San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1882-02-23
HISTORY OF THE SMALLPOX
A Plague that Has Held Sway for Twelve Centuries
New York herald

A Plague that Has Held Sway for Twelve Centuries
New York Herald.
OF all tho plaques that have arisen
from time TO time, and infested cities
or countries, none is more dreaded,
none is more persistent, none is more
communicable or fatal than small. pox
was century ago. But when and how
the disease arose is not easy to say.
Other plaques have vexed the earth for
a time and then passed-away, leaving
no vestige OF their ravages, as did the
great plague at Athens during the Pc.
loponnesian war, or the plague in Eng
land during the reign of Charles II;
but smallpox, not content with twelve
centuries of sway, still holds its own,
Notwithstanding the discoveries of
science. 1t is unquestionably true
that diseases of such contagious nature
generally arise among people of filthy
conditions, confined in narrow quarters.
This was the case with, the Athenian
plague, and it was again the case in the
Jewish quarters Of European cities.
Contagious diseases were comparatively
rare among the Romans and Greeks of
the illustrious periods, owing to the
free public baths and excellent sanitary
and gymnastic habits of the times. It
was reserved for the middle or dark
ages to furnish the most dreadful exam.
pies of pestilence. Small pox arose in
the very darkest period of medieval
times. 1t first invaded England in the
ninth century; it was common in Ara
bia in the tenth; the crusaders carried
it through all southern Europe; it
reached Norway in the fourteenth CEN
fury: in 1917 it was carried to st.
Domingo by the Spaniards along with
slavery, the inquisition, the rack and
host of other blessings; three years
later it crossed to Mexico and slew
three millions of people; 1t invaded
Iceland in 1907, and Greenland in 1888,
Staying fourth part of the residents
in the former, and large proportion
OF those in the latter country, and de-
spite all that medical skill has done and
is doing to cast it from the earth, it bids
fair to retain it's hold, in some measure,
as long as popular ignorance, destitu-
ton and negligence continue to combat
the physicians and the dictates of COM
mon sense.
It's history is thus unique. Other
contagious diseases have proved as fatal
under similar circumstances for limited
periods; none have continued their
blasting work for ten centuries in all
climates from Mexico to Greenland.
1t is not unreasonable, therefore, that
its approach should be beheld with
terror, as is the approach of no other
disease. Yellow fever and Asiatic chol-
era have caused no such potent and
widespread destruction. The very air
it taints carries infection, garments in
contact with patients carry their bane-
full power for years if shut up in tight
closets; it can be communicated by
mail or by the wind, by railroad, by
ocean voyage, manifest means which
cannot be guarded against. 1t is not
only dangerous, but loathsome in it's
progress; it drives away ones friends,
thrusts him into unutterahle fortunes
and leaves him often wreck for life,
with ruined health and distigured
countenance. When to all this is add
ed its persistent temperance at almost
definite periods, it is not to be wonder
ed at that smallpox scares are SO
common.