﻿14 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, 59 



usages of European origin, which must have been brought to the 

 country by the Arabs. One of these is a vaccination which the 

 natives, particularly the Bedouins, perform one on the other. It is 

 a direct vaccination, some of the pus from the sores of a subject 

 attacked with smallpox being introduced into an abrasion produced 

 by a razor in the skin of the one to be protected. The wound is 

 made preferably on the leg. 



The most interesting condition is the apparent absence among 

 these poor and mostly under-nourished people of tuberculosis, which 

 recalls a similar condition among the poor Jews. No case of any 

 variety, including scrofula, was seen at the Oasis by the writer, and 

 none was seen by the government physician during his twelve 

 months' stay at the village of Kharga or in other places in the 

 Oasis. The physician declared, however, that he found tuberculosis 

 of the lungs in several cases in camels. 



Neither the doctor nor the civil authorities of the Kharga village 

 could recall a single case of well marked rachitis, and no instance 

 of the condition was encountered. 



There have been no epidemics recently in the Oasis, with the 

 exception of measles, in 1908. 



Children die principally from gastro-enteritis, broncho-pneumonia, 

 and of measles. The epidemic of the latter disease in 1908 carried 

 off many infants. 



There were seen no evidences of syphilis or gonorrhoea, but the 

 diseases are said to exist as they do in the Valley. 



Malaria is not very frequent, except in the date season (Sep- 

 tember-October), when there are also extraordinary numbers of 

 flies and mosquitoes. It is occasionally of a very dangerous form. 

 Typhoid is rare. 



A most prevalent disorder is trachoma. There are great numbers 

 of blind, 1 and in many more the eyes are more or less affected by 

 various forms of inflammation. 



A frequent condition, due probably in most if not all cases to 

 trachoma is trichiasis (contraction due to inflammatory changes of 

 the ventral surface of the lids, and consequent direction of the eye- 

 lashes inward, so that they irritate the cornea). This condition is 

 usually observed in the upper lid. 



1 According to the returns of the 1907 Egyptian census there were at the 

 Kharga Oasis 196 blind in both eyes and 432 blind in one eye, or nearly 75 

 per thousand of the total population blind in one or both eyes. In the 

 United States the percentage of those partly and completely blind is less than 

 one per thousand of the population (in 1900, U. S. Census, 0.85 per thousand). 



