The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-07-17
THE PLAQUES OF HISTORY.

plaques recorded in history. The plaques of
Egypt (1491 B. c. are described in Exodus
tx, and other chapters, The first recorded
general plague in all parts of the world oc
CURED 767 B. c. At Carthage, 534 B. c.,
plague was so terrible that people sacrificed
their children to appease the gods. Another
ragged in the Greek islands, Egypt and Syria
1877 B. c., destroying 1000 persons daily. At
Rome a most awful plague prevailed in A.
d., so, by which 10000 persons persisted each
and in A. D. $50 another visited the Roman
empire, and for some time 5000 persons
died daily at Rome, and many
towns were depopulated. In Brit
ain, in 430, a plague swept away such
multitudes that the living were scarcely
able to bury the dead. Constantinople lost
200, 900 of its inabitants in 746-749. AT
Chichester, England, 772, all epidemic car
ried off $4,000 Inhabitants. Scotland lost
10000 people in 954 In London, in the
year I'LL, a plague extended from human
beings to CATTLE fowls and other domestic
animals. A prodigious number of people
persisted in Ireland in 1172 and 1904. In
1889 Britain and Ireland suffered grievous-
ly. In London alone about 200 persons were
1907 10000 citizens persisted of pestilence in
London An awful pestilence visited Oxford
in 1471, and throughout England plague
destroyed more people than the continental
wars for the fifteen preceding years. The
Sweating sickness (mortal in three hours
appeared in London in 1906 and again in
1917. In most of the important towns in
England half the inhabitants died, and
Oxford was depopulated. Limerick suf-
fered in 1922, where many thousand persisted.
The sweating sickness appeared in England
again in 1928 and the next year in North
Germany, and for the fifth time in England
in 1861. In London alone, in 1904, 30,578
persons persisted of a plague. CONSTANT
nople lost 200. 600 citizens in 1911 Fourteen
years later, 1925, London lost 35,417 in
habitants. In Lyons, in 1882 go, 900 persons
died. In 1866, transport with soldiers on
board brought the plague from Sardinia to
Naples, and 100000 people persisted in six
months.
The great plague of London began in De-
cember, 1864, and carried off 6S, 500 inhab-
itants. Fires were kept up night and day
for three days to purify the air and it was
thought that the infection was not totally
destroyed until the great confagraton of
September 1866. In 1920 10000 persons per-
ished in Marseilles from plague brought by
a vessel from the Levant A fatal pestilence
destroyed $4,000 inhabitants of Bassora Per-
STA, in 1773. In Egypt about 800, 900 persons
died of plague in the year 1892. In Barbary
in 1893. The Asiatic cholera made its
first appearance in England at Sun
derland, October %, 1881, and the
first death from Asiatic, cholera
in North America occurred at Quebec, June
8, 1882. In New York the first fatal case &C.
CURED June %, 1892 and extended thence to
Cincinnati and New Orleans. 1t again visited
the United States in 1884, slightly in 1S49,
and severely i'll 1855, and again, slightly, in
1861. Cholera became epidemic in Lower
Bengal in 1917, whence it gradually spread
many in 1881, carrying off more than 900 900
persons in 18293O In England and Wales
in 1850, SO, 293 persons died OF cholera, and
in 1854 20,097. In the same year 10000 died
at Naples. In 1865 nearly $4,000 deaths from
cholera occurred at Constantiaople.
Such are the more notable epidemics
chronicled in the regions named. Others no
less terrible in their devastations must have
prevailed in India and the Orient But few
are ascribed to Asiatic cholera, which was
described by Garcia del Huerto, physician
of Goa, about 1860. 1t must have prevailed
long before in the region along the Ganges
where it is ende mic. The plague, which
seems to have preceded it, and which still
manifests itself at intervals, is a con-
tagious fever, characterized by an
eruption of carbuncles and bu-
boes. The celebrated "black death"
which ravaged all Europe in the middle of
the fourteenth century, appears to have
been the oriental plague. AS in all severe
epidemics of the disease, at its commence
ment many of the patients died before the
development of the peculiar eruption, but
the general occurrence OF carbuucles and
buboes is sufficiently authenticated. 1t de-
rived its name from the gangrenous eschars
formed by the carbuncles or, perhaps, from
the petecchi@ which accompanied the dis
ease. Before its last visitation. in 1863 il