St. Paul daily globe., 1884-12-07
A Trip Through the Plague Stricken
Districts of Kentucky and
Virginia.
Whole Families Become Victims OF the Terri
bic Seourge, and in Some Instan-
ees Entire NeighbOrhoods.
The Recent Rains and Fro. & Have Some
what stopped the 3IsIsdy. but there
Is Still Great suffering.

country can form anything near an idea Of
the woe that wraps like winding sheet and
casts pail o. desolation and sorrow
everywhere Almost every house In
many sections has contributed its
one or more victims to the hu ndTeds who
help TO fill the grave yards, and mourning is
as widespread IS the everlasting hills which
have been devastated left Mt Pleasant
three days ago and have travelled into the
northern part Of that county along Clover
Fork and little streams emptying into it, and
then went along to Poor Fork along whose
banks in Harlan and Leteher counties
scores have yielded up their lives
to the awful seOlrge. From Poor Fork
l crossed eulverts and mountains into Wise
and Lee counties, Virginia, finding in the
former such tale of horror that my heart
fails when begin to write. Individual in
stances Of the most heartrending nature are
as numerous as the mountains, and to men
ton them one by one would keep me en-
ployed for day.
At one place, in Harlan county,
L learned Of an instance where five
out OF a family of seven, the Clarks
living on Poor Fork, succumbed
70 the scourge. In another, where the ONLY
living member Of family of i've was babe
not yet able 70 pra.tle. In another, where
father and three children had left bereaved
wife and mother TO mourn her sorrow alone
at the cherries hearth; and still another
where not one Of q household Of four re-.
mained TO perpetuate the name on Poor
Fork. At Letcher, just beyond Harlan lies a
cemetery in which thirty-seven new made
mounds of rock and earth covered all that
was mortal OF the plaques victims
in one little neighborhood not five miles
square, In that section almost whole
families were swept away like chaff before a
wind, and in many more death had taken a
majority. The deaths in Letcher have been
far above the average of those in any other
county save Wise county, Virginia, in which
the disease had made a wider swath than
in any have visited. The
number, as nearly as the best
authorities could estimate, is 200, and the
number OF cases have exceeded that fully
three-fOld. 1t was not until l crossed into
Virginia that the most pitiful stories reached
my ears. Here II was told that near the lit
tie town OF Emdoden, in grave yard con-
tanning sixty-three new graves, twenty-nine
persons out Of the Baker family had died aud
were occupants of that many burial places in
the rude cemetery. was told that one day
thirty-three persons had died, and that there
was not grave clothes and collins enough in
the neighborhoOd TO bury tbem. Physicians
who practice in the county, but two in mum
ber, are totally unable to cope with the di-
sease, and the dead have multiplied faster
than they could be buried. Their treatment
Of 1t has been of the crudest sort,
from what can learn, and
ss a result has been little more than
experimental, eonfessing that the plague has
bsffied all the medical skill they possess.
In Wise the deaths exceed 400, every
grave yard, almost every hill side, contains
rude heaps which mark the last resting place
Of the dead. In this county, as in Letcher, the
number Of those attacked has been enormous,
in many instances there not being
enough well people to care for
the sick. The exact number
Of those who have been III could not learn,
but Mr.. jacob Oakley, with whom | talked,
said nearly half the population had been at
tackled. In Lee county l met DR.. W. c.
Minter, AT the post Office at Crab Orchard.
near the Kentucky line. He mas been in the
infected section but about three weeks,
having left his practice in the southern por-
lion Of Lee 10 answer a pitiful CRY for aid
which came from the northern portion of
the county. Since his arrival he has treated
scores of patients and saved every one. Tie
has the appearance of an intelligent man and
gave his opinion that with proper treatment
aud nursing the mortality could have been
reduced seventy-iye per cent in Lee
tricts in which have pursued
my investigation, the disease is now
decreasing, both IN the number attacked and
fatality, and while fresh cases appear singly
and In twos and threes daily, they are lack
ing the malignant features which marked the
epidemic before the recent rains and frosts
The deaths In Lee have reached about 100
since the infection first made its appear
ance.
In the counties which have
visited all sources of information
medical and otherwise, agree that impure
water is attributed to this most terrible
plague. In several places have examined
the water, and although Il has been to
great extent purified by the rains and frost,
/ have been able 10 detect brackish. bitter
taste so often described. The water not only
tastes bad but looks bad, and that which
the people have been using
for drinking purposes for weeks would turn
the strongest stomach and cause the health
lest man TO fall I'll. Mineral or vegetable
poison, which ever II Is, in some substances
so strongly impregnsted the streams that it
could be discovered both by sight and taste,
slight disturbance at the bottom bringing
to the top moss or sediment OF bright yell
lowish color, bitter as nut gall. found in
stances where people whose springs
bad given out they had dug
holes two OF three feet deep in
the ground and used the Shiny, pest breeding
water which oozed up. The stuff being so
impure it seems impossible they should not
have known of IL.
A case Of almost criminal foolishness is
related to me. A man, whose well had given
out, hauled water q long distance and
dumped 1t into a well, stirring up the filth
which for years had been aecumulating
at the bottom. or this water the entire
family used, and as q consequence 1Rx at
tackled every member, one or two dying.
Having travelled through many counties
and made every effort to secure the most
reliable information, / think the following
estimate Of the number of deaths as correct
as any can be secured, and certainly nearer
the truth than any figures given from out
side sources:
Whiteley county,. 80 Wise county, ya...400
Knox county y-..-... so Lee county, Va. 100
Bell county. so -
f1Arian ....s..... .4OO 1ot4l.. .9lO
Letcher .......... .SOO
This estimate, it win be seen, does not in
clude Buchanan county, Va, in which the
mortality is placed at over l25
Scott county, Va. 25 Leslie ......... IS
Dickinson county. .150 Knott ........... so
Pike county, KY. 100 Scott, Bell, Menisee
Floyd -.--. IS and Wolf Co.'S, Ky 400
which brings the grand total up TO 2,O45.