The Redesign of Nineteenth-century Cairo: The Impact of International Medical Thought on the Transformation of Cultural Landscapes

An examination of the relationship between historical cultural-landscape change in response to international medical thought, and contemporary cultural-landscape change as a result of emerging diseases, such as West Nile Virus (WNV) , offers valuable insight into the connection between the 'global and the local' in landscape architecture. The evolution of international medical protocols related to the historical transformation of nineteenth-century Cairo and current World Health Organization (WHO) and US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) medical protocols, is particularly useful in this examination because: (1) The direct and continuous relationship between the medical protocols first instituted in nineteenth-century Cairo and contemporary WHO and CDC medical protocols offers a useful timeline to interpret the influence of international medical ideology on cultural-landscape change. (2) Contemporary WHO and CDC protocols that emphasise the use of both traditional and contemporary methods in the control of emerging disease require an understanding of historic, environmental design response to disease in order that those protocols are adequately addressed within established cultural landscapes in particular. The paper traces the origins and development of international medical protocols from nineteenth-century Cairo to current WHO and CDC protocols, and describes the environmental transformation of nineteenth-century Cairo. Further, the paper identifies contemporary CDC protocols concerning West Nile Virus that are related to landscape architecture, and suggests guidelines for contemporary change in the cultural and natural landscape in response to emerging disease