Jamal Rezaei Orimi

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A Critique of the Article “Consideration 
of the Quarantine in Bushehr 1905 - 1915 
based on Baliuz of Britain Reports”
Jamal Rezaei Orimi1
1- M.Sc in Medical Sciences History, 
Traditional and Complementary Medi-
cine Research Center, Arak University of 
Medical Sciences, Arak, Iran
Correspondence: 
Jamal Rezaei Orimi 
M.Sc in Medical Sciences History, Tra-
ditional and Complementary Medicine 
Research Center, Arak University of 
Medical Sciences, Arak, Iran
rezaei.history93@gmail.com
Res Hist Med 2021; 10(2)
127
Citation: 
Rezaei Orimi J. A Critique of the arti-
cle “Consideration of the quarantine in 
Bushehr 1905 - 1915 based on Baliuz of 
Britain Reports”. Res Hist Med. 2021; 
10(2): 127-130.
 letter to
editor
Dear Editor,
In  Journal of “Research on History of Medicine”, 
issue 1, vol.2, 2013 (pp.25-32),  an article, entitled 
“Consideration of Quarantine Conditions in Bushehr 
Between 1905 and 1915, Based on Baliuz of Britain 
Reports” (Nadim, 2013, pp. 25-32), was published. 
The article, written by the esteemed author Mr. Mosta-
fa Nadim, seems to suffer some shortcomings. There-
fore, the purpose of writing this letter is to discuss 
those points and prevent the print of distorted informa-
tion in a scientific research journal. Accordingly, the 
following points are considered important to be men-
tioned in this letter:
In this article, the keywords introduced face two 
major defects. First, the word ‘quarantine’ is not used 
as the English keyword. Second, Persian and English 
keywords do not match. That is, in English keywords, 
after naming Bahrain, Britain and Bushehr, the keyword “Qajar period” has 
been used. But in Persian keywords, instead of the keyword “Qajar period”, 
that of “quarantine” has been used.
The next subject is about the use of “Bahrain” as a keyword in the article. 
By reading the article, we have found that the author mentions Bahrain in only 
two sentences, on pages 30 and 31. Thus, despite the thematic similarity of the 
two sentences mentioned, the main focus of the article is not Bahrain and, the 
word Bahrain should not be used as one of the four main keywords (Persian and 
English) in the article.
In the introduction of the article, the author discusses the importance of the 
Persian Gulf for the British government and other countries. But in the next 
section, he states the quarantine and its history in the world and Iran as the 
purpose of the research. In fact, this section lacks the main components of the 
introduction of an academic article: objectives (general and specific), research 
issue, importance and necessity of research, research records and design of hy-
potheses (Mollaei Tavani, 2007, p. 205).
In this article, the background of the research is not mentioned and the reader 
does not know how this research differs from other research done in this field. 
In fact, the realization of the goals of any research depends on a large extent on 
the quality of research background, namely analytical and critical review of ex-
isting works and research (Mollaei Tavani, 2007, p. 94). Studies show that vari-
ous authors in the past years have addressed the issue of quarantine in Bushehr 
and the Persian Gulf during the Qajar period and have explored different parts 
of the subject (Dehghannejad and Kasiri, 2010, pp. 1-14; Kasiri and Dehghan-
nejad, 2011, pp. 50-62). Hence, it is expected from the writer that he has given 
references to the studies conducted before.
As the subject of the article is to survey the quarantine related to the epidem-
ics in the ports of Persian Gulf and Bushehr, it has to give a brief history of 
incidence of infectious disease and the establishment of quarantine in Qajar pe-
riod. The author has only mentioned the plague in the Persian Gulf in 1876 AD, 
as if by exploring historical sources related to Qajar period, cases of infectious 
diseases and control measures would comprise the issue of quarantine in the 
Persian Gulf, Bushehr and other parts of Iran (Floor, 2008, pp. 15-24; Fraser, 
1826, p. 317; Larimer, 2015, p. 52).
The author of the article talks about the quarantine location in Bushehr (page 
28):
In existing reports, the word “island” has been often referred to as the quaran-
tine location. “However, because the method of writing the reports was based 
on brevity, no document has mentioned the exact location of the island.”
In fact, the location of the quarantine, an island near the port of Bushehr, 
128
Res Hist Med 2021; 10(2)
Jamal Rezaei Orimi 
remains unknown to the author according to Cox reports. But in some books 
related to the medical history of Iran, the name of this island has been deter-
mined. For instance, Floor introduces the quarantine island (Floor, 2008, p. 276) 
as “Abbasak” and Cyril Lloyd Elgood states that during the plague epidemic in 
Bushehr during the Qajar period, consular women were transferred to “Basido 
Island” (Elgood, 1992, pp. 569-576). Therefore, according to these books, Ab-
basak Island or Basido can be the name of that unknown island.
One of the noteworthy points in the article in terms of writing process is that 
the writer fails to pay due attention to what comprises a paragraph; that is to say, 
changing a paragraph implies changing the subject matter. In the article under 
study, the writer resorts to changing a paragraph for no reason. For example, we 
can see the following point is unnecessarily written as a new paragraph:
“In May of this year, 68 cases of plague and 57 deaths due to this disease were 
reported in Bushehr” (p. 29).
In the result section of the article, the author has talked about the climatic 
conditions of the Persian Gulf region as well as the lack of hospitals, doctors 
and drugs (p. 31). However, there is no evidence of this in the main text of the 
article and the author has not mentioned the incidence of epidemics here. In 
fact, as a rule of thumb, in the result section of an article, new findings should 
not be presented.
References 
Dehghannejad, M., and  Kasiri, M., 2010. The problem of Quarantines in Iran 
during Naseroldin Shah’s era (1847-1986). Journal of Historical Researches, 
2(4), pp. 1-14.
Elgood, C., 1992. A Medical History of Persia and Eastern Caliphate. Tehran: 
Amirkabir.
Floor, W., 2008. Public health in Qajar Iran. Boshehr: Boshehr Univercity of 
Medical Science.
Fraser, J., 1826. Travels and adventures in the persian provinces on the southern 
banks of the caspian sea. London : Longman.
Kasiri, M., and Dehghannejad, M., 2011. Quarantines of Iran in the end of Gha-
jar and the beginning of Pahlavi era. Journal of Medical Ethics and History of 
Medicine, 4(6), pp. 50-62.
Larimer, J., 2015. Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman, and Central Arabia. 
Translated by Kheirandish. Tehran: Abadboom.
Mollaei Tavani, A., 2007. Daramadi Bar Raveshe Pajoohesh Dar Tarikh. Teh-
ran: Nashre Ney.
Nadim, M., 2013. Consideration of Quarantine Conditions in Bushehr Between 
129
Res Hist Med 2021; 10(2)
Running Title?
1905 and 1915, Based on Baliuz of Britain Reports. Journal of Research on His-
tory of Medicine, 2(1), pp. 25-32.
Received: 12 Feb 2021; Accepted: 5 Apr 2021; Online published: 20 May 2021 
Research on History of Medicine/ 2021 May; 10(2): 127-130.
130
Res Hist Med 2021; 10(2)
Jamal Rezaei Orimi 


A Critique of the Article “Consideration of the Quarantine in Bushehr 1905 - 1915 based on Baliuz of Britain Reports”

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A Critique of the Article “Consideration of the Quarantine in Bushehr 1905 - 1915 based on Baliuz of Britain Reports”

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