The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-11-16
The Black Death.

The Black Death.
Appalling as has been the ScOurge of
yellow fever in the Southern portion of
our country, its visitation to us has in
reality been light when considered by
contrast with the terrible ravages of the
BLACK Death" in Asia and Europe
from time to time in the fourteenth cen
fury. Of all the plaques that have
swept the earth, none ever was so hor-
rible as that. 1t desolated the lands it
touched; it left an Inheritance of terror
in the minds of generations of descend
ants from the few who survived it; it
merited no other appellation so well as
the frightful one by which it was then
known, and is still remembered. China
is said to have been its birthplace, and
in that vast Empire 100000 of the
inhabitants were destroyed by it the
first time that its blight fell upon the
land. Thence it journeyed through
Central Asia, and in 1916 reached the
vicinity of the Caspian Sea and the Bos-
phorus. Armenia, Asia Minor, Syria,
Egypt and Greece were swept swiftly
by the all-devouring pestilence. Flee
ing fugitives carried on shipboard, in
themselves and in their goods, to Italy,
Germany, France and England, the
seeds of the dreadful infection. Death
was everywhere in the air. Cities were
depopulated. In London $4,000 plague
stricken corpses are said to have been
buried in single spot
But, awful us were the ravages of the
black death in England, they were in
tinitely worse in Russia; for there it
reached a ready harvest of victims al
ready prepared for it by the predispos-
ing aids of ignorance, superstition, bad
food, filth, and blind, unreasoning ter
ror. In 1349 this slow-moving de-
stroyer made its way to Scandinavia,
and either thence or from Germany,
where it was raging, penetrated into
Russia in the spring of 1852, and, ac-
cording to Karamsin, Russia's histo-
rian, broke out first in the city of
Pskow. So terribly did it rage there
that ere winter came again over two
thirds of the inhabitants were in their
graves. The condition of that doomed
city during that dreadful summer is
thus related by an historian of the pc
Rod:
youths and old men, parents and
children, were laid together in the same
graves; numerous families entirely dis
appeared from among the living in a
single day. Every priest found in the
morning thirty or more corpSeS lying
in his church, and mass was read over
the whole at once. But the church
yards soon lacked space for new graves,
and holes We're dug in the woods out
side of the city.
" At first covetous individuals were
found to wait upon those attacked, in
hopes of becoming possessors of their
wealth; but as soon as it became evil
dent that the disease was communicated
by the touch, or, in other words, that
the property of the victims contained
the sting of death, even the rich looked
in vain for help; for even the son fled
from his father. There were, however,
some individuals who showed the most
extraordinary magnanimity and self
devotion. They carried to the church
not only their immediate friends, but
even strangers; assisted at their funer-
ais, and prayed for their souls with
generous fervor in the midst of the
pestllential tombs.
Numbers fled from the world, shut
ting themselves up in converts and be-
queathing their property to the Church
or by feeding and clothing the poor
they prepared themselves by good
works for their passage to eternity. In
short, it was believed that the end OF
the world was come, and that no one
would survive"
In that beautifully simple record OF
heroic self-sacrifice, devotion and atone
ment we find parallel for some of the
most touching incidents of the progress
of our present scourge in the South.
There, too, are noble souls who offer
themselves freely for the sake of others
sin-stained ones whose charity and
"good works " makes white their page
in the book of the recording angel.
Though the black death in none OF
its symptoms resembled the yellow fe-
yer, except in its malignity, yet, being
like that terrible malady of Orient orr
gin, it fled before the frost of the North
land. Winter brought relief, But ere
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buried two-thirds of their inhabitants.
Not one was left in Gluchow and
Bjeosersk, and many smaller towns and
cities were entirely depopulated. Mos
COW suffered frightfully, and among
her dead were the Metropolitan, the
Car, and two of the sons and brother
of the Gar. Strange, sudden and ter
rible was this all-destroying plague,
like unto no other disease previously
known. "a pain, like the stab of a
knife, ran suddenly through the heart,
shoulder-blades or between the Shout
ders; the veins became burning; blood
flowed from the throat, attended by a
strong perspiration and shivering. In
other persons tumors appeared about
the neck or hips, under the cheek-bones
or breast or between the shoulders.
The result was the same, unavoidable,