The newspaper Zierikzeesche Courant dated Saturday 28 June 1884 reported that in Toulon cholera broke out causing panic in South France and in Paris. According to an official announcement was the minister of navy the Wednesday before warned by telegraph that Toulon feared for the outbreak of cholera. Cholera was not an unknown disease in this area so it fact was the death of a patient on the 14th neglected while the ships which returned from Tongking [Vietnam] had no sick on board. When however more people died including men in the navy hospital were measures taken to prevent the navy personnel and the ships transferred as far as possible from the epidemic centre. The navy infantry was transferred to saint Madrier and the crews of the reserve fleet not allowed to go on shore. The commonly conviction was that the cholera not caused by the recently returning from China by the transports Sarthe, Mytho and Bien Hon but by the worse town sewage.
The newspaper Middelburgsche Courant dated 2 July 1884 wrote that according to the correspondent of the British newspaper Times in Toulon rumours were spread that the captain of the transport Sarthe committed suicide caused by regretting to enter the town with cholera on board despite heavy protests of his officers. In Paris was this rumour denied. The edition of the next day reported that it was not the captain of the Sarthe which ship likely responsible was for the cholera but just a citizen of Toulon. The suspicion that it was the Sarthe responsible for taken the cholera with her was confirmed by her ships’ log. When she was on the Red Sea there were 14 cases on board.
