The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1879-02-27
THE BLACK DEATH.

I
The plague panic seems to prevail in
the infected provinces Of Astrakhan and
Ienotaeysk; and, though the reports of
the government authorities, whose inter
est it is to minimize its effects, endeavor
to make light of the epidemic, the ac-
counts OF its ravages which have got
abroad are alarming enough. The Rus
sian peasant, by reason OF his foul and
incorporate habits, would naturally fall
an easy prey to the disease. Temperance
and cleanliness have been shown at all
times to be among the most useful pro-
| phylactics against the plague. Proco-
Plus, an eye witness Of the great plague
which burst forth in Constantinople in
the year \. D. $40, tells Us that those
who were absteminous in their mode Of
life for the most part escaped. The re-
covory Of the Emperor Justinian, whose
august person was not respected, was at
tributed to his regular life and wholesome
habits; and it was thus, according to
Aulus Gellius, that Socrates was saved
in the plague of Athens. In the former
plague the inmates of the monasteres
and converts of Conatantinople, in which
sobriety was ct least the rule, are said to
have escaped contagion, although in
their case seclusiou from society was
itself protection. This, probably, had
mach to do with the heimmunity the colleges
of Cambridge enjoyed when the town
suffered so severely in 1865; and in the
same way the prisoners in the dungeons
of Rome We're passed over by the plague
OF 1856. But the consumption Of raw
spirits-such as vodka, or rye spirits,
which is drank in such quantities by the
Russian peasant and soldier-has been
proved to predispose the system to the
reception Of any malignant fever in pc
culiar degree. The plague which ap-
peared in the Russo Turkish campaign
Of 1923 limited its ravages almost entirely
TO the Russian lines, where, besides want
of cleanliness, intemperance was the
rule; the Turks eschewing spurious Ii
quors and practicing a certain amount Of
ablution as part of his religion, escaping
the disease. In Bucharest alone, where the
disease broke out, 1000 Russian soldiers
/ perished from its effects. 1t carried off
q very large proportion of the 10000 the
Car Nicholas lost in the first year of the
war, while the Turkish losses were due
almost entirely to the sword.
| The origin of this plague was supposed
| to have been in murrain which made
/ terrible havoc among the cattle of the
/ Russian army, whose carcasses bred the
seeds of the fever. And a putrefaction
OF matter seems very usually to have in.
vited the appearance of this terrible
guest. The old plaques, which had
their cradle generally in Upper Ethiopia,
We're commonly preceded by n scourge
of locusts, aud just before the epidemic
in Bagdad in 1876, enormous quantities
Of these insects appeared all over Meso-
potamia. The worship of the ibis is
referred nv ancient writer's to his predi-
lection for eating snakes. Cicero ("De
Nat. Decorum') says these birds saved
Egypt from the plague, the stencil Of
J the snakes when dead being proverbially
rs destructive as their bite when alive
and Dr. Gottwald, in his description Of
the plague which broke out in Dantzic
/ in 1903, lays stress on the fact that before
/ It's outbreak the place had been infected
with an incredible number of spiders.
The plague of Astrakhan has not been
without characteristic which has ap-
parently distinguished all the outbreaks
Of the disease ut all times. 1t lay asleep
during the colder weather, waking up
under the influence Of a warmer and
damper temperature. The seeds of the
plague are not destroyed by frost, but
only rendered inactive for time Thus
in the plague which struck Genoa in
1856. during the first summer 10000
died of it; the following winter, hardly
any at all; but in the summer which en-
sued 60,000 deaths occurred. In the
same way, what We call the great plague
appeared IN London at the latter end of
1864. and was stopped during that winter
by hard frost of nearly three months
continuance, but broke out with full
power in the spring.
The ancients never doubted but tlla!
the plague was an African fever. bred in
Upper Ethiopia. From thence Thucyd
ides and Procopius traced the plague to