Prevention ■ and Eradication 



63 



The Port Said section of the fresh-water canal is not being used 

 by boats and is only open to infection at the present time from those 

 using the footpath along its bank. If this path were diverted the 

 risk of infection should become negligible after some months. 

 On the southern section from Ismailia to Suez a number of villages 

 have arisen on both banks. Paths follow both banks. The canal 

 is used regularly by small boats making forty to one hundred 



Fig. 28.— The relations of the Sweet Water Canal and its branches to the 

 town of Ismailia. 



journeys per month in each direction. From this canal water is 



led at intervals by small channels to the posts on the maritime 



canal. It appears impossible to insure under present circumstances 



that the water reaching these posts should be free from infection. 



Local practitioners state that there is a fair 



Marshks. amount of bilharzia amongst the native population 



of Ismailia. This is most probably acquired in the 



low-lying fields and marshes to the south-west of the town, and 



from the Taftish el Wady drain, which carries off the whole of 



the drainage of the Wady Tumilat, between Tel el Kebir and 



Ismailia, and ultimately debouches into Lake Timsah. Specimens 



