1. Geographical Spread and Duration

Epidemic diseases were quite common in the Ottoman Empire. One of the most serious epidemics, definitely the best documented thanks to the accounts of foreign travellers as well as official documents, was the plague that struck the empire in the first half of the 19^th century.

The catastrophic epidemic first appeared in 1834-35 in Egypt, where, according to a British traveller, it killed approximately 200,000 people.¹ In Cairo only there were 5000 victims.² The way in which the epidemic broke out and the measures taken to prevent it from further spread are not known. The most common precautionary measure at the time was quarantine, that is, the preventive isolation of people, animals and goods in restricted areas in ports and entrances to the cities. However, although the measure of quarantine was implemented, it did not produce the desired effects in the case of Egypt.

According to the reports of the French consul in Trebizond, there were cases of the epidemic in the city already from July 19, 1835. Neither the reasons nor the way in which the epidemic was spread to Trebizond are known. The spread of the epidemic to the city was so great that until August 24 of the same year 154 people died out of the 205 cases. Most of the victims were Muslim inhabitants of the city.³ The first cases in Constantinople (Istanbul) appeared in 1836. The traveller Hamilton, who was in the Ottoman capital in November and December of that year, reports that there had already appeared several cases of the epidemic in the city. It is reported that for six months the number of the weekly victims in Constantinople ranged between 6000 and 8000, which, although an iflated number, points at the seriousness of the situation.⁴ During the epidemic between 25,000 and 30,000 people died.⁵

The inhabitants of Smyrna, which maintained close commercial relations with the capital, were in readiness. However, despite the precautions, possibly in early 1837, the disease spread to Smyrna, perhaps by two Greek travellers who arrived there with a steamship.⁶ The disease inflicted the city and between 15,000 and 16,000 people lost their lives.⁷ By June 1837, the epidemic was spread to the southeast. According to Hamilton, every day in Ilghun, near Ladik (Laodicea Katakekavmeni), 8 to 10 cases appeared and, as a result, 670 houses of the city were completely deserted. The epidemic struck equally heavily in Kara Ağaç, where more than the half of the population died. Then the plague struck the entire administrative district of Antalya. The disease must have been less sweeping as it proceeded towards Asia Minor mainland. For example, several people were infected at Çankırı (central Asia Minor), while in the wider area around the city no cases were reported.

It seems that in the same year the disease was spread from Asia Minor to mainland Greece, as there is evidence about a plague epidemic in Poros Island of the Saronic Gulf in 1837 and Thessaloniki.

There is important information about the spread of the epidemic to the eastern part of Asia Minor provided by two English antiquarians, W.F. Ainsworth, responsible for an excavations in Kurdistan, and C. Fellows, who in 1839 published the account of a journey he made to Asia Minor at the time. According to the former, in December 1838 a case of plague appeared on the ship carrying him from Constantinople to Trebizond, which made the passengers of the ship disembark and continue the voyage by land.⁸

In 1838 Trebizond asked for medical assistance from Constantinople to deal with the disease, which was becoming more serious; an Ottoman doctor arrived along with two European colleagues.⁹ As it spread to the east, the disease also struck the regions of Samsun (Amisos), Armenia and Haimaneh, thus perturbing the Ottoman authorities of Safranbolu, who assigned a European doctor with the task of investigating the spread of the blow.¹⁰ There were also cases in the district of Batum, as well as in other cities of the Pontus like Kastamonu.¹¹

As for the same region and period, Fellows reports that in the district of Phrygia, near Lake Ascania, he saw open graves that were going to accept the recent victims of the plague. According to Ainsworth, on March 19, 1839, the plague struck the wider area of Ankara. He also believes that the epidemic spread because there had been an epidemic that had decimated the cattle, the sheep and the goats in rural areas. The peasants, instead of removing or cremating the animals, left them moulder in the settlements, out of religious prejudice or fear, and thus were created the foci of infection that facilitated the spread of the epidemic . In the Turkmen village of Çaltis, the traveller saw a native lying on the road, with obvious marks of the disease on his body.¹²

In April of the same year, Fellows visited the region of Miletus, where the fishermen informed him that they were in quarantine because of the disease. Moreover, the commercial centre of Kuşadası was isolated because of the epidemic.¹³ Although the main foci of the disease had been under control until the late 1839, according to consular reports of 1840 from Trebizond, the plague was still killing people in the city and the wider area, while foreign doctors continued offering their medical assistance. It was not until 1849 that the references to the epidemic and its victims had stopped. It seems that the epidemic in the empire lasted about 15 years.

2. Cause and Consequences of the Disease

The poor sanitary conditions, congestion in the cities and the increased commercial transactions were some of the factors that made the spread of the plague easier. In Constantinople at the time, people used to say that all evils, such as cold, fog, plague and the Russians, came from the Black Sea.¹⁴ However, the fact that the early cases appeared in Egypt does not justify this claim. The pilgrims could also have been infected by the disease, as they travelled from Asia Minor to Mecca and other holy places via Syria.¹⁵ Commercial networks must have been one of the main reasons for the spread of the epidemic, as, according to travellers, the disease frequently broke out aboard ships carrying goods and passengers as well as at commercial stations. The ignorance of rural populations as well as their prejudice contributed greatly to the quick spread of the disease, as they left the dead animals moulder unburied, for fear of removing them, thus creating more serious foci of infection. Lastly, quarantine was not always efficient.

Commerce was the sector directly influenced by the spread of the disease, as several commercial stations and harbours were in quarantine, which obstructed commercial transactions.¹⁶ Of course, there were also severe local demographic consequences, for in some cases the population was decimated, as it happened at Ilghun, where the keys to 670 deserted houses were handed in to the authorities.

As a matter of fact, it was clear that the disease struck the inhabitants of the empire regardless of their economic or social position. The case of the ağa of Ilghun, who abandoned the settlement after the death of his daughter, should be mentioned.