Lord Kitchener's Reports on Egypt and the Sudan in 1913
were issued on Tuesday. In dealing with the condition of the peasantry Lord Kitchener insists on the need of eau-. eating them in the elements of hygiene and the relation between dirt and disease. He accordingly recommends the use of an elementary text-book in all the village schools and the appoint- ment of old soldiers as sanitary inspectors. He notes as as encouraging sign that the people no longer object to being isolated for infectious diseases, and have to a certain extent overcome their dislike of sanitary measures. The notification of infections diseases is now general, concealment is the excep- tion and not the rale, and pilgrims returning to their homes come of their own accord to be medically examined. As a result of this change plague is well under control, while the eye diseases—rife in Egypt as far back as three thousand five hundred years ago—and pellagra are being fought on scientific lines, and infant mortality checked by the establishment of maternity schools and children's dispensaries in the provincial towns. Lady doctors travel round inspecting and instructing, and midwives are taken from the villages, trained, and sent back.
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