The Leavenworth weekly times., 1879-02-20
THE BLACK DEATH.
why the HuAsians Have Reascn tO
Fear the Present PestiIence-Form.
er Plaques OF Europe and Asia-
How the Arabians Ward on pnscc.

4
light OF the epidemic, the accounts of its
! ravages which have gone abroad are alarm
ing enough. The Russian 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 p-ophylactics against the plague.
: Procopius, an eye witness of the great
plague which burst forth in Constantinople
in the year 4. d. 5i2, tells us that those
r who were abstemious in their mode Of life
, Tor the most part ESCAPED. The recovery OF
the Emperor Justinisn, Whose august per-
son was not respected, was attributed 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 plsgue
The inmates of the monasieri,s
and converts Of .Constsntinople,
in which sobriety was at least the rule, are
said TO have escaped coutagiOn, although
in their case seclusion from society was
itself protection. This, probably, had
much to do with the immunity the COLI ges
of Cambridge enjoyed when the town sui
fered 80 severely in 1865 ; and in the same
year the prisoners in the dungeons OF Rome
were passed over by the plague Of 1876. But
the consumption OF raw spirits 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 "a very peculiar degrea The
| plague which appeared in the Russo-Turk
ish campaign of 1898 limited its ravages al
most entirely to the Russian lines, where
besides want of cleanliness, intemperance
was the rule the Turk, eschewing spiritu-
Gus liquors 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
| perI5hed of Its effects. 1t carried off very
| large proportion of the 10000 the Gar
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 with the cattle |
OF the Russian army, whore csrcasses bred |
the seeds OF the fever. And putrefaction |
| OF animal matter seems very usually TO have |
invited the appearance OF this terrible |
| guest. The old plaques, which had their |
cradle generally in Ethiopia, were COM
monty preceded by a scourge of locusts, and |
just before the epidemic in Bagdad in 1876, |
| enormous quantities OF these insects appear
ed all over Mesopotamia. The worship of |
the ibis is referred by ancient writers to his |
prediction for eating snakes. Cicero de |
Nat Deorum) says these birds saved Egypt |
from the plague, the stencil of the snakes |
when dead being proyerbially as destruct- |
i've as their bite when alive; and DR.. Gott- |
wald, in his description OF the plague which |
broke out in Dantzic in 1909, lays stress on |
the fact that before its outbreak the place !
had been infected with an incredible num-
Der OF spiders.
The plague OF Astrakhan has not been
without a characteristic which has sppar-
emily distinguished all the outbreaks of the
disease at all times. 1t lay asleep during
the colder weather, waking up under the
influence of a warmer and damper temper
ature. The seeds of the plague are not de-
stroyed by frost, but only rendered inactive
for time. Thus, in the plague which
struck Genoa in 1856, during the first sum-
mer 10000 died of it; the following winter
hardly any at all; but in the summer
which ensued 10000 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 a hard frost OF nearly three months con-
foIIo,r;ni, -,
TL. -
,ba ,,i.ara uas n si,;oar So - -
Upper Ethiopia. From thence Thucydides
anJ raDS,ant;na,ia 81 - 80 ~
srn 49, 49, n.,'nJ a paI,nS ,"d TurIsr
.. ,ba ,wo san.r.,s .nJ d;s,;nc, cr,Tas =,
=, b;r,h az has, .n,bo,;,;as 80 ~ ,ha
o,,;r;a,, ,ha, ,b;s r.s No. ~, fs- anor,,b
~ III. g. - - a. 80, -. - Ws.
soiiiss - 10 ~ oonf fJan,Iv .e, Jown br
n. ~ ~ Larin,, ,raraiad b. ,ba -
aIIr rsoaivaJ rarta In tbnso IL ,har.
va, ii,,ia ob.ncao - ,iaano con,;na in,o
EI,ora bn Wv 81 IL C.sn;an Sa.
Af,sr Eovp, Turtev w,s Tho mos, TtsIv
conduit, for its Introduction to the West:
and the plague of London, which came TO
us from Holland. ia said TO have been i'm.
ported in bales of cotton into that country
from the Leyant, This article of merchan-
disc. possessipg. as il does. a peculiar anti
tude for retaining as well as catching the
seeds of any infection, has been always con-
sidered most active breeder of tine
plague. In former days there used TO be
such an appreheuslon of the disease being
couyeyed 10 Italy from Alexapria or SYRIA.
that at Genoa. Ieghorn. Naples and other
Italian Posts. searchers were appointend
whose business il was to rip open the bales
of cotton az they arrived, and, by thrust
inc their arms through them. admit the
healthy influence of the air to every part