Bloody Diarrhea in Fart: Disease and Settlement in Ottoman Anatolia

Chris Gratien, Georgetown University

I realize that the title of this article seems an odd way of presenting one's research. Yet after long hours studying the issue of disease, geography, and settlement in Ottoman Anatolia, I cannot say that the title - scatological though it may be - is inappropriate. And while this article may begin with a little bit of light humor, this brief discussion of the impact of disease on immigrants in the Ottoman Empire will end with a dose of dark irony.

BOA, DH-MKT 1862/117 (21 M 1309)

The titular line of this article appears in a one-sentence document about a disease outbreak in a remote area of the Bursa region, a district called Fart (فرط). Today, the region is known for its succulent peaches. But in the document in question, the region's moist climate produced something much less succulent, if perhaps no less watery. In the summer of 1891, local officials began to report rampant bloody diarrhea and recurring fevers among the immigrants (muhacirin) settled in the countryside. These symptoms were especially cause for concern during a period in which cholera would periodically spread like wildfire across the empire, confounding the Ottoman medical establishment. However, given the season and symptoms, the disease in question was likely malaria. During the hot August months, mosquitoes would begin to multiply in humid regions such as Fart, spreading malaria between the vulnerable rural population that had recently been transplanted from more northerly along the frontier with the Russian Empire in Crimea and the Caucasus. There was no knowledge at the time of the role of mosquitoes in spreading the disease. Instead, the malady was understood in terms of its telltale symptom of recurring fever or ague (humma-yı naibe), often accompanied by shaking and diarrhea.

Malaria was not nearly as fatal as cholera, though it claimed tens of thousands of lives annually throughout the late Ottoman period. However, the survival of malaria sufferers made the disease all the more communicable. The parasite that causes malaria lives in human blood and is passed to others via anopheles mosquitoes. As the number of hosts increases, so too does the possibility of malaria's spread. What malaria didn't kill made the disease all the more stronger. This would take a heavy toll on the labor supply and made malaria-sufferers even more vulnerable to other diseases. 

Indeed, malaria was a part of daily life in the Ottoman Empire, as virtually all areas of the Mediterranean provided fertile breeding ground for anopheles mosquitoes for at least part of the year. Low-lying and wet regions such as swamps were especially so. In addition to being good homes for mosquitoes, the Ottomans saw these areas as good homes for resettled refugees. The lands were mostly vacant, and settling newcomers near swamps would effectively deal with population pressure while in theory leading to improvements in the habitability of the countryside. Yet, this attempt to kill two birds with one stone often backfired when these new environments proved insalubrious, and although the Ottoman state had a hand in creating the predicament of these refugees, there was little it could do to alleviate their suffering. The request of the local government in this case was meager: one or two doctors would be sent with medicine, which was likely quinine if the disease in question was in fact malaria.

Despite efforts to treat the illness of the bloody diarrhea in 1891, the experience of the immigrants of Fart was likely repeated by subsequent waves of newcomers who were settled in the area following the Balkan Wars of 1912, the population exchanges of the post-World War I era, and later migrants from the Balkans. Today, the area formerly known as Fart is called Yolören, a rural part of Bursa's Yenişehir district. Of course, the name Yenişehir - the New City - is not nearly as unique as Fart.

But a new name could connote deliverance from the burdens of the past, burdens which, in many cases, included disease. This was certainly the case for a small settlement of Caucasian refugees near Ankara. Though the place was far from Fart, it posed the same challenges to settlement. Indeed, these challenges became embedded in its name itself, as locals called the area Sıtma, literally "malaria." In lieu of being able to change the disease ecology of the land, then, officials sought to change the land's name, opting for a bland expression of novelty. The place called Sıtma - Malaria - was to become Şehr-i Cedid - which like Fart's environs also means New City. The only concern expressed by officials regarding this name change was the great potential for confusion within bureaucratic correspondence with the aforementioned Yenişehir.

BOA, BEO 995/74567 (19 Rebiulevvel 1315).

Sources: BOA, DH-MKT 1862/117 (21 M 1309); BEO 995/74567 (19 Rebiulevvel 1315).

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