The Albany register. [volume] (Albany, Or.) 1868-18??, 1874-12-11
THE BLACK DEATH.


denominated the Dark Ages had begun
slowly to receie in the distance, the
physical habits of men throughout all
! Christendom remained shockingly dirty
and slovenly, and pestilence, feeding on
the loathsome filth and corruption reek-
ing in all inhabitated places, stalked to
and fro over the earth, counting its
slain, in every populous district, by the
thousand. Early in the fourteenth CEN
| tury. the Black Death issued from its
cradle in the far East, sweptover China,
and after transforming that country
into one great charnel-house, swooped
down upon Europe, and there repeated
its awful work of devastation. In Chi
ma its victims were estimated at 13, ,000,-
900, and, in the rest of the East at a.
600, 900. In Europe, where their num-
bers could be reckoned with considera-
BILE exactness, they were set down at
25, 900, 900. In London alone the deaths
amounted 100, 900. Germany lost l.,
pa, 434 souls, and Italy one-half of its
population. Africa was not exempt
from the cruel spoliation, nor any other
spot of land or sea which held the
treasure of human life. Ships were
robbed of their crews, and drifted
helplessly from shore to shore, carry
ing contagion wherever they touched.
No place was so remote or so hidden
4 but, where men had taken refuge
there, the scourge found them out and
hurried them to a terrible death. In
Norway, during the four awful years
between 1347 and 1851, the population
was reduced from 9, 100000 to 100000
Even Iceland, Greenland and the new
Undiscovered point In America, called
lVinland, was visited by the curse,
which finally cut them off from commu-
nicationwith other portions of the globe.
No wonder mems hearts were frozen
with fear, and they fed from each other
in horror when the plague-spot was
seen to redden on their faces. sIus-
bands deserted their wives mothers
forsook their babes every tie of hu-
manity was broken and disregarded.
| The tainted, sickening, and dying
wretch, who, in health, could boast of
| wealth, and friends, and all the Joys
that both can fetch, was left to gasp his
/ agonized breath in utter solitude and
i neglect. Worse than the mark of Cain
was on the brow of the plague-stricken.
AS soon as the touch of the Black Death
had left its imprint on his flesh, he was
a thing accursed and Stunned with un-
reasoning terror. In the train OF the
plague, before and after, came storms,
and floods, and earthquakes, and erup-
tions of volcanoes, and mephitic airs
Z" like dense and awful fog rising up
to the heavens, until it seemed that the
destroying angel, with one foot on the
land and one on the sea, was pouring
out the Walls of his wrath upon the
doomed and shuddering planet.
In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seven
teenth centuries, the Black Death
again ragged through Europe, but with
less fury than during the first terrible
invasion. Mitigated as its virulence
was, however, the tales which are told
of its malignity, on these latter occa-
sions, can scarcely be comprehended.
In the latter part of the sixteenth
century, the plague broke out in Bor-
deaux, then the residence of Montaigne,
and spread thence over the whole OF
Guienne and Pengosa, destroying en-
tire villages, and leaving in the
1 region, according to Montaigne, not
one in a hundred of the popu-
lation. Sc The grapes remained
ungathered, the corn unreaped, and
the people sat still waiting for death,
none caring for anything but to get sep
ulture men, while still in health. dug
their own graves,-even got into them
| living, to escape the wild beasts. Mon
taigne himself saw one of his own work
men, with the last movements left to
him of hands and feet, dragging the
earth ouer himself. The population
of Bordeaux was reduced, during this
/ awful season, from 10000 to $4,000.
Montaigne himself left his chateau, with
his family, and travelled from place to
place to keep ont of the way of the dire
destroyer.
} The last visit of the plague to En-
gland was in 1663-'65, when it ravaged
:. the entire isla nd. In 1865, there were
$50 deaths in London in the month OF
June, 4,129 in July, 2O,046 in August,
26, $50 In September, Ia, 373 in October,
3, 449 in November, and less than ,00O
in December. In all, the deaths were
nearly 70, 600 during this single summer
and fall. In 1920 the disease appeared
for the last time in France, and destroy.
ed nearly one-half the population OF
Marseilles. Seventy years later it pre-
vailed in Russia and Poland but, since
that period. the scenes of its havoc have
been confined to Egypt, Syria, Ana
tolia, Greece and Turkey, the borders
of Russia, and the Island of Malta. II
is undoubtedly owing to their improved
: habits of living that enlightened nations
have succeeded in banishing the plague
from their dominions. Free ablutions,
cleanliness of person and abode, and an
increasing conformance to the laws OF
sanity, are. rendering the cities of Eu