, 1881-05-20
The Black Death.

Already Europe is becoming alarmed
at the appearance of the plague, or black
death, in the East, and fears are eA-
pressed that 1t may spread westward. 1T
therefore becomes important TO know the
characteristics of the disease. The Lon
don Standard states. on pathological
grounds, that it is very malignant
form of contagious fever" which breaks
out suddenly in certain localities and
spreads with frightful rapidity, and that
the present type" is rs virnlent as that
of the Middle Ages. 1t Is characterized
by swellings of the lymphatlc glands
and by carbuncles, and beyond doubt
one seizure seems to afford no security
against n second attack. This is, how
ever, a point upon which PHYSICIANS have
not often had n chance OF studying, since
1.-THE pest" does not usually leave the
same individual n chance OF experiencing
its symptoms twice. 1t has been CON
! tended that ii Is not contagious, but IN
almost every case of an outbreak the dis
! ease has been traced to persons having
come from infected districts. In the
| Astrakhan epidemic of 1879, and in that
! of l77l, which cut of 100, 900 people IN
| Moscow, the pestilence was known to
| have been brought, IN one instance from
! Central Asia, and in the other from
| Choczin. Again during the latter out
| break, the 400 inmates OF the Imperial
Founding Hospital, who were isolated,
and in 1913 the town of Jegla, III Malta,
| which was shut off from Valetta, where
the disease was raging, entirely escaped.
Quarantine, however, as u preventive
against the ravages of the cholera,
has been proved to be utterly
futile, and 1t is very generally
allowed that it is not much more
potent as a barrier against the plague.
No other form of death has ever enlisted
into its service historians OF such brll-
liant talent. De Foe could not have been
an eve witness to the horrible scenes oi
1865 in London. But he had doubtless
talked to many who had survived those
dreadful times and were familiar with the
tales of the cOrpse-carrying wagons go
ing its dreadful rounds, OF the living
being unable to carry out the dead, and
London deserted by the court, and, in
deed, all who could escape into the
country. In .'Rienzi" the late Lord Lyt
ton has given an account scarcely les.
pictorial of the plague in Florence. and
in almost every other European country
''the pest" which crept like a foul
Europe, from Naples to Archangel, and
even to distant Greenland, where il
smote the Esquimaux by thousands, has
secured such able chroniclers that ut the
slightest sign of its temperance west
ern Europe naturally grew alarmed. In
the years 1913, 1861, 1868, 1863. and
1902 London was visited by the ''BlacB
Death, though these early attacks of the
disease sink into insignifcance when
compared with that which desolated the
city in 1865, the year which will ever be
known as ''the year of the plague" In
reality, however, though it caused before
Christmas mortality of 6S, $50 out OF
the 500, 600 people which the metropolis
then contained, it did not abate until
1866, while in the thirteen subsequent
years there were many fatal cases recor-
ded. But after 1879 no death from plague
is known to have occurred, and 1904 sc
entirely had it disappeared that the name
of the disease was actually omitted from
the bills of mortality.