The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1881-04-21
THE BLACK DEATH.
Temperance of the Great Plague Which
Devastated the Middle Ages.

From the NeW York Herald
Already Europe is becoming alarmed at
the appearance OF the plague, or black death,
in the East and fears are expressed that II
may spread westward. 1t therefore becomes
important 10 know the characteristics Of the
disease. The London Standard states, on
pathological grounds, tLat it Is a every
maglignaut form of contagious teyer,
which breaks out suddenly in certain local
tiles and spreads with frighttul rapIdlty,
aud that Tie present type Is rs vlrulent
as that of the Middle 4 yes. 1t is character
lied by swellings Of the lymEhatic glands
and by carbuncles and beyond one seizure
seems to afford no security against a second
attack This is, however, a point upon
which physicians have not often had 4
chance of studying, since "the pest does
not usually leave the same individual Il
chance of experiencing its symptoms twice.
Ii has been contended that Is not CONTACT
GUS but in almost every case OF an out
break the disease has been traced to persons
who have come from infected districts. In
the AstrakhaG endemic of 1879, and in
in that of l77l, which CEt of 100000 people
in Moscow, the pestilence Wa@ known to
have been brought, in one instance, from
Central Asia, and in the other from ChoczIn
Again, during the latter outbreak, the
|. 400 inmates cf the Imperial Found
ling Hospital, who were isolated, and
in 1913 the town of Jegla, IN Malta. which
was shut off from Naetta, where the dis
ease was raging, entirely escaped. Quar-
antine, however, rs preventive against
the ravages of the cholera has been proved
TO be utterly futile, and IL Is very generally
allowed that it Is not much more FOteht Is
IL a barrier against the plague. No other
form of death has ever enlisted into is SER
vice historians of such brilliant talent.
De Foe could not have been an eyewitness
of the horrible scenes of 1860 IN London.
But he had doubtless talked to many who
had survived those dreadful times and were
familiar with the tales Of the corpSe-carry-
ing wagon going its dismal rounds, OF the
living being unable to carry out the dead,
aud London deserted by the Court, and,
indeed. all who eculd escape into the coun-
try. In ''Reuzi' the late ord Lytton has
given an account scarcely less pictorial OF
the plague in Florence, and in almost every
other European country ''the pest which
creps like a foul miasma over Asia, North
ern Africa and Europe, from Naples to
Archangel, and even to distant Greenland,
where il smote the Esquimaux by thousands,
has secured such able chronIclerS that, a,
the slightest sign Gt ~ re-appearance.
Western Europe naturally gross alarmed.
In the wears 1913, 1861, 1863, 1868 and
1902 London was visited by the black
DEATH" though these early attacks OF the
disease sink INTO insignifcance when com
pared with that which desolated the city in
1865, the year which will ever be known as
''the year of the plague" In reality, how
ever, though it caused before Christmas a
mortality 6S, 596 out Of the 100000 people
which the metropolis then contained, 1t did
not abate until 1866, while i'll the thirteen
subsequent years there were many fatal
cases recorded. But after 1879 no death
from plague is known to have occurred, and
in I704 so entirely had it DISAPPEARED that
the name Of the disease was actually omit
ted from the bills Immortality.