The Weekly Perrysburg journal. [volume] (Perrysburg, O. [Ohio]) 1861-1???, 1865-08-15
The gla9ue,
HISTORY OF THE PLAGUE---ITS
SYMPTOMS AND CHARACTER.
The Russian Epidemic, and the Chances
Of its Appearance in the West.

The Russian Epidemic, and the Chances
Of its Appearance in the West.
From the New York Evening Tost.l
Apprehensions have been entertained
that the pestilence known as the Russian
Plague" aud now apparently epidemic in
Western Siberia, would come westward to
Europe and then to this continent. Many
of our physicians have endeavored to allay
fear by declaring that the malady was only
species of typhus or typhoid fever, occa.
stoned by improper habits, and was not
likely, therefore, to be conveyed into the
better regulated cities of the " st. Wheth-
er these declarations are entitled to coufi-
dence, not enough is yet known to deter
mine.
Rumor has already declared the Russian
pestience to be identical in form and symp-
toms with the great plague of two hundred
years ago, and the Black Death of the four
teenth century; and it is the duty of medi-
cal men to become familiar with the facts,
that they may quiet untounded apprehen-
sion, and fortify themselves in case OF
threatened invasion. Cholera is already
ravaging Arabia and the Delta of Egypt,
with evident indications of coming west
ward and in view of this prospect, the
apprehension of another pestilence be-
with mistery, apparently ruthless IN its
operations, will excite deadly terror,
when the facts and symptoms attendant
upon it, if made known, would assuage
whatever alarm might be experienced.
EPIpEMICs-PoPULAR NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS..
There is great deal of popular misap-
prehension in regard TO epidemics. Many
seem to suppose that they may be engen-
dered by the exhalation of foul end putrid
matter and every time Il at street dht,
stagnant water and refuse from houses are
suffered to accumulate in cities, the penny
a-liner chronicles the fact, and adds his
foreboding of epidemic disease. Either be-
cause of ignorance or professional PRIDE,
no one ventures to contrOvert him. 1t is
true that these accumulatlons poison the
air, and afford indus and medium for
disease, but they are hardly sufficient to
create it alone. Epidemics are produced
| by causes which seem to be beyond these
| local agencies, and manifest the pecularity
of modifying the epidemic diseases so as
| to conform them more or less to the type
of the prevalent malady.
sYDENHANs THEORY OF EPIDEMIC DISEASE.
Epidemic diseases, Sydenham declares,
proceed from Il latent and ineXplicabIe AL
ieration of the air, injecting the bodies OF
men, not from any peculiar state or dis
position Of the blood and juices any further
than an occult influence OF the air may com
municate this with the body. They con-
tinue only during this one state or consti-
tuition of the air, having nevertheless pro-
duced very different tribes of diseases,
and other years which were marked by
dissimilar, have been characterized by dis.
eases OF like type. There are, therefore,
he thinks, various general constitutions OF
years that owe their origin neither to heat,
cold, dryness, nor moisture, but rather de
pend upon a certain action in the bowels of
the earth, which impregnates the air and
subjects the human body TO particular dis
tempers so long az that kind of constitution
prevails. These distempers all differ in
kind from those which have the same name
but are produced in another constitution.
history OF THE PLAGUE.
It is supposed that the plague has rage d
IN Asia and Egypt from Iemote antiquity.
Pestilence scourged the lsraelteg in the
desert Of Arabia, and depopulsted Athens
during the rule of Periclos. But we have
no data to assure us of tile precise nature
of the maladies, and cannot authoritatively
pronounce upon their identity with the
epidemic that now bears the name Of the
plague.
Since the Christian era the history OF
this pestilence has been better understood.
In 542 it appeared in Greece, and two years
afterward il ravished the city of Constan-
tinople Thence it proceeded TO Western
Europe, aud in 554 Theobald, King Of the
Franks. became its victim. The next cen
tury it again visited the countries of the
| opraa6inrg pyar Eyria in EQ0
and prevailing at Rome twenty five years
afterward Wighand, a Saxon priest, Wis
tied Rome to be cousecrated chGlshop oi
Canterbury, and died there Of the plague in
COZ. In TAG this pestilence was again rap,
idly depopulatlug ue countries on the
lLeyant,