The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1879-02-21
HORRORS OF THE PLAGUE.

sts Medieval History--Ravages Of the Pest
I'm the Fourteenth Century.
Many Americans are inclined to re-
gard the plague which devastated the
Gid World in the fourteenth, fifteenth,
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as
sn extinct disease; t, imagine that it
could net now prevail i'll any part of CIV
saization, owing to the absence of such
conditions as produced and fostered it,
Since they have begun to read of its
-msyages in Russia they have hardly
6heught it to be the old plague, but a va
nation of it with the same deadly
name, deadly distemper, though moth
ing like 80 terrible as the ancient pesti-
hence, and very different in its symp-
toms and consequences. The plague in
Russia to-day is, essentially, if not ex-
sctly, the same plague so horribly con-
ssicuous in every history of the middle
ages, aud which has never ceased to exist
an certain regions of the East. Since
1920, when it destroyed nearly half the
entire population of Marseilles, France.
and l779. when it visited Russia and
Poland, it has until the present been al
~iost unknown in Western Europe.
During the last 100 years it has been
fnited mainly to Egypt, Syria. Anatolia,
Greece and Turkey, occasionally spread
ing northward toward Russia and west
ward toward Malta. It's true and per
&anent home seems to be in the terri
tory bordering on the eastern extremity
of the Mediterranean, where the condi-
Gems and habits of the people foster
and stimulate it. But the mass of
Americans have 80 little knowledge of,
and 50 small concern for, what is going
on in that quarter of the globe that,
never thinking of the plague, they
~aturally presume its CHASTITY engage
ments closed long ago and forever.
The genuine plague is a very malig
nant kind of contagious fever, marked
by buboes, or swellings of the Emphatic
glands, by carbuncles and petecchjP,
and without any apparent security
against recurrence to the same person.
1t commonly begins with a feeling of
intense fatigue, slight chilhness, much
nausea, giddiness, mental confusion
and lumbar pains. These symptoms
.are speedily followed by increased dis
'turbance of mind, with occasional stu
por and delirium, by alternate pallor
and flushing of face, suffusion of the
eye and a sense of extreme restriction
Pm or about the heart. Sharp, darling
pains are experienced in the groins,
'armpits aud other parts of the body,
soon succeeded 10y enlargement of the
1ymphatic glands. which occurs some
times the first or second day, sometimes
x,.ai. II e
and at others not at all, and also the
formation of carbuncles in various
places. AS the distemper advances, the
tongue grows dry and brown, while the
gums, teeth and lips are covered with q
dark fur; the bowels, at first consti-
spated, relax, and the excavations are
'dusiky, offensive and sangIineous. The
patient loses much power OF. will over
his muscles, and presents the appear
snce OF intoxication. He is more or
Hess faint throughout the attack, and
usually the second or third day petec-
'NtlR (purple spots), livid patches, like
'bruises, and dark stripes (ribices) arc
visible on the skin-especially in severe
-cases-in consequence of extravasation
'ef blood, and are often accompanied
tlSCiidtBtS liOlh bhO
mucous membranes. In fatal cases the
pulse. gradually sinks; the sufferers
body grows cold and clammy; blood
flows. from the mucous membranes;
1ther coma or low delirium sets in, and
deash takes place, either without a
struggle or preceded 10y commissions.
She period of incubation in plague
would seem in no case to extend beyond
eight days. Sometimes the local symp-
toms first show themselves, and the
fever that follows is comparatively mild.
AT other times the disorder is rapid and
violent, and causes death without the
appearance of buboes or carbuncles.
Between these extremes, tending to the
enild or virulent form, the disease pre-
sents every phase of variety. In mild
cases, small red spots, resembling flea
bftes. are seen, especially on parts where
Che body is exposed to the air, gradually
enlarge, get dusky, and are covered by
vesicles filed with dark-hued fluid.
The base of the spots is hard; grows
black. forming gangrenous eschar an
snch or an inch and half in diameter,
and developing into carbunclcs. This
process is attended with more or less
fe~er. which subsidies gradually as the
eschar is detached. Often consequent
upon the carbuncles, the buboes form
an the groins or armpits; occasionally
GO away without suppuration, though
generally after forming pus--sometimes
healthy, sometimes thin and sanious.