The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1879-02-14


the cattle of the Russian army, whose
carcass bred the seeds of the fever
And a putrefaction of animals seems
very usually to " invited the appear
ance Of this terrible guest. The old
plaques, which had their cradle gener-
ally in Upper Ethiopia, were com
monty preceded by 4 scourge of ~locusts,
and just before the epidemic in Bagdad
in 1876 enormous quantities of these
insects Appeared all over Mesopotamia.
The worship Of the ibis Is referred by
ancient writers to his prediction for
eating snakes. Cicero eide Nat De-
brumn) says these birds saved Egypt
from the plague, the stencil of the
snakes when dead being proverbially as
destructive as their bite when alive;
and DR.. GottwaId, in his description of
the plague which broke out in Dantxic
In 1903, lays stress on the fact that be-
fore its eruption the place had been in
Tested with All Incredible number of
spiders.
The plague of Astraclian had not
been without a characteristic which
has apparently distinguished all out
breaks of the disease at all times. 1t
lay asleep during the colder weather,
waking up again under the influence Of
a warmer AND damper temperature.
The seeds of u plague are not destroyed
by a frost, but only rendered inactive
for n time. Thus, in the plague which
struck Genos in 1856 during the first
summer, 10000 died of it; the following
winter hardly any Mt all; but in the
summer which ensued 10000 deaths
occurred. In the same way, what we
call the great plague appeared in Lon
don at the later end of 1864, and was
stopped during that winter by a hard
frost of nearly three months continu-
ance, but broke nj with full power the
following spring.
The ancients ever doubted but that
the plague was an African fever, bred
in Upper Ethiopia. From thence
Thucydides and Procopius traced the
plague to Athens and CONSTANT
nople, and though some modern writers
have named Poland and Turkey as the
two separate and distinct cradles of its
birth, the best authorities were of the
opinion that this was not going far
enough to look for it; and the great
plague of Marseilles of 1922 was conf
IDENTIFY set down by Dr.. Mead as having
Travelled by the generally received
route. In those days there was little
chance Of the plague coming into
Europe by way of the Caspian sea. At
ter Egypt. Turkey was the most likely
conduit for its introduction to the west;
and the plague of London, which came
to us from Holland, is said to have been
imported in bales of cotton into that
country from the Levant. This article
of merchandise, possessing as it does a
peculiar aptitude for retaining as well
as catching the seeds of any infection,
has been always corsfdered a most ac-
tive breeder of the plague. In former
days there used to tie such an apprehen-'
sion of the disease being conveyed to
Italy from Alexandria of Syria that in
Genoa, Leghorn, Naples and other
Italian ports searchers were appointed
whose business it was to rip open the
bales Of cotton as they arrived, and, by
thrusting their arms through them, ad-
init the healthy influence of the air to
every part of the goods. This brings
us to the
MUCH DISPUTED QUESTION OF CONIA-
GI0N.
Formerly there was no such uniformi-
ty about it as happily now exists. Hip
pocrates, it is true, is said to have COM
bated the theory that the plague came
by n special visitation of Providence,
and could only be met by sacrifices and
Illustrations; but so well-informed a
writer us Procoplus inclined to the
opinion that it was not q contagious dis
order, basing his reasons principally on
the observations he made of the immu-
nifty the Byzantine physicians enjoyed
during the plague in his time. Its ap-
| pearance has been attributed by many
writers, ancient and modern, to a pc
culiar disposition of the air; it was Gus
tomary in very recent times to fire guns
to disperse the poisonous atmosphere;
and so obstinate have been the adher-
ents of this incredible theory that no
evidence whatever has been able to sat
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