Richland beacon. [volume] (Rayville, La.) 1869-1890, 1877-08-11
the HISTORY or S,JtLL.p0y

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} IL Is dIilicult 10 conjecture. 1t has beer
, supposed that it may have been originally
uerived from some disease in the
camel Its history leads to the settled
belief that, while few persons are not
readily susceptible of it, it never occur,
now EXCEPT from contasion. 1t doe, no,
appear to have been known in Europe
till the beginning of the eighth century.
No mention of any such distemper is to
DE found in tine Greek or Roman author.
of antiquity. Now, whatever NAV
have been the deficiencies of these ancient
physicians, they were excellent ob.erv-
ers, and capital DISORDERS, of disease
and 1t seems to ME scarcely possible that
a disorder so diffusive, and marked by
characters so definite and conspicuous,
should have escaped their notice, or if
known should have been Obscurely por-
trayed in their writings. On the other
hand, Mr.. Moore, in his learned and in.
teresting history of smallpox, has shown
that 1t prevailed in China and IIindostan
from very early period-even more
than thousand years before the advent
OF our Saviour. That 1t did not sooner
make its way westward into Persia, and
thence into Greece, may be attributed
partly TO the horror which the complaint
everywhere inspired, and the attempts
which were consequently made to check
its progress by prohibiting all communi.
cation with the sick, partly to the limi-
ted Intercourse which then took place
among the Eastern nations, but princi-
pally to the peculiar position of the
regions through which the infection was
distributed, separated as they were from
the rest of the world by immense deserts
and by the ocean. The disease is said
to have broken out in Arabia at
the siege of Mecca in the year
in which Alohammed was born, e. in
the latter half of the sixth century. 1t
was widely propagated by his wars, and
by those of the Arabs afterward; and it
is generally believed to have first found
entrance into Europe at the time of the
overthrow Of the Gothic monarchy in
Spain by the MOors, when, to avenge the
well-knOwn outrage upon his daughter,
Count Julian called the invaders. 4"
Whatsoever and wheresOever it came, it
spread with fearful rapidity and havoc.
What is worthy of special remark is this
That while almost all men are prone to
take the disorder, large portions OF the
world have remained for centuries en-
tirely free from it, until at length it was !
imported; and that it then infallibly |
diffu=ed and established itself in these
parts. Of the more modern history of
the disease our knowledge is more precise
and sure. 1t tends uniformly to the
same conclusion. There was no small
pOx in the new world before its discovery
by Columbus in 1892. In 15l7 the dis.
ease was imported into San Domingo.
Three years later, in one of the Spanish
from. Cuba to Mexico, a
negro covered with the pustules of small
pox was landed on the Mexican coast.
From him the disease spread with such
desolation that within very shor. time,
according to Robertson, three millions
and half of people were destroyed in that I
kingdom alone. Smallpox was intro
1uced into Iceland in 1907, when sixteen
thousand persons were carried off by its :
than fourti part OF the
whole population of the island. Itl'
cached Greenland still later, appearing q
here for the first time in 1888. and 4
preading 20 fatally as almost to depopu- L
ate the country. Evidence to the same .
fleet is furnished by the results of vacci- u
latiOn in some countries. To take one
vaccination was adopted in a
Denmark in 1901, and made compulsory c
n 1910. From that time smallpox dis a
ppeared altogether for fifteen years, u
Thereas, during the twelve years preced- u
ng the introduction of the preventive o
isorder, upward of three thousand per. IL
'ns died of smallpox in Copenhagen o.
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