The Cholera catastrophe at Kota Radja (February 1875) was the worst single medical disaster to strike the Dutch establishment in Atjeh between the second expedition and Borel’s writing, in which, in the span of one month, almost five hundred people — of whom two hundred and seventy were military — died in the K. Radja ambulances alone, at an average of fifteen to eighteen deaths a day and peak days of twenty-five or even thirty, and which forced the long-postponed decision to evacuate all sick from the Kraton and rebuild the hospitals on the grass plain of Pantej Perak on the right bank of the Atjeh-rivier.
The epidemic
February 1875 was, Borel writes, extraordinarily unfavourable for health. Cholera and other deadly diseases raged horribly among troops and coolies. Since the landing on the Atjeh coast the Dutch had never in so short a time suffered such appalling losses. In the K. Radja ambulances alone almost five hundred people died (of whom two hundred and seventy military), averaging fifteen to eighteen per day, with peak days of twenty-five or even thirty. The Kraton now resembled one great hospital. The dead were constantly carried through the interior, simply wrapped in a sheet, on a wheeled stretcher drawn by two kettingganger convicts, to the cemetery at K. Podjoct. These “ominous little wagons” had to go inside the parapet, past the barracks. Borel strongly criticises the practice as injurious to morale.
The decision
The situation became so alarming that the absolute necessity of strong measures was recognised if the entire Indies army was not “to go to ruin.” As the first step the ambulances were to be moved to the right bank of the Atjeh-rivier, where the grass plain of Pantej Perak south of Penajoeng offered an excellent building site. Only when all the sick were removed from K. Radja, and the bamboo barracks there demolished, burned, or properly disinfected, could a favourable change be hoped for. In early March the engineers began urgently building a camp for a battalion of infantry on the right bank to cover the new hospitals.
Borel’s verdict
For Borel the catastrophe was the bitter fruit of van Swieten’s decision to construct the garrison’s barracks on the flooded river plain of the Kraton rather than on piles, compounded by the bandjir of December 1874 that had soaked and contaminated the ground. The official health officers — each doctor at K. Radja had to treat more than a hundred patients — he praises warmly for their skill, zeal and self-sacrifice.
See Also
- Kota Radja
- Pantej Perak
- Penajoeng
- Kota Podjoet
- Atjeh-rivier
- Generaal Pel
- Jan van Swieten
- Bandjir flood of Kota Radja (December 1874)
- Kettinggangers in Atjeh
- 1875
Source
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 254–258.