Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1876-04-28
THE MARCH OF THE sCOURGE.

uilystDTeS new caSeS, ana TWO hundred
and lightweight deaths.
THE MARCH OF THE sCOURGE.
London Times.1
A piece Of intelligence which we pub.
lished last week would two centuries
ago have excited q greater sensation
than the outbreak of a most formidable
war, or even than the news Of 8 most
crushing defeat. The plague, it seems
clear, Is once more threatening the con-
fines Of Europe. The progress of the
psstiienre last year in the valley OF the
lower Euphrates aroused some alsrm,
but hopes Were entertained that the epi-
demtc was no more than the feeble
flicker Of fl anne long burned low, and,
according to the general belief, now
finally. extinguished. The contagion,
however, some weeks ago began to
spread in MesopOtamis, aud since the
beginning of March II has reached Bag
dad. The city of Caliph HarOun Al.
Taschid was in former days painfully
familiar with the plague, from which
visitation was expected at least once in
ten yesls. The epidemic of 1881 is still |
remembered with terror in Bagdad, for
in that fatal year the disess9 carried off
as many as four thousand victims daily
for several days in succession, and
during the month Of April is computed
to have destroyed sixty thousand
people, cut OF population of
one hundred and fifty thousand.
But for whole generation the pesti.
Ience has been almost unknown
even in Egypt, Syria, and on the banks
of the TigIis and Euphrstes, or, if it
still lurked in eastern cities, its virulence
81 b
NEST shadow OF its ancient terrible
grandeur. The new outbreak, however,
shows much OF tee old and mysterious
fierceness before which medical science
for many centuries recoiled in despair.
There is no reason to expect that its raw
sges will be limited to the provinces of
Turkey in Asia. Both in Egypt and in
European Turkey the conditions in
which the plague breeds and spreads are
still prevailing, with little mitigation
since the time when Cairo and COnstan-
tinOple were almost annually decim 9ted
by its attacks. Indeed, in the Turkish
and Egyptian capitals and in the lesser
towns of the Ottoman dOminions it has
ngered-sometimes only suspected,
and sometimes showing its malignancy
for 8 momelt-as much as In Bagdad.
Happily, there is not the least
ground for believing that the essential
conditions for its reproduction in west-
ern Europe any longer exist. Thus we
have hardly more than q scientific in
terest in the movement of q distant but
most deadly enemy. There is not much
more chance of an invasion OF England
by the plague than there is Of the de-
structiOn OF London by an earthquake
like that Of Lisbon. No calamity, how
IN no hi oF
has produced so crushing an effect upon
the Imagination as The great epidemics
Of the plague. Historical literature con-
tsins many powerful representations of
famous psstilenees, among which the
mastery narrative of Thucydides is, of
course, the most artistic. But it has
been questioned very reasonably wheth-
er the AtheDian epidemic could have
been indentiCRl with that of more mod
ern times, and the pictures of Thucy-
dides seem to represent some OF
their extinct scOurges as terrible,
but different in kind. The plague,
however, which, in the reign Of Justi-
nian extended lis raVages over the whole
OF the Eastern Empire and almost de-
populated CODstantiGople has been care
fully described, and, allowing for the er-
r0!s OF non-ecientiic observation, its
symptoms are clesrly recognizable Gs
those OF the disease which Is now once
again mensclng the eastern frontiers o!
Europe. From that time forward al
most down to the present century the |
terror of the plague has ever been pres
ent in the southeastern corner OF the
continent, and from time to time it has
made fierce onslsughts upon the west
and even the north. Italy suffs Fred fire.
tIr In,
Ages, and two of the most fatal epidem-
les OF which she was the victim have
been made memorable by the genius OF
BOccacCiO and the polished art OF Man.
z0ni. In tie seventeenth century little
had been done to exclude or subdue the
foe; forty.five epidemics In hundred
years have been enumerated. Our
own country did not escape. Several
times in the early part Of that
century some Dutch YES els engaged in
the LeYantine trade had brought the
cOntagiOn TO Holland, whence it spread
to the English ports, and again and
again the infection swept eff, as the
popular calculation ran, full fifth Of
the population of London. But at the
close Of the civil war the pestilence
seemed to have wholly died out, till the
hot, unwhOlesome sum mer OF 1865, az
ter five years OF anti-Puritan license,
Peppys writes: This day, much against
my will, did in Drury Lane see two or
three houses marked with q red cross
upon the doors, and Lord, have mercy
upon u.s. wrote there, which was s. sad
sight to me, being the first Of the kind
that to my remembrance I ever saw
This was the beginning of the "Great
Plague" which found it's historian in
II In b nd
one hundred and siXty-five persons were
killed by the pestilence in London, and
the entire number of deaths in the
year within the bills Of mortality
reached the enormous total Of sixty
eight thousand out of q population Ofhslf
q million. Since that time no general
visitation Of the plague has been known
in England or in the neighbOEhOOd of
western Europe. Yet in l712 it attacked
Copenhagen; in 1920 MarseiIles, where
il slew mere than hsli the inhabitants;
in III Moscow; in 1918 Malta; in 1916
Calabria; in 1918 Corfu, and in 1919
there was an outbreak in Silesia. These
are the chief known instances Of the ap-
pearsnce of the plague in modern times
outside the dominiOns o. Turkey and
Egypt. It appears, therefore, that as
modern life has been civilized, aud,
above all, as II mas been cleaned, Lne
power of the plague over the human Or
ganizatiOn has been steadily lessened.
The material and social condition OF the
countries in which the pestilence has
not ceased to be feared is lot very differ
ent, in those points which have relation
to bodily health, from London or
Milan in the seventeenth century, as
Deioe and ManzOni have represented
them. Plague itself is malig-
nant fever analogous to typhus, with
peculiar influence over the lymphatic
system; and, as Captain Cation and DR..
Sutherland, in their report on the sani.
tary condition Of Mediterranean sta
tiOns, have pointed out, less virulent
but cOgnate disease is always present in
parts Of Turkey and Egypt, showing it.
self in feyerisn symptoms, with erup-
tioDs OF carbuncles, b0ils, and so on.
The p srsOns subject to this sort OF dis.
temper are weakly in constitution,
dwelling in the II DIST OF damp and dirt,
and general Of gross habits Of living.
When the true p.sgue, stirred ia its au-
cient "sOuTce aud seminary TO quote