowring (1838), Observations on the Oriental Plague and on Quarantines, as a Means of Arresting Its Progress (Edinburgh: William Tait).
S. Curto, éd. (1985), Bernardino Drovetti: Epistolario (1800–1851) (Milan: Istituto Cisalpino), pp. 684–685
G. R. Gliddon (1841), An Appeal to the Antiquaries of Europe (London: J. Madden), p. 2.
Carré, Voyageurs, Vol. 1, pp. 83, 352; Madden, Egypt, p. 57; J. Heyworth-Dunne (1939), Introduction to the History of Modern Education in Egypt (London: Cass), pp. 122–123
J. L. Abu-Lughod (1971), Cairo: 1001 Years of the City Victorious (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), p. 83
Gabriel Baer (1969), “Slavery and Abolition,” Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press), p. 164
La Rue (1986), “The Export Trade of Dar Fur, ca. 1785–1875,” in Figuring African Trade, ed. G. Liesegang, H. Pasch, and A. Jones (Berlin: D. Reimer), p. 642
J. Ewald (1990), Soldiers, Traders and Slaves: State Formation and Economic Transformation in the Greater Nile Valley, 1700–1885 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press), p. 53
G. Prunier (1992), “Military Slavery in the Sudan during the Turkiyya, 1820–1885,” in The Human Commodity: Perspectives on the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade, ed. E. Savage (London: E Cass), pp. 129–131
Clot, Aperçu, Vol. 1, p. 340. Compare Orlando Patterson (1982), Slavery and Social Death (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).
R. Law (1986), “Dahomey and the Slave Trade: Reflections on the Historiography of the Rise of Dahomey,” journal of African History, 27(2): 237–267.
A. B. Clot(1830), Aperçu sur le ver Dragonneau o bs ervé en Égypte (Marseille: Feissat ainé)
A. Sonbol (1991), The Creation of a Medical Profession in Egypt, 1800–1922 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press), p. 65
M. E Hatem (1997), “The Professionalrzation of Health and the Control of Women’s Bodies as Modern Governmentalities in Nineteenth Century Egypt,” in Women in the Ottoman Empire, ed. M.C. Zilfi (Leiden: Brill), pp. 66–80.
Antoine-Barthelemy Clot-Bey (1839–1840), “On the Plague of Egypt,” The Lancet, 2: 416
Dominique J. Larrey (1823), “Mémoire sur la Peste,” in Description de l’Egypte, 13: 81–103
R. Desgenettes (1802), Histoire médicale de l’armée d’Orient (Paris: Croullebois), p. 250.
P. Hamont (1842), “[Review of Clot], De la peste observée en Egypte,” Annales d’ hygiene publiques et de Medicine legal, 27: 454–473
Quote: D. Panzac (1986), Quarantaines et Lazarets (Aix-en-Provence: Edisud), pp. 102
Alexander Kinglake (1940), Eothen (London: Longman, Green), pp. 169
For an introduction to this literature, see Carré, Voyageurs, Vol. 1, pp. 261–177; M. Morsy, ed. (1989), Les Saint-Simoniens et l’Orient (Paris: Edisud)
Voilq uin, Souvenirs, pp. 280–281; Ismayl Urbain (1993), Voyage d’Orient suivi de Toemes de Menilmontant et d’Egypte, ed. P. Régnier (Paris: L’Harmattan), esp. pp. 47–202.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2016 George Michael La Rue
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rue, G.M.L. (2016). Treating Black Deaths in Egypt: Clot-Bey, African Slaves, and the Plague Epidemic of 183–4-1835. In: Winterbottom, A., Tesfaye, F. (eds) Histories of Medicine and Healing in the Indian Ocean World. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137567581_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137567581_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-56269-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-56758-1
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)