East Saginaw courier. (East Saginaw, Mich.) 1859-18??, 1865-05-10
The Siberian Plague.

The Liverpool Post says of the
plague that has caused so much alarm
in Europe:-
An epidemic, resembling in its fatal
ity the Asiatic cholera, has for some
months devastated the interior OF
Russia. Apparently taking its origin
in Siberia, it has gradually swept down
southwark, spreading moro widely on
either side as it advances. As yet il
has completely baffled the skill of the
Russian physicians, and of those pro-
fessors of medicine who have pro-
ceeded from Germany to study its
symptoms. In many respects this
epidemic resembles the celebrated
plague of Athens, which decimated
Attica in the second and third years
Of the Peloponesian war. Like it,
the epidemic belongs to tho class of
eruptive typhoid disorders. The per-
son seized Immediately despairs of
recovery; he loses memory and hope
altogether. Like il, too, the Siberian
fever is accompanied generally by a
hoarso cough and violent retching,
and the victim seldom survives beyond
the ninth day. There is some diff
Guilty IN obtaining reliable account
of the disease, for the Russian offi-
cials, never very communicative, have
endeavored to conceal the existence of
the disease. But it has touched one
or two towns in Austria and Prussia,
and RACES at st. Petersburg. The
deaths in the latter city are aeknowl-
edged TO amount to eighty or one
hundred day, but it is suspected
they are five times as numerous. The
disease is said to have assumed nit
igated form in Germany, but very
great alarm prevails throughout the
continent. Men hoped that with the
Asiatic cholera the last great scourge
Of the human race had passed away,
but they suddenly find themselves
confronting a postilence which ad-
vances as rapidly az prairie confla-
grafton, floating on the rivers and
borne on the air. Apprehensions, too,
as in the case of the Asiatic cholera
predisposes to the disease.
A plague of this description, raging
in st. Petersburg, cannot be long
absent from other European capitals.
1t marches steadily and surely. AL
ready its route is traced by death and
mourning, and its future track has
been pointed out. In such q case
quarantine regulations are nearly use
less. No plague was ever yet kept
away from our shores by delaying
ship from an infected port at dis
tance from the harbor. The fever
may be conveyed in letter, bale Of
goods, waif, or stray from the ship
and be waited to the shore. 1t may
be taken up by tho wind passing over
the deck, and be borne mysteriously,
despite of oil precautions, to the
tagious. Such discussions may be
interesting to the professor, but the
practical truth is, that whether q
plague be conveyed by the air or by
contact, there is no means of staying
its progress to any land whore it may
be the will of Providence to visit with
such scourge. ..,.
We have it in our power however,
greatly to mitigate the virulence, and
almost change the character. of the
disease. 1t is true, also, that what
we have TO do to meet this disorder
should be done, even if no plague
terrified us into action. Dirt squalor,
insufficient and improper food, vitiated
air, and defective drainage-these are
the allies and spreaders of plaques.
The homes of Russian peasants are
proverbially filthy. The afauent have
their splendid palaces, in which all
that meets the eye of the visitor is
scrupulously clean, but the cellars Of
the noblest mansions are full Of abom-
nations, and the air from these hot
beds of malaria kills the sleepers in
their gorgeous beds above. Nowhere
are sanitary laws less observed than
in the Russian towns, and it has been
observed that where these laws have
been most neglected, there the pesti-
lence has been most fatal.