Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1881-06-03
T he Black Death,

Already Europe is becoming alarmed
at the appearance Of the plague, OIL
black death, in the East, and fears are
expressed that it may spread westward.
1t therefore becomes important to
know the characteristics of the disease,
The London Standard states, on patho-
logical grounds, that it is u "very
malignant form OF contagious fever"
which breaks out suddenly in certain
localities and spreads with frightful
rapidity, and that the present "type "
is as virulent as that of the Middle
Ages. 1t is characterized by sweliings
of the lymphatic glands aud by car
buncles, and hey doubt one seizure
seems to aif)rd no security against a
second attack. This is, however, a
point upon which physicians have not
often had chance of studying, since
"the pest does not usually leave the
same Individual chance Of experienc.
ing its symptoms twice. 1t has been
contended that it is not contagious, but
in almost every case of an outbreak the
disease has been traced to persons hav
ing come from infected districts. In
the Astrakhau epidemic of 1879. and
in that OF I'll, which cut off 100000
people in Moscow, the pestilence was
known to have been brought, in one
instance from Central Asia, and in the
other from Choc2in. Again during
the latter outbreak, the 400 inmates
of the imperial founaling hospital, who
were isolated, and in 1913 the town of
Jegla, in Malta, which was shut of
from Valetta, where the disease was
raging, entirely escaped. Quarantine.
however, as a preventive against the
ravages of the cholera, has been proved
to be utterly futile, and it is very gen.
orally allowed that it is not much more
potent rs barrier againts the plague
No other form of death has ever en-.
listed into its service historians of such
brilliant Talent. De Foe could not
have been au eyewitness to the horrible
scenes of 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 wagon going its dismal rounds,
Of the living being unable to carry out
the dead, and London deserted by the
court, ard. indeed, all who could es.
cape into the country. In "Rienzi VI
the late Lord Lytton has given an ac-
count scarcely less pictorial of the
plague in Florence, and in almost every
other European country "the pest u
which crept like a foul miasma over
Asia, Northern Africa and Europe,
from Naples to Archangel, and even to
distant Greenland, where it smote the
Esquimaux by thousands, has secured
sucn able chropiclers that, at the
slightest sign of It's reappearance,
western Europe naturally grows
alarmed. In the years 134S, 1861, 1868
1859 and 1902 London was visited by
the "black DEATH" though these early
attacks of the disease sink into insignif.
icance when compared with that which
desolated tae city in 1865, the yeal
which will ever be known as "thu yeal
OF the p.ague." In reality, however
though it caused before Christmas q
mortality OF GS, 500 out of the 500, ,O0(
people which the metropolis then con.
tained, it did not abate until 1866,
while in the thirteen subsequent years
there were many fatal cases rec orded
But after 1879 no death from plague il
known to have occurred, and in 1904 sc
entirely had it disappeared that the
name of the disease was actually
omitted from the bills of mortality.