Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1879-03-13

The views of Drf fBOtkin, Physician to
she Imperial FamilV on the Disease.

Pail Mall Gazette.
All over Russia fly disturbing rumors.
At many new points the plague has man
ifested itself. Near Moscow, even in
Moscow itself, disquieting cases have oc-
Cured. The government is doing what
it can to check the foe, but unless the
masses will cooperate with it, official
preeaution can avail but little. The
plague of 1771 swept away altogether
about one hundred and thirty thousand
of the inhabitants of Moscow, for the city
was unprepared for the attack. On the
other hand, when the terrible ''tchuma''
broke out in Astrakhan in I73S, it was
soon stamped out. But that city pos
sessed a well-appointed naval hospital,
and its physicians were not unaccustomed
to deal with their deadly Asiatic foe.
The filth of most Russian towns is some-
thing appalling. Even in st. Peters
burg, the tgphus, which ragged last year,
brought to light the existence of such
foulness as the local administration seem
never so much as even to have suspected.
1t may be imagined, then, what is the
condition of such mercantile centers as
Rybinsk on the Yolga, or Rostof on the
Don, or of cities where artisans herd to-
gether, as in Tula or in Tyer. Nor is it
only the utter. disregard of the Russian
people for cleanliness and comfort which
| is now likely to accelerate the progress of
the plague. Their poverty is also in its
favor, lowering their physical tone, and
thus exposing them to the Infection. 1t
is hard for man, woman, or child to OBJ
tain from diet of raw bread, picked Gu
cumbers, and sour kvas the strength nee
essary for struggling successfully against
so terrible foe as the tchuma is again
proving itself to be.
Dr. Botkin, who, as physician to the
Imperial family, is a man of great infiu-
ence in Russia, fully deserves the praises
which are being conferred upon him by
the Russian press for the straightforward
manner in which he spoke about the pres
ent outbreak at the meeting which took
place on the oath of January, in the rooms
of the "Society of Practical Physicians. y
There can be no question, he said, that
Russia is again attacked by its old enemy
tchuma, or Eastern plague, which seems
to be closely akin to the "Black Death
of the Middle Ages. The symptoms are
just the same as they were of old-violen
fever, affections of the glands, infama.
ton of the throat and lungs, virulent bu.
bose, splitting and vomiting of blood. The
period through which the malady runs il
very brief. Whenever the tchuma ha!
established itself in Russia, deaths hav'
been as rapid as numerous. When
ragged in Pskof in 1852, lasting from spring
to winter, it carried off nearly two-third
of the inhabitants, while in G1ukhof ant
Bielozersk, by the end of the same year
it is said not to have left a single sou
alive. In 1860 it again attacked Pskof
and in 1868 it ragged along the lower par
of the Volga. From that time it FIRE
quently renewed its attacks, sometime
devastating whole districts. OF late year
the plague has shown itself on several oc
casions in dangerous proximity to Rus
sia. From 1856 to 1866 it appeared at sew
eral pOints of the Turko-P Persian frontier
In 1870 an epidemic broke out in Western
Persia the symptoms of which are said t.
] be identical with those of the Russian
tchuma. Toward the end of 1875 tn