Ottoman and Egyptian Quarantines and European Debates on Plague in the 1830s–1840s*

IF 1.8 1区历史学 Q1 HISTORY

Past & Present Pub Date : 2021-11-13 DOI:10.1093/pastj/gtaa017

Hamed-Troyansky V.

{"title":"Ottoman and Egyptian Quarantines and European Debates on Plague in the 1830s–1840s*","authors":"Hamed-Troyansky V.","doi":"10.1093/pastj/gtaa017","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<span><div>Abstract</div>In the 1830s, plague, which had been all but forgotten by most Europeans, was on everyone’s lips again. Shortly after the Ottoman and Egyptian governments instituted their first permanent quarantines, the disease broke out in the Levant and the Nile delta, and the global medical community watched anxiously to see whether these new western Mediterranean-style quarantines would be able to contain it within the eastern Mediterranean. By tracing two Russian medical expeditions from the Black Sea port of Odessa to the Ottoman empire and Egypt in the 1840s, this article examines the world of European medical practitioners who engaged in vigorous debates about plague and its prevention. Did the disease have a ‘birthplace’ somewhere in the Middle East? Did it spread through contact with its victims, or was it omnipresent in the bad air? Russian, French, British and other medics questioned old assumptions about plague and its contagiousness, while testing out their hypotheses in Ottoman and Egyptian domains. By the 1840s, the Middle East had become a global site for epidemiological research, driving the internationalization of prevention against epidemic. Meanwhile, Ottoman and Egyptian quarantines, and the elusive nature of plague, became entangled with European political ambitions and commercial interests in the Middle East.</span>","PeriodicalId":47870,"journal":{"name":"Past & Present","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2021-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Past & Present","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtaa017","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

In the 1830s, plague, which had been all but forgotten by most Europeans, was on everyone’s lips again. Shortly after the Ottoman and Egyptian governments instituted their first permanent quarantines, the disease broke out in the Levant and the Nile delta, and the global medical community watched anxiously to see whether these new western Mediterranean-style quarantines would be able to contain it within the eastern Mediterranean. By tracing two Russian medical expeditions from the Black Sea port of Odessa to the Ottoman empire and Egypt in the 1840s, this article examines the world of European medical practitioners who engaged in vigorous debates about plague and its prevention. Did the disease have a ‘birthplace’ somewhere in the Middle East? Did it spread through contact with its victims, or was it omnipresent in the bad air? Russian, French, British and other medics questioned old assumptions about plague and its contagiousness, while testing out their hypotheses in Ottoman and Egyptian domains. By the 1840s, the Middle East had become a global site for epidemiological research, driving the internationalization of prevention against epidemic. Meanwhile, Ottoman and Egyptian quarantines, and the elusive nature of plague, became entangled with European political ambitions and commercial interests in the Middle East.

查看原文本刊更多论文

19世纪30 - 40年代奥斯曼帝国和埃及的隔离与欧洲对鼠疫的争论*

19世纪30年代，几乎被大多数欧洲人所遗忘的瘟疫再次成为人们谈论的话题。在奥斯曼帝国和埃及政府首次实施永久性隔离后不久，这种疾病在黎凡特和尼罗河三角洲爆发，全球医学界焦急地关注着这些新的西地中海式隔离是否能够将其控制在东地中海。通过追溯19世纪40年代从黑海港口敖德萨到奥斯曼帝国和埃及的两次俄罗斯医疗远征，本文考察了欧洲医疗从业者的世界，他们参与了关于瘟疫及其预防的激烈辩论。这种疾病的“发源地”在中东的某个地方吗?它是通过与受害者接触传播的，还是在恶劣的空气中无处不在?俄罗斯、法国、英国和其他国家的医生质疑关于鼠疫及其传染性的旧假设，同时在奥斯曼和埃及的领土上验证了他们的假设。到19世纪40年代，中东已成为全球流行病学研究的基地，推动了流行病预防的国际化。与此同时，奥斯曼帝国和埃及的隔离，以及鼠疫难以捉摸的本质，与欧洲在中东的政治野心和商业利益纠缠在一起。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Past & Present Multiple-

CiteScore

2.80

自引率

5.60%

发文量

期刊介绍： Founded in 1952, Past & Present is widely acknowledged to be the liveliest and most stimulating historical journal in the English-speaking world. The journal offers: •A wide variety of scholarly and original articles on historical, social and cultural change in all parts of the world. •Four issues a year, each containing five or six major articles plus occasional debates and review essays. •Challenging work by young historians as well as seminal articles by internationally regarded scholars. •A range of articles that appeal to specialists and non-specialists, and communicate the results of the most recent historical research in a readable and lively form. •A forum for debate, encouraging productive controversy.