The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1877-06-28
SMALLPOX.
History of the Terrible Pest.
From the Nineteenth Century,


How smallpox first arose among men
it is difficult to coniecture It has been
supposed that it may have been original
" derived from some disease in the
camel. Its history leads to the settled
belief that, while few persons are not
readily susceptible to it, it never occurs
now except from contagion. It does not
appear to have been known in Europe
till the beginning of the eighth century.
No mention of any such disease is to be
found in the Greek or Roman authors OF
antiquity. Now, whatever may have
been the deficiencies of these ancient
physicians, they were excellent observ-
ers and capital DISORDERS of disease /;
and it seems to me scarcely possible that
disorder so diffusive, and marked by
characters to 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 it prevailed in China and
Hindoostan from very early period
even more than 1000 years before the
advent of our Savior. That it did not
sooner make it's 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 it's progress by prohibit
ing all communication with the sick,
partly to the limited intercourse which
then took place among the Eastern ma
tons, but principally to the peculiar po-
sition 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 Mohammed was born-that is,
in the latter half Of the sixth century.
It 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 daugh-
ter. "Count Julian called the invaders"
Whensoever 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 por-
tons of the world have remained for
centuries entirely free from it, until at
length it was imported, and that it then
infallibly diffused and established itself
in those parts. Of the more modern
history of the disease our knowledge is
more precise and sure. 1t tends uni
f0rmly to the same conclusion. There
was no smallpox in the New World be-
fore it's discovery by Columbus in 1892.
In 1917 the disease was imported into
Santo Domingo Three years later, in
one Of the Spanish expeditions from
Cuba to Mexico, q negro, covered with
the postules of smallpox, was landed on
the Mexican coast. From him the dis
ease spread with such desolation that
within a very short time, according to
Robertson, $500, 600 persons were de-
stroyed within that kingdom alone
Smallpox was introduced into Iceland
IN 1907, when 16, 900 persons were car
rled off by its ravages-more than
fourth of the whole population Of the
island. It reached Greenland still later,
appearing there for the first time in 1893,
and spreading SO fatally as almost to de-
populate the country. Evidence to the
same effect is furnished by the results Of
vaccination in some countries. To take
one. instance: Vaccination was adopted
inDenmark in 1901, and made compul-
sorry in 1910. From that time small pox
disappeared altogether for fifteen years,
whereas, during the twelve years pre-
ceding the introduction of the preventive
disorder, upward Of 5000 persons died
of the smallpox in Copenhagen alone.