GREAT EPIDEMICS—ASIATIC CHOLERA. 293 
between Persia and Turkey, from Mount Ararat to the 
Persian Gulf, the Ottoman Government keeps up vigilance 
stations, which it turns into quarantines at need. Now 
_these posts, costly to the treasury, harassing to the in- 
habitants, especially to the Persians, have hitherto been 
powerless to keep the Ottoman territory safe from inva- 
sions of cholera. This results from the fact that there is a 
great number of nomad tribes on this frontier—Koords, 
Bactrians, and others—who in summer drive their flocks to 
pasture on the high table-lands of Persia, and in winter 
come down toward the plains of Asia Minor. There is 
thus kept up on this line a constant movement of migra- 
tion which there is no possibility of subjecting to quaran- 
tine regulations. Tholozan believes, with reason, that in 
this quarter the measures proposed by the International 
Conference could not be put in force. 
A more useful quarantine system is that which prevented 
the spread in Egypt of that epidemic which raged in 1871 
on the west coast of the Red Sea. A part of this country, 
_ that in which Medina and Mecca are situated, was swept 
by the cholera about the end of 1871. In view of the 
danger threatening Egypt the moment the pilgrims should 
return, the sanitary administration of that country resolved 
at once that if necessary all intercourse by sea between 
Hedjaz and Egypt should be stopped; but, not finding the 
danger urgent, it afterward modified this determination, 
and ordered that all pilgrims returning from Mecca by 
Egypt should first go and perform quarantine at El-Wedj, 
a small port on the coast of Arabia, situated three hundred 
and fifty miles from Suez, after which they might cross the 
isthmus by canal without going into Egypt, or else undergo 
another inspection at the station established for that pur- 
pose at the Springs of Moses. A lazaretto under canvas 
was then arranged at El-Wed}j, under the direction of two 
physicians. A special commission was stationed at Suez, 
