The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-12-08
A Deadly Disease Which Has Been an I'm
welcome Visitor in Almost Every House
in the Stricken District.
In Some Sections Half the Residents
Have Been Attackedby the Plague.
Almost Every Hillside Marked with Fresh
Graves, and Not Enough Well People
to Look After the Sick.
A personal INSPECTION.
A Correspondents Story of His Tour in the
Afflicted Region.


LOUISVILLE Ky., Dec 6-The Courier Jour
nails staff correspondent sends his paper the
result of his tour through the plague-stricken
district in a special from Mount Pleasant, Harlan
county, Kentucky. He says No who has
not personally visited this country can form
anything near an idea of the woe that enwraps
like winding sheet and casts the pail of desola
ton and sorrow everywhere. Almo9t every
house in many sections has contributed its one
or more victims to the hundreds who have gone
to fill simple country graveyards and the mourn
ing is as widespread as the everlasting hills
which have been devastated l left Mount
Pleasant, Harlan county, 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 on to Poor Fork,
along whose banks in Harlan and Letcher coun
ties scores have yielded up their lives to the aw
full scourge.
From Poor Fork l crossed the Cumberland
mountains into Wise and Isle counties, Virginia,
encountering in the former such condition of
horror that my heart fails when l begin to write.
Individual instances Of the most heartrending
nature numerous as the mountains. and to
mention them one by one would keep me en-
ployed for a day. At one place in Harlan county
1 learned of an instance where FIVE out of a
family of seven, the Clarks, living on Poor Fork,
succumbed to the scourge; in another where the
only living member Of a family of five was a
babe not yet able to prattle; in another where
the father and three children had left bereaved
wife and mother to mourn her sorrow alone at
the cheerless hearth, and still in another, where
not one of a household of four remained to per.
petuate the name. On Poor Fork, at Letcher,
just beyond the Harlan line is the county ceme
terry, in which thirty five new made mounds of
rock and earth lightly covered all that was
mortal of plague victims. In one little neigh
borhood not five miles square, in that section,
almost whole families were swept away like chaff
before the wind, and in many more death had
tAken n majority.
Deaths in Letcher had been far above the av-
erage of those in any other county save Wise
county, Virginia in which the disease has made
a wider swath than in any have visited. They
number nearly as the best authorities could
estimate, 200, and the number of cases have ex-
cceded that fully threefold. 1t was not until
crossed into Virginia that the most pitiful sto-
ries reached my ears. Here l was told that near
the little town of Emboden in a graveyard con-
tanning sixty-three new graves, twenty nine per-
sons out of the Baker family had died and we're
occupants of that many burial places in the rude
cemetery. l was told that in one day thirty
three persons had died; that there was not grave
clothes and collins enough in the neighborhood
to bury them. The physicians who practice in
the county, but two in number, were totally un-
able to cope with the disease and the dead have
multiplied faster than they could be buried.
Their treatment of it has been of the crudest
sort, from what can learn and as a result has
been little more than experimental confessing
that the plague has baf1ed all the medical skill
they possess In Wise county the deaths exceed
400
Every graveyard, almost every hillside, con-
tains rude heaps which mark the last resting
place of the dead. In this country, as in Letch-
or, the number of those attacked has been
enormous in many instances there not being
enough well people to care for the sick. TIE
exact number of those who have been ill could
not ascertain, but Mr., Jacob Oakley, with whom
l talked, said nearly one-half of the population
had been attacked In Lee county met DR.. ".
G. Winter, at the postoffice at Crab Orchard.
near the Kentucky line. He has been in the in
fected section but about three weeks, having left
his practice in the southern portion of Lee to an
swer the pitif}ahcry for aid which came from the
northern poizaA of the county. Since his
rival he has treated scores of patients, and saved
every one He has the appearance of an intelli-
gent man, and gave it as his opinion that, with
proper treatment and nursing. the mortality
could have been reduced rs per cent.
In Lee county, as, in fact, in all districts in
which have pursued my investigation, the dis
ease is now decreasing both in the number at
lacked and in fatality and, while fresh cases ap-
pear singly, and in twos and threes daily, they
are lacking in 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 appearance.
In the counties which have visited all sources
of information, medical and otherwise agree
that to impure water is attributable this most
terrible plague In several places l have exam
ined the water, and, although it has been to a
great extent purified by rains and frost, have
been able to detect the brackish, bitter taste
often described. The water not only tastes bad,
but looks bad. and that which people have been
using for drinking purposes for weeks would
turn the strongest stomach, and cause the
heathiest man to fall i'll. The mineral or veg
etable poison, whichever it may be- in some in
stances strongly impregnates the streams
that it can be discovered both by sight and taste,
a slight disturbance at the bottom bringing up a
mass of sediment of bright yellowish color as
bitter as nut gall. l found instances where
people whose springs had given ont, had dug
holes two and three feet deep in the ground and
used the Shiny, pest breeding water which oozed
up. the stuff being impure that it seems in
credible that they should not be aware of it, A
case of almost criminal foolishness is related to
me- man whose well had given out, hauled
water long distance and dumped it into the
well, stirring up the filth, which for years had
been accumulating at the bottom. OF this water
the entire family used AS consequence, flux
attacked every member, one or two dying
Having travelled through many counties and
made every effort to secure the most reliable in
formation, | think the following estimate of the
number of deaths as correct any can be Sc
cured; certainly nearer the truth than any fig
ures given from outside sources;
Whiteley county ...... 90Knox county ...,.... 80
Bell county" 50Harlan county loo
Letcher county 200 Wise county ,Vir ginia 400
Lee county Virginia. 100
Total ...--......----...-..91