Public health in Atjeh — the long battle against cholera (1874–1875, 1883), smallpox (1915–1916), leprosy, dysentery and insanity which the Government of Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden fought with artesian waterworks, vaccination campaigns, leper colonies, quarantine stations and psychiatric inquiry — was one of the chief proofs, for author Joh. Langhout, of the benevolent intent of the Dutch administration, whose military physicians brought the Atjehnese “without any return performance” into contact with “our good intentions”.
Water and epidemics
The healthiest-leaning optimist could not blind himself to the “most unfavourable state of health” with which the Dutch had to wrestle in Atjeh: particularly cholera had raged frightfully in the first years (1874–1875). The boring of the first artesian well in Atjeh began in September 1874; though the water first found proved unusable, the well of 22 June 1875 yielded about 60 litres of excellent drinking water per minute. The province of 1883 was visited by a violent cholera epidemic with thousands of victims and by a violent earthquake. Wherever streaming water existed — at Koeta Radja, Sabang, Tjalang and Tapa Toean — the sewerage was later importantly improved, and artesian bores were made among other places at Langsar and Sigli; the wooden-housed company settlement at Sinabang (Simaloer) was purged of dysentery by its prise d’eau and sanitation works (see N.V. Vereenigde Javasche Houthandel Maatschappijen), and the crowding of some 5,000 troops within the concentrated line worsened the soldiery’s health in the 1880s.
Lepers, pilgrims, smallpox
Because fairly many unattended lepers (leprozen) walked about in the province, they were gathered at several isolated places into colonies: in Groot-Atjeh in 1911 in an agricultural colony on the islet Pò-Amat, enjoying a government subsidy; the leproseries founded in the several self-governing territories of the Dependencies were financed from the landscape treasuries. With an eye on the pilgrims returning from Mekka from the Archipelago, a temporary quarantine institution was erected in 1912 on the island Roebia in the Sabang bay, to be replaced later by a permanent station for two thousand pilgrims. Because the population of Atjeh had always suffered much from smallpox epidemics, everything was done to make vaccination find entry among the Atjehnese population: when a smallpox epidemic broke out in 1915 and in 1916, the vaccination was vigorously carried through everywhere, so that at the book’s appearance the greatest part of the population was vaccinated.
The insanity inquiry of 1920
The striking frequency of insanity among the Atjehnese population — nominal returns counted 1,100 insane persons — moved Governor A. G. H. van Sluys to one of his first measures: the Batavia psychiatrist Dr. F. H. van Loon came in 1920 to institute a psychiatric investigation in the province, visiting a great number of places in which 215 patients were examined; he established that a very great number of insane walked freely about, and deemed the admission of all sufferers into an institution desirable — also in the interest of the further pacification (see A. G. H. van Sluys).
Medical service
“Repeatedly has from different sides been pointed to the much good that the Dutch military physicians have done in Atjeh in this respect”: through the work of the Dutch medicus the Atjehnese experiences at first hand, without any return service, the good intentions of the Netherlands, and thus “enjoys, without wrang aftertaste, the fruits of the Dutch authority”. Hospitals arose at the several government establishments (among them the new Sabang hospital for Europeans and native and Chinese workers), at the Rantau Pandjang and company estates, and at Koeta Radja (also a pavilion plan of the earlier hospital at Panté Pirah on the first tram-line).
See Also
- A. G. H. van Sluys
- F. H. van Loon
- H. N. A. Swart
- Cholera epidemic and earthquake of 1883
- Pacification of Atjeh
Source
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 32, 52, 60, 103, 109, 117–118, 134.