Miasma, microbe, and the administration of land in early twentieth-century Port Fouad

The mid-nineteenth century was the era of the sanitary movement and saw the rise of germ theory. While the two were often in conflict, together, they redefined relationships between the medical sciences, the built environment, and the administration of land. This article explores how these developments shaped Port Fouad, a planned town built by the French-controlled Suez Canal Company on the eastern side of the Suez Canal in Egypt in the interwar period. The article draws on the Suez Canal Company archive to uncover how shifting understandings of the relationship between water and disease transmission influenced town planning decisions. It also explores the spatial consequences of those decisions, including how they affected land values and spurred the commodification of land, social segregation, and social inequities. It argues that while planners applied knowledge and techniques that were emergent in medical science and planning, the application of that knowledge did not disrupt nor impede colonial social engineering. Instead, in Port Fouad, emerging technologies were wielded to meet old ends.