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

have died within twenty four hours, but
generally it continues from one to two
weeks; the average duration is six to
eight days, and, when convalescence
takes place, it is apt to be slow and
tedious. When the disease is yirulent,
the majority Of persons attacked by it
die within week.
As here described, in later times the
plague first appeared during the four
teenth century, when it actually desc
lated the world. One of the names it
then bore was the Black Death, from the
black spots denoting putrid decomposi-
ton, which, at one of it's stages, marked
the sufferer. The accounts then fur
nished are incomplete and inexact, as
they necessarily would be &C such an
epoch of standardization; but they are
sufficient to show state of horrors and
agony Lard to exceed. The course and
symptoms of the dreadful malady varied
at different times and in different coun-
tries, and greatly changed toward the
close (1348-51) of its ravages in Europe.
Among the concomitants of the pesti-
lence were noticed palsy Of the tongue,
which became black, as If suffused with
blood putrid Inflammation of the lungs !;
fetid, pestiferous breath, and expectora-
ton Of blood. When it spread to Europe,
fever, evacuation of blood and pulmo-
nary carbuncles proved mortal before
other symptoms had been declared. In
well-nigh all instances death ensued in
two Or three days after attack. Spots
and tumors were the seals Of doom which
medical skill had no power to avert and
many sufferers anticipated by suicide.
The rise and progress of the plague
in the fourteenth century have not been
clearly or consistently related; but there
seems to be no doubt that it originated
in China. There is also concurrent tes-
timony that the cooperating causes ex-
listed and acted at least fifteen years be-
fore any outbreak in Europe, and are to
be sought as far back as 1883, in series
Of mighty commissions Of nature which
continued for twenty-s six years to affect
and derange the normal conditions of
animal and vegetable life. The precise
date Of the beginning Of the plague in
China is unknown; but from 1888 to
1349 that country suffered fearfully from
droughts, famine, floods, swarms Of To-
Gusts, and earthquakes that overthrow
cities and leveled mountains, and these
catastrophcs were followed by the
scourge. at The same time the order of
things seemed to be reversed in Europe.
Thunder storms occurred in midwinter,
ice formed in summer, tornadoes swept
regions that had never felt them before,
volcanoes, long thought extinct, blazed
with fury, and water-spouts rose in
placid seas.
The mortality was hideous in the East
and West, and it is believed that the
great activity of the globe, accompanied
by decomposition of vast organic masses,
myriads Of locusts, bodies of brutes and
men, produced some change in the at
mosphere hostile to life. It is said
that, in the progress of the plague west
ward, the impure and poisoned air was
traceable as it moved on laden with
pestilence and death. A writer of the
time remarks: "a dense, awful fog was
seen in the heavens rising in the east,
and descending upon Italy" The in
habitants of Europe are also thought to
have been predisposed to The pest partly
from scarcity, and partly from the then
inadequate modes of living. The theory
is very plausible that it sprung directly
from atmospheric poison, acting on the
respiratory organs, which were the first
to be attacked. Still, while impure air
and defective physical conditions may
have fed the pestilence largely, it doulst-
less owed it's extension almost entirely
to infection and oontagion. It seems
that it had appeared in Europe in
milder form in 1912; but it. had to come
to an end, and there is little reason to
hold, as has been held, that it had in the
interval remained latent Until new
causes he'd requickened it six years
later. The invasion of 134S may be
distinctly tracked in it's advance from
China along the caravan routes toward
the West. The northern coast of the
Black sea sent the plague by contagion
to Constantinople; thence in the same
way it reached the ports of Italy, and
was SO diffused throughout the remain
der of Europe. It's progress may be
followed through Germany and France
to England, whence it was transmitted
to Sweden. Three years elapsed from
its appearance in Constantinople until
it crept by great circle to the Russian
territories; and the fact of it's contagious
communication has started the specuIa-
ton whether by rigid quarantine it
might not have been excluded alto
gether from Europe. Such rules have
now long been enforced at many points
to prevent introduction into the West of
the plaques of the Orient, but they have
been insufficient in the present instance
to keep it out of Russia.
The mortality, though no proper esti-
mate can be made in the absence of
statistics, was prodigiousA supremely
terrifying. In China alone 100000
persons are asserted to have died, and
in other parts of the East nearly a.
100000 more. In Europe details were
more exact. In London 100000 souls
persisted, and in fifteen Continental