Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1878-02-28
PeStilence and the PeriheIi0n.

HE aStrologISts, OF whom there
seems % be many specimens yet re-
naming high in rank among the con
cedcd scientist Of the day, assert that
We are approaching one of the great
! pestilential epochs Of the worlds his
tory. The periheiia Of the four great
planets Of our system. Jupiter, Uranus,
Saturn and Neptune, have not been
coincident since the commencement
OF the Christian era. But this event
Is about to occur; and, in the language
of DR.. Knapp, who has traced the his
tory of the greatest epidemics that
lever afflicted the human race to the
perihelia Of these planets, there will
soon be lively time for the doctors. y
| The history is that 81 hen one or more
| Of the large planets is nearest to the
sun, the temperature and condition Of
our atmosphere are so disturbed as to
cause injurious vicissitudes, terrible
rains. prolonged droughts, ETC., result
ing in the destruction of crops, and
| pestilence among human beings and
domestic animals.
Dr.. Knapp has collected a mass
of statistical data, all going to show
that perihelon periods have Away s
been marked by unusual mortality, and
that sickness and death have invari-
ably correspOnded with the number of
planets in perihelion the same time.
The revolution of Jupiter around the
sun is accomplished in little less than
twelve years, of Saturn in little less
than thirty, Of Uranus in about one
hundred and sixty-feur years If it
be true, therefore, that the perihelia of
these planets occasion atmospheric
conditions unfavorable to life, pesti-
lential periods should occur once in a
a dozen years, and aggravated and
still more widespread epidemics at
longer intervals. In tracing the his
tory of cpidemics for more than two
thousand years, Dir. Knapp finds the
facts in all cases to validate the theory.
Thus in the sixth and again in the
sixteenth centuries, three of these
planets were coincident in perihelion,
and those were the most pestilential
times Of the Christian era.
But soon we are to have, for the
first time in two thousand years, all
OF these planets against us. They will
be at their nearest approach to the sun
in or soon after 1880, so that for a
/ few years, say from 1880 to 1885, the
vitality of every living thing will be
put to a severe and trying ordeal
Some persons think that they see in
the signs Of the times, evidences of the
great disasters in the immediate future
The excessive heat, the unexampled
cold, the prevalence of food and dis
aster at sea, the general failure Of the
potatoe crop, the wide spread chill
fever among human beings, and the
equal prevalence Of the epizootic
among animals, are mentioned as
among the premonitions Of the rapid
approaching of the perihelion.
It is we'll to be forwarned Of this
impending catastrophe, if there is any
thing to be feared from this excep-
tional planetary conjunction. The
"Science of Health" a periodical de
voted to sanitary matters, giving the
substance of DR.. Knapp's predictions,
and intimating its acquiescence in
them, closes a long article as follows:
q We do not write to alarm any one,
HOI 10 AHdhS SSaodGIOlls w Z SldlS
the facts which all history attests.
| Readers can Judge for themselves what
Importance attach to the subject. That
the conjoint perihelion of all the large
planets of the solar system, one of
which, Jupiter, is a thousand times as
large as this earth, must disturb our
atmosphere and temperature very con-
siderably, is probable, that this dis
turbance must be injurious to health
and life is certain; and that these
periods have heretofore been pestilen-
tial is matter of record. How much
we shall suffer during the next dozen
or fifteen years depends very much
upon how nearly We live a life in &C
cordance with the laws of life. Ac-
cidents excepted, we know very we'll
that the persons Of more vigorous con-
stitutions and more hygienic habits will
have the better chance to survive
whatever adverse influence the extra
ordinary perihelia will occasion. It
is wellknown to physicians that in all
pestilences, plague, typhus, small pox,
murain, cholera, etc.. the Incorporate,
the dissipated, and those whose SAINT
airy conditions were bad, furnished the
victims.