The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1891-01-29
AN AWFUL sCOURGE.
Black Death Has Carried or More People
than All the Wars Recorded.

Black Death Has Carried OF More People
than All the Wars Recorded.
Chicago Inter Ocean.
The black death is said to have visited
TobOlsk and other portions of Asiatic Rus
sia. This terrible scourge has not for many
centuries made it's appearance to anything
Ink the extent of the fourteenth century,
but it rests permanently in Bagdad and the
overcrowded and ill-drained cities of the
Orient. where sanitary conditions are not
American american s eities, wn the houses S sre
crowded into small areas and over
run with tenants. In the city of Bagdad,
for example. and the province of the same
name the black death carried away $780,
600 people in l714, breaking out again in.
1881. The city has never since got fully
over the pestilence, which furnishes the
most horrible and mysterious chapter OF
human history. The same is true of other
Asiatic cities, like Astracban, where it
In every generation.
In 1877 this disease, or something akin to
il. ragged in Siberia and spread to the shores
Of the Caspian sea. AS Tobolsk is not far
20 Kars, it is probably the same form of
disease as in 1877 which has again made its
appearance in Siberia. Though America
has never been visited by any p~estilentlal
of the black death in 1850, our close cOnnec-
ton with all parts of the world renders
it incumbent tha we should know what is
going on elsewhere and take every possible
precaution to- guard against pesti-
lence which always follows the course of
trade and the migratiOns of men. What
ever advances medical science may have
made in dealing with isolated cases of dis
ease it is still almost as powerless as ever
in graphing with pestilence in its march of
fury. and the only precautions are good
sanitary conditions. Fortunately we have
not dense masses of people in our cities. as
Is evidenced by a fact that while London is
said to contain q population five times that
of Chicago, vet Chicago embraces q ground
area of over two and Q half times that of
London.
In 1347 the black death swept over the
whole of Europe from east to west ik q
loathsome forms into almost every city. aud
destroying during the three or four years
through which 1t ragged fully one-fourth of
the whole population. leaving In its trail
such misery and poverty as the world never
witnessed before and has happily not re-
corded SINCE. 1t originated, 1T is said,
in China and made its way by
the route of the caravans through
central Asia to the Caspian sea.
From there ships conveyed it in the cloth
ing of men and in merchandise to Constan-
tinople, which was the capital of
between Asia and Europe. IL then made
its way across the European continent and
by the shores of the Mediterranean until it
IL tehAJ
full ravages, which the poet Boccaccio de-
scribes in his introduction to the Decame-
ron. Aristocratic Venice lost 100. 900 Of her
population, refined Florence sixty thou
ried away with almOst the same awful
suddenness as that which marked the de-
struction of Sennacherib's host.
1t invaded France by way of Avignon,
from which it spread to England on the one
hand and to Germany on the other, then
doubling back by way of Russia two years
later and finally settling down in the East,
from which 1t now manifests itself once
more. At that age London lost 00,000 of its
people, and the city of Norwich lost $1,000
of its inhabitants out of q possible 60,000, so
that scarcely enough remained tc bury the
dead. Europe at that time contained 105,-
0OO. 600 of inhabitants. and of this number
Is, 00O.0 900 were stricken down, or probably
have fallen in all the wars Of history. from
the fall of Troy to that of Sedan.
The symptoms of this appalling disease
were that the tongue and body became
black, and they became covered with q
putrid typhus which caused rapid putrefao-
tion in the bodies of it's victims. Though
indigenous to Asia, 1t caused by far the
most fearful ravages among Europeans.
cumbed, and in England it destroyed from
half to three-fourths Of the people of the
country, sparing neither age, sex nor condi-
ton, and sadly dlsorganizinR the industries
III EuklduO, duu Cdueink al lMIucnbo III
crease in wages. The cattle died INTENDED
in the fields, and, what was singular to re-
late, no bird or beast of prey would touch
their carcasses. All Europe was thrown
into a panic of excitement and went from
religion into fanaticism and persecution.
more especially against the Jews, whom
the Christians alleged had poisoned the air
and water. Friars went around scOurging
themselves in the churches for their sins, and
"Brotherhoods Of the Cross were formed
whose duty it was to publicly petition
heaven never again to visit the earth with
such n fearful tribulation. Europe leaped
from this condition of prayerful emotion.
during which monarchs and their religious
advisers had lost their reason. into the
darkest era of the prereformation period,
and both priests and princes utilized the
horrible visitation of the plague in order to
fasfen the fangs of their united power more
closely than over upon the interests and
necks of the unfortunate people of Eu-
rope, who canno be now wholly indif-
ferent to the temperance of so great q
ecourge.
| Timely Rebuke.