The Weekly Perrysburg journal. [volume] (Perrysburg, O. [Ohio]) 1861-1???, 1865-08-15


were shivering and fever, 40 slight at FIRST
as to alarm neither physician nor patient
but within one or two days, or oven in u
few hours ouly, would appear Inflammation
Of tho glands OF the mouth, Nrmpits and
groins, with carbuncles and gangrene.
often the patient would perish before these
signs Of the disease had become visible.
Tho plague has prevailed since that
time at short intervals in various parts OF
Europe as late as tho seventeenth century.
Ii was SO regular in England that Syder.
ham mentions il as cause for thanktulness
that il seldom ragged violently above once
in thirty or forty years Tho wars so tre'
qucut during the middle ages aided TO dis
seminate it over tho countries. In the
year llI2 tho Vcnetians. beii,g at war with
the Hungarians and the Roman Emperor nj
Coustantinople, brought It homo in their
shattered fleet. IL again devastated Italy
iu 1910, and breaking out in tho army of the
Emperor Henry II, the Empress herself fell
q victim.
THE "BLNCH DEATH.
In 1882 China was severely afflicted by
famine. Floods and earthquakes preceded
IT, destroying about halt million os per-
sons, The next year the plague followed,
and more than five millions perished. Tar
tary was next visited, the pestilence taking
the route of the caravans into Russia. IL
passed by the north of tho Baltic Sea to the
Pauric Peninsula Here ships were on
haid to convey tho merchandise of the
East to Constantinople, and they also took
on board tho dreadful coutagion. All the
seaports and provinces of the Eastern Ro-
man Empire became focuses of the plague.
Its form was that of puirid typhus, more
malignant than tho common scourge of the
East The boil aud gandular swellings
were frequently undeveloped, death occur.
ring too suddenly Modification set in so
speedily that the pestilence everywhere
bore the name of tho "'black DEATH
Europe seems to have undergone sim
| liar preparation for its advent TO that OF
China In the autumn of l3l5 excessive
rains prevailed in Italy, Spain, France and
other countries, preventing the sowing OF
grain, and rotting it where il had been sown
The next year universal scarcity ragged
throughout Italy, aud the famine plague
had already began its devastations when II
was overpowered and lost sight of by the
terrible pestilence which some Genoese
vessel had brought over from the Levant
Ian ruage fails to describe the horrible
scenes that attended its rapid progress
|
a parallel. Whole families everywhere
perished together, or escaped in part by
| the dissolving of the best feelings OF on!
nature. They who were yet unstrcker
Stunned and fed away from their nearest
relatives. Fathers, even mothers abandon
ed their offspring on the appearance OF the
deadly swelling at the throat or armpit
children abandoned their parents, husband
and wife, brother and sister, forsook eacl
other in the hour of agony Boccaccit
thus describes the terrible period:
"Unlke what had been seen in the East, whcr
| bleeding from the nose is the fatal prOgnostc
here there appeared certain tumors in the groin o
under the armldts, some as big as small apple
others MS an eggi and afterwards purple spots II
most parts of the body; in some cases large an,
but few in number, in others smaller and more nu
mcrous-both sorts the usual messengers Of death
To the cure of this malady, neither medical knowl
edge nor the power of drugs was of any effect
| whether because the disease was in its own natur
mortal, or that the physicians the number o
whom, taking quacks and women pretenders int
the account, was grown very great) could form NJ
just idea Of the cause, nor consequently devise
true method OF cure; whichever was the reason
few escaped; but nearly all died the third day
from the first appearance of the symptoms, som
sooner and some later without any fever or othe
accessory symptoms. What gave the moro VIC
lence TO this plague was, that by being communi
Gated from the sick to the hale 1t spread daily lik
fire when il comes into contact with large masses
of cOmbustblcs. Nor was II caught only by con
versing with or coming near the sick, but evel
by touching their clothes or anything tsatthsy ha,
Some breathed their last in the Streets and 9th
ers shut up in their own houses, where the stencl
that came from them made the first discovery o
their deaths to the neighbOrhood. And, indeed
every place was filed with the dead. Hence
became general practice for the neigho0rs {
| all h. mad tau lao hnlina az
doors; and every morning great numbers might b
seen brought out in this manner, to be carrie
away ON bers or tables two or three at time.
The consecrated ground no longer containin
the numbers which were continually brOugl
thither they were forced to dig trenches and I
put them in by hundreds, ping them up in row
as goods are stored in ship, and throwing in
little earth till they filled Ia the top
"Between March ard July following, accordin
to the authentic reckOnage, upwards OF hundred
thousand souls perished in the city Of Florence
whereas, before that calamity, IL was not suppose,
to have contained so many inhabitants"
We are told that eighty thousand died a
Sienna, sixty thousand at Naples, one hur
dred thousand at Venice. forty thousand a
Genoa. seven in ten at Pisa, and at Trapan
} in Sicily, not a human being survived.
THE PLAGUE IN WESTERN AND EoRTHER
EUROPE.
II was the period of the Seventy Years
Captivity" and the Papal Court was q
Avignon. Thither came the pestilenc'
deadly an the simeon of the desert. Multi
tudeS fell dead on the spot where they wer
attacked, as il they had been struck b.
lightning. The living were unable to bur
the dead finally the Pope, Clement V
consecrated the river Rhone as hallowe
resting place for deceased Christians.
The other cities Of France were viste
in turn and depopulated. Thence III
plague hastened to Eng ldnd aud Germany
where its ravages were almost incredible
IN London more than one hundred thOI
sand perished-half that number bein
buried in the Charterhonse yard. Norwic
lost fifty thousand three-fOurths of th
population of the kingdom fell victims
r and indeed some annalists declare thu
not more than one-tenth escaped. Man
died within three hours after the attack
few lived three days.
Germany had already experienced
fearful earthquake on the 26tl Of January
that had overwhelmed cities aud villages
burying the inhabitants under their rninl
The plague came some months later, i
the large cities, the dead were numbered b.
hundreds of thousands, and in many case
the survivors scarcely amounted to one
tenth part Of the previously existing popu
lation. Thousands of families becam
, wholly extinct, whole streets uninhabte
and laid waste, and ne living being no
} even domestic animal was to be found an
, travellers going from Bohemia to ltal
found whole Gil 8 and villages without
-, Il sf.l,. A.. g nttrr