Northern tribune. [volume] (Cheboygan, Mich.) 1875-1885, 1883-09-22
PLAQUES.

Cholera has undoubtedly become
epidemic in Egypt, and that unfortu-
nate country is threatened with a fate
that recalls the result of other plaques
more or less famous in history, though
none of them exceeds in antiquity or
dramatic interest those of which an ac-
count is given in the first portion of the
book of Exodus, and that preceded the
deliverance of the chosen people from
the cruel oppression of Pharaoh. The
punishment visited upon the sacrilegious
men of Bethshemesh who opened the
ark of the covenant and were smitten
by plague which killed $4,000 of
them, and the mysterious manifestation
of Divine wrath when Sennacherib's
mighty host of 1876, 900 men was slaugh-
tered in one night for the deliverance of
Israel and in answer to the prayers of
pious King Hezekiah, may be included
in the Scriptural mention of plaques.
Plaques and pestilence have often
visited the East within the period
covered by authentic records, and
doubtless they were familiar to the
people of that section ages before their
ravages found chronicler.
The plague itself has recognized
place in pathology, and distinct Pc
culiarities not found in other ailments,
though the general term plague is ap-
piled to various diseases that become
epidemic. True plague, which origi-
mates in the hot eastern countries, is a
high contagious fever accompanied by
painful eruptions. and it has sometimes
ragged with awful effect over the whole
area of Europe. Perhaps the worst
visitation was in the fourteenth century,
when the oriental plague, known by the
ominous and terrifying name of "black
DEATH" swept over that continent,
carrying off the people by thousands.
At various times since it has reap
peared, though in less virulent form.
Its last appearance in England in
epidemic form was in 1865, and pre-
vious to that year, according to relia-
bic authority, it had visited the country
at regular periods of thirty to forty
years. But though England was freed
from it, the malady frequently scourged
other parts of Europe. Marseilles in
1920 lost 10000 lives by it. In 1771
and 1772 Moscow suffered to terrible
extent, and the latest authenticated
presence of the true plague was in
Naples in 1915 and 1916, when great
numbers of the people died. Other
maladies, similar in their nature but
differing in various features, have been
pronounced plaques and have at times
worked dreadful havoc among the resi-
dents of the East and portions of Eu-
rope, and outbreaks of fatal and vio-
lent pestilence in Russia, Poland, Hun
gary and other countries where there
are large masses of impoverished peo-
pie living in poverty and filth are not
yet uncommon. AS rule, these dis
eases gain foothold only where the
habits of the people and disregard of
sanitary conditions are such as to en-
courage them, and beyond question the
large degree to which England, France
and other countries have been exempt
from their visitations is due to advance
in personal and official ideas Of cleanli-
ness and sanitation, added to better
knowledge of the true nature of the
diseases and more intelligent action in
treating them by physicians.
To return to recital of the more
noted of epidemics that have spread
suffering and death over the world, we
find brief mention by Petavius of
general plague in 767 b. G. The
details seem to have been lost in the
mists Of antiquity. One of the earliest
cf shcse plaques occurred in Carthage
Il. G.. 534. which was so terrible THAI