The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1865-08-07
The Black Death.

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 is the same dis
ease which ravaged China and Tar
tary in 1888. fifteen years before it
arrived on the shores of Europe.
There had been great famine in
China, preceded by floods and earth
quakes, which alone destroyed 400, 900
persons, and in the following year no
fewer than 5000, 900 died there of this
plague. From the remote East it
made its way into Europe some years
later, for pestilence often travels slow
1y, accompanying the migrations of
men, and being carried about in their
clothing and merchandise. It did not
arrive in Europe until 1347, fifteen
years after its outbreak. in China.
From China" says Hecker. ttlle
routes of the caravans lay to the North
of the Caspian Sea, through Central
Asia, to Tauris. Here ships we're
ready to take the produce of the East
to Constantinople, the capital of com
merce and the medium of conlmunica-
ton 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 E lropc. Making its
way across the European continent, it
committed its greatest ravages-save,
perhaps, in England-in Italy; raging
terribly at Florence, where it was OBJ
served and described by the poet Boo
caccio. Passing along the shores of
t.le Mediterranean, it invaded France
ny way OF Avlgnon, 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 Rus
sia, and 80 back to the East.
The Black Death, so called from the
rapid putrefaction of the bodies of its
victims, was Of thesamc nature as the
Oriental plasue-viz: a putrid typhus,
only q greater malignity. The boils
and buboes of the latter disease were
found in the former whenever the pa
tient lived long enough to permit their
development. The inhabitants of Eu-
rope at that time have been computed
at 100, 600, OOO-a high estimate OF
these 25, 100000, or one-fourth of the
whole, perIshed In England it was
still more fatal, owing, probably, to
the ruder habits of the people Dur
ing the term Of one year-viz: from
August, 1913, to August, 1349, three
fourths Of the whole population per-
ished Indeed, if we are to credit
the analists of the period, not more
than one-tenth escaped Many s,M-
cumbed in a few hours, like SIENNA
cherib'S host; none endured for three
days. In France numbers died on the
spot where they were first smittcn, us
if struck by lightning. This terrible
scourge, having swept over the then
known world, committing such de-
struction "f life, and leaving behind it
such misery and poverty as the world
never saw before or since, at length
died out; never again, we trust, to re-
visit the earth. It spared neither age,
sex, nor condition; the rich and the
poor alike succumbed. Thee died in
Venice, the aristocratic, no less than
100000 persons; in Florence, the
refined, $4,000; in Paris, the gay,
$4,000; and in London, the wealthy,
100000; while in the busy, rich, in
dustrious Norwich, there died the al
most incredible number Of SO, 900 per-
aons-nearly the whole, one would
suppose, Of its inhabitants At .AviGf