The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1879-10-08
ANCIENT PLAQUES.

By comparing the motahty of ancient
plaques with those of the present day, it
is evident that the latter have been much
less destructive, and that there has been
a general sanitary improvement through
the civilized world in modern times. The
Popular Science Monthly mentions some
of the NEST destructive ancient plaques
in the following:
The black death that ravished Asia
and Southern Europe in the fourteenth
century spared the Mohammedan coun-
tries-Persia, Turkistan, Morocco, and
Southern Spain-whose inhabitants gen
orally abstained from pork and intoxicat-
ing drinks. In the Byzantine Empire,
Russia, Germany, Northern Spain Gnhab-
tied by the Christian Visigoths), and in
Italy, four million died between 1873
and 1874; but the monasteries Of the
stricter orders and the frugal peasants of
Calabria and Sicily enjoyed their usual
health (Which they, of course, ascribed
to the favor of their tutelar saints; but
among the cities which suffered were
Barcelona, Lyons, Florence, and Moscow,
the first three situated on rocky, noun
tain slopes, with no lack of drainage and
pure water, while the steppes of the up
per Volga are generally dry and salu-
brious
The pestilence of 1920 swept away
more than two-thirds of the seventy-fve
thousand inhabitants of Marseilles in less
than FIVE weeks but of the six thousand
abstemious Spaniards that inhabited the
suburbs of the Galatians" only two
hundred died, or less than four per cent.
The most destructive epidemic recorded
in authentic history was the four years
plague that commenced at Alexandria,
Egypt, A. D. 542, and ragedtthrough the
dominions of hosroes the Great, the Byzan-
tine Empire, Northern Africa, and South
western Europe. 1t commenced in Egypt,
spread to the East over Syria, Persia, and
the Indies, penetrated to the west along
the coast of Africa, and over the CONT
nent of Europe. Asia Minor, with its pie
thoric cities, Constantinople, Northern
Italy, and France suffered fearfully; en-
tire provinces were abandoned cities
died out and remained vacant for many
years, and during three months FIVE thou
sand and at last ten thousand persons at
Constantinople persisted each day Glib
bon's History; and the total number Of
victims, in the three continents, is vari-
ously estimated at from seventy-fve mil
lion to one hundred and twenty million.
But in Sicily, Morocco, and Albania the
disease was confined to a few seaport
towns, and Arabia escaped entirely.
This dreadful plague made its first APP
pearance in Alexandria, Egypt, then a
luxurious city of eight hundred thousand
inhabitants, and Paulus Diaconus, con-
temporary historian, speaks of the "reck-
less gluttony by which the inhabitants
of the great capital incurred yearly fevers
and dangerous indigestions, and at last
brought this terrible judgment upon
themselves and their innocent neighbors.
Alexandria lost FIVE hundred thousand Of
her inhabitants in $40 and eight thousand
in the following year, and fOrmiles around
the city the fields were covered with I'M
buried corpses; but the Monks of the
Miriam Desert (three thousand of them
had devoted themselves to the task OF
collecting and burying the dead lost only
fifty of their fraternity, who, with few
exceptions, confessed that they had secret
ly violated the ascetic rules or the order