66 Influenza.

The epidemic which appeared in the country in May 1918 lasted until February 1919- The peak of the curve was reached in the first week of December 1918, and by the end of February this year the disease had practically disappeared.

In February 1919 it was made compulsory by law to notify cases of influenza to the Public Health Administration. This was advised on account of the possibility of typhus fever being diagnosed as influenza in order to escape the obligation to notify the disease, and MUS escape the irksome consequences of disinfection, isolation, &c.

Plague.

The total number of cases reported was 877 as compared with 357 in 1918. The number of deaths was 473, showing a mortality of 53-9 per cent, as compared with 153, and a death-rate of 42*8 per cent, in 1918. Of the 877 cases occurring in 1919 64 were septicaeraic, 76 pneumonic, and the rest bubonic.

Typhus.

The Weil-Felix reaction having been found positive for some 70 jer cent, of typhus fever cases at the Fever Hospital, Abbassia, is now carried out as a routine practice for aid in the diagnosis of that disease .

INFECTIOUS Disease Statistics.

Disease.

1918.

Cases. Deaths.

1919.

Cases. Deaths.

MiMihigitis Chicken pox Cholera Dipljthoria Measles Plague Kelapsing fever Scarlet fever Smallpox Typhoid fever Typhus fever G4 359 15 1,802 8,68-1 857 12,642 247 1,198 3,094 24,953 89 0 6 409 1,757 153 829 9 860 932 6,589 84 451 *990 8,483 877 8,276 217 7,895 2,701 16,970 48 29 * 344 1,643 473 598 15 1,926 587 5,569 A nthracc.

The Depa.rtment is in communication with the British authorities in connection with tlie installation of a disinfecting station to deal with the disinfection of \yool from the Soudan and Egypt prior to its exportation abroad as a guarantee against the spread of anthrax. A committee has been set up in England to study this question, and when it has completed its experiments regarding the best method of procedure for wool disinfection, it is proposed to adopt the same system in Egypt.

Cases of anthrax having occurred amongst British soldiers in August, due it was supposed to the use of infected shaving brushes, investigations showed that these brushes had arrived from Kobe, Japan. The suspected consignment was traced, and bacteriological examination proved the presence of anthrax bacilli. The consignment was destroyed.

The Customs Administration was requested to hold up all consignments of shaving brushes in Egyptian ports pending bacteriological examination, and a law forbidaing the admission into this country of all shaving brushes unaccompanied by certificate of disinfection was prepared and put forward for promulgation.

Prior to the war the trade in cheap shaving brushes was practically a German monopoly, and in that country adequate precautions were taken to disinfect the horsehair from which they were made. Hair used in the brushes made in Japan comes, it is understood, chiefly from Chinese sources—a type of hair notoriously known to be infected with anthrax.

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