Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1879-03-29
AFFECTIONS IN EUROPE.
The Plague and Other Troubles-Fears of
General pidemie-Rayages of the
Black Dsath-Inefiiciency of Russian
Medical Authorities

concerning the progress OF the Eastern
pestilence is on the increase; no one be-
lieves the Russian official dispatches,
and the very energy displayed in the
appointment Of medical commissions by
Austria, Germany and Italy proves how
imminent the danger is considered to be
by the Governments of Central and
Western Europe. Even the French
have at last awakened 10 the conscious
ness that they, too, are exposed, and
that an epidemic which has broken
through, asis feared, the sanitary Gordon
along the Asiatic frontier, may very
possibly penetrate from the seaboard
among their own populations. So, as
they always go TO extremes, their news
papers have begun TO tax the authori-
ties with negligence, demanding rigor-
Gus guarantees and the exclusion of all
merchandise, persons, or even letters
coming from any suspected point, which
will be effected most vexatiously for a
month or two, when the severity will
become irksome, the whole thing will
be called canard, witty articles will
be written in ridicu;e of their fermer
apprehensions, the removal of the en-
barge will be insisted upon and obtain
ed, and then one fine morning people
will wake up 10 find that
THIS DREADFUL scoURGE,
more terrible, it is said, than either
cholera or yellow fever, is in their midst.
In the reports that have reached US
there is doubtless much of exaggera-
ton, but it would be criminal folly TO
deny that an epidemic of unusual gravi-
" has ragged along the banks of the
Nolga since the month of November,
1878, and that it presents all the charac-
teristics of the plague noticed by the
Roman historians OF The Reign of Trajan.
which again ravaged not only the East,
but Italy, Sicily, and at last all Europe;
in l3iS, destroying, according to Haser,
over 1000, 900 human beings. Itreap-
peared at Marseilles in 1920, at Moscow
fifty years later, and in Egypt at the
time of the French expedition under
Gen. Bonaparte. 1t is not generally
known, however, that although sanitary
reforms have driven it from CONSTANT
nople and Alexandria, it has ALWAYS
continued epideinically in Persia and
Mesopotamia, where filth and starvation
have aided in its development. Since
1855 there have been more frequent
cases, and in 1868 il was observed in
the district of Maxim, on the Armenian
frontier, with "A marked increase in 1867;
at Bagdad, where it ragged in 1873, but
suddenly ceased in 1873, remaining,
during this period of II years, confined
within the limits or TO the immediate
neighborhoed of the localities originally
infected.
In 1877, DIR. Proust's memoir to the
French Academy of Medicine argued
that contagion was to be feared from
the seaside, and indicated the measures
10 be taken in such an event, and DIR.
Thologan, 20 whom a long residence in
Persia gives a great weight of authority,
agrees IN the main with his Partisan
colleague, but insists upon the POSSIBLE
ity OF
SPONTANEOUS DEVELOPMENT
in certain elimacteric and hygienic con-
ditions, citing in support OF his theory
the Recht epidemic, in which the ma
lority OF The cases were rot traceable to
foreign Importation. In this view he is /
borne out by Fauvel, in an article re-
Gently published in the Rerue a. Ryqiene. /
every epidemic" says this distinguish
ed physician, ''has been, so To speak, /
evolved in the midst of the circum-
stances by which it was generated. The
character of the disease is always the
same, there is no abatement in its vio-
lence, its tenacity to particular places is
still remarkable, but its tendency to ex-
tend to great distances has diminished,
although this fact can not be attributed
to any precaution taken to arrest the
contagion. Ii has common point of
resemblance with all similar epidemics, ,
= tina: it originates aud is developed ,
wherever the wretcheiness of the popu- ,
alton and the unhealthiness of locali- j
y offer predisp"silion TO Infection" I