Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1865-07-15
NUMBER IA.
The Black Death.

The Black Death, like many other plaques
OF its class, can be traced far back into the
remote East; and there is no doubt but
that it was the same disease which ravaged
China and Tartary in 1888, fifteen years be-
lore 1t arrived on the shores of Europe.
There. had been a great famine in China,
preceded by flood and earthquakes, which
alone destroyed 100000 persons, and in the
following year no fewer than 100000 died
there OF this plague. From the remotest
East it made its way into Europe some
years later, for pestilence often travels
slowly, accompanying the migrations of
men, and being carried about in the CLOTH
ing and merchandise. 1t did not arrive in
Europe until l347, fifteen years after its
outbreak In China. "From China" says
Hecker, ''the routes of the caravans lay to
the north OF the Caspian sea, through Cen
tral Asia, to Tauris. Here ships were ready
to take the products of the East to Con-
stantinople, the capital of commerce and
the medium of communication between
Asia, Europe and Africa" Contagion
made its way along these channels, and
Constantinople and the seaports of Asia
Minor were the foci whence the disease
was carried to every country of Europe.
Making its way across the European con-
tlnent it committed its greatest ravages-
save, perhaps, in England-in Italy, raging
OShIAneJ db WHtTc IL WAS ODScTVeU
and described by the poet Boccaccio. Pass
ing along the shores of the Mediterranean,
itinvaded France by way of Avignon,
spreading thence to England on the one
hand and to Germany on the other; whence,
like the cholera of the present day, it
doubled back, two years later, to Russia,
and so back to the East
The Black Death so called from the rapid
putrefaction of the bodies of its victims,
was of the same nature as the Oriental
plague-viZ, putrid typhus, only of great
er malignity. The boils and buboes of the
latter disease were found in the former
whenever the patient lived long enough to
permit their development. The inhabitants
OF Europeat that time have been computed
at l05,OO0000-a high estimate. OF these
25,000,00O, or one-fourth of the whole,
persisted! In England it was still more
fatal, owing, probably, to the ruder habits
OF the people. During the term of one
year-ViZ, from August, 134S, to August,
1919, three-fourths OF the whole population
perished! Indeed, if we are to credit an
nalists of the period, not more than one
tenth escaped! Many slccumbed in few
hours like Sennacherib's host; none en-
dured for three days. In France numbers
died on the spot where they were first
smitten, as if struck by lightning. This
terrible scOurge, having swept over the
then known world. committing such de-
struction of life, and leaving behind itsuch
misery and poverty as the world never saw
before nor since, at length died out; never
again, we trust to revisit the earth. It
spared neither age, sex nor condition; the
rich and the poor alike succumbed. There
died in Venice the aristocratc, no less than
100000 persons; in Florence the refined,
600O0; in Paris the gay, $4,000; and in
London the wealthy, l0O000: while i'm busy
rich, industrious Norwich, there died the
almost incredible number of $4,000 persons
NEARLY the whole, one would suppose, of
its inhabitants! At Avignon the deaths
occurred with such frightful rapidity as
wholly to BATTLE the attempts of the living
to inter their friends and relatives; and the
Pope was obliged to conseerate the Rhone
to allow of the dead bodies finding a hal
lowed resting place upon its bosom, until it
finally committed them to the great deep
CorntU Magazine