The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1879-02-20

SON. breath that infested the globe.
Ships freighted with putrefying bodies
drifted aimlessly and hideously on the
Mediterranean, Black and North seas
not a human creature alive anywhere
and spread contagion on the shores
whittier the winds and tides had driven
them. Hope, peace, content, law, CIR
der, affection, naturalness, humanity
seemed never to have been. Ancient
custom and the need of companionship
were for the time obliterated; all was
death, agony and despair, and by these
the infected world appeared to be ex-
clusiyely and shudderingly possessed.
The moral effects Of the plague were
not less dreadful than It's physical de-
struction. Thousands persisted from
fear, which dissolved among the living
all ties Of kindred, all bonds of fellow
ship, all links of sympathy. Children
fed from their polluted parents: moth
ers deserted their helpless infants: hus-
bands and lovers left their wives and
mistresses to die bowling and alone
Terror generated superstition; the viz
tuous and vicious alike made distraeting
and distracted appeals to a God who,
they imagined, had sent the pestilence
to punish them for manifold sins.
Crowds rushed to sacrifice their worldly
goods to the church; fanaticism swelled
on every hand; women screamed to
Heaven for mercy; men tore out their
hair and scourged themselves until
they had tainted from loss of blood, that
they might propitiate deity whom they
actually believed they had enraged. The
world was mad with fright, suffering, and
superstition, and thousands vino had
tried to stay the pestilence with prayer
declared that God was dead and hell
had begun ON earth. 4 .J.. .uh
Their heightened by cruel prosecutions
against the Jews, who had been accused
Of poisoning the public wells, this being
IN popular belief the cause Of the pesti-
lenee. The people rose in mad fury to
exterminate the unfortunate Hebrew
race, and slaughter them by tens of
thousands. In the inconsiderable city
of Mentz Germany alone, near Is 900
fell victims to the public wrath. They
were killed with steel and club, hanged,
drowned, burned, and often barbarously
put to death by every kind of torture.
In numberless instances they took their
own lives in masses to avoid cruelties of
the mob, and in many communities
every man, woman, and child was sacri-
feed to insensate rage. To aggravate
the scourge, the panic about poison
caused the wells to be closed. The
people were afraid to touch water, and
those who escaped the plague persisted
OF thirst and terror. Society, rude at
best in that day, was totally disorgan-
lied, and such means as might have
been adopted to prevent Or mitigate the
stupendous evil were either neglected
or unthought of, in the arrangement
and frenzy that possessed everybody,
from the highest to the lowest. The
influence of the plague and it's desc
lat1on were SO overwhelming that it fire.
quently destroyed all honesty and prin-
clple among its survivors. Many were
rendered callous, and many took advan-
tage of the universal horror to indulge
their worst passions, to plumber, murder,
and perpetrate the mostrevolting crimes.
The plague has again and again Wis
tied Western Europe since the four
teenth century, but never has it been
so baleful as then, continued so long, or
been attended with such incidental hor-
rors. Previous to it's last outbreak, in
1865, it invaded England, according to
the celebrated physician, Sydenham,
every thirty Or forty years. Although
its symptoms and virulence have varied
at different times, its general features
have been sufficiently alike to prove
that it is always the same terrible dis
ease. Great difference of opinion still
exists as to Dts cause. Some authorities
maintain that it is exclusively propa-
gated by q peculiar contagion; others
contend, while admitting it's contagious
ness, that it may also be engendered
spontaneously by endemic or epidemic
Influences; others again deny it's con-
tagiousness altogether, and assert that
it arises from local or epidemic causes.
Intelligent opinion favors the second of
these views, and there is a mass of
sound evidence to sustain it. What
ever the cause, temperance seems to
affect it favorably. In the tropics it is
unknown, and the cold of northern
climates has been observed to check it's
ravages. In Europe it has been most
fatal during summer and autumn, es-
pecially in September. Thus, in Lon
don in 1865 the deaths from tho Y,ao+;
fence were, in June, 500; in July, 4, 1873;
in August, 2O,O46; in September, g.
23O; in October, IA, 373; in November,
3,449; while in December they fell be-
low 1000. The precise nature of the
distemper is still unknown. A poison
whose properties evade all chemical and
microscopic detection is absorbed into
the system, and alters at once, or after
brief Period of incubation, the quail
H. II.