IG Report from the Select CommiUee appointed to consider 



August, when the great heats destroy it. The virulence of the 

 disorder is ahnost invariably over by August. It begins in March 

 or April. Goods are shipped promiscuously, whether the plague 

 rages or not, to all parts of Europe. Thinks that goods shipped 

 during the time the plague is raging, convey the contagion ; and 

 that every country that receives those goods, receives in a degree 

 the contagion of the plague. Has repeatedly known cases to occur, 

 from which he is satisfied in his own mind that the plague was in- 

 troduced solely by goods, without contact. 



Sir Robert fVilson, M.P, — While in Egypt with the army, 

 saw many cases of plague, and gives the following as the result of 

 his observations. The army that invaded Egypt was divided into 

 two corps. One was stationed at Alexandria, and the other moved 

 on against Cairo; a part of the army which remained stationary 

 at Alexandria had a detachment at Aboukir, where the preceding 

 vear many thousand Turks had been put to death in consequence 

 of a defeat in an action with the French, (^and where several hun- 

 dred British and French had recently been interred ;) every pre- 

 caution was taken to prevent the introduction of plague into that 

 part of the army which blockaded Alexandria and was stationed 

 at Aboukir, and from particular local circumstances all commu- 

 nication with the country was successfully intercepted, except 

 under authorized regulations ; notwithstanding \yhich precau- 

 tions, plague broke out three distinct times, beginning amongst 

 the troops occupying Aboukir, and extending to those stationed 

 before Alexandria. That part of the army, Turkish and British, 

 which moved against Cairo, passed through the country where 

 numerous villages were infected with the plague ; and during the 

 march the soldiers had constant communication with the inhabi- 

 tants of those infected villages- At xMenoof, where the plague 

 had raged with the greatest violence, a bakery was necessarily 

 established for the use of the arniy ; but none of the persons who 

 attended that bakery were infected with the plague. At Rahma- 

 nich there was a lazarette or plague hospital ; several men were 

 lying infected with the plague, and many were brought out already 

 dead; others were dying in the environs of the town of the same 

 disorder. The Turks stript the bodies of all, indiscriminately, of 

 their clothing, and there was no restraint whatsoever in the com- 

 munication with the inhabitants, who had also free access to the 

 camps; yet no plague was communicated to the troops. The city 

 of Cairo had lost a great many inhabitants the same year, by the 

 plague. When the army arrived at Cairo and united with the 

 Grand Vizier's army, many of the graves in which the inhabitants 

 had been buried who had died of the plague, were opened, and the 

 bodies stripped of their clothing, with which the Turks covered 

 themselves, and yet no soldier of either the British or Turkish 



armies 



