In 1906, a British missionary of the Church Missionary Society wrote about an outbreak of cholera in Birzeit thirty years before that began when the mother of a young man who died of cholera in Nablus washed his clothes in the village spring. The disease quickly spread and within a week killed 30 people out of a population of 200-300. The epidemic ended when a village elder ordered the entire population to camp in their vineyards. Three men remained to bury the dead and there were no further victims. The author felt that the incident was notable "as there was no European hand in it from first to last, and it shows what the Fellahin are capable of under wise and energetic native guidance."