The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1892-09-21
,ris a prendfnl scourge.


When Death sought for a weapon to
scourge the world Cholera VAS found.
Horror cannot find words TO tell all the
tale of what that pestilence, that plague
has done 10 the earth. Swift, loathsome,
unerring in its fatality IL has moved ma
lions and continents TO grief moro power
fully than anything else since the epidemics
OF the black death in the middle ages Born
I'm a cradle OF Asiatic nth. whore millions
crowd one another for life. IL has grown
until Europe and America have shrunk
from It, and only when satisfied has IL with
drawn to its den. Then, after IA rest IL has
emerged again to spread renewed terror
through the world Often has this been re-
peated. 1t is beginning now In the same
way. Whether the end will be as terrible
cannot b. told. IL IL is America is TO suffer
with the rest OF the world America has
never yet escaped when the scourgo crossed
the Caucasus into Europe
True Asatic cholera originated in Hin
dostan, and that country has never been
absolutely free from II. Greece suffered
from epidemics introduced from India 400
years before Christ, and noted Greek phys-
clans, AretRus. Galen, Cplius. Aurelianus,
and Orabasius. of the first three centuries
Of the Christian era, described every symp-
tom of the disease minutely.
DR. J. &. Peters. writing in the "American
Encyclopaedia takes the ground that the
epidemcs are periodical, returning every
twelve years ut the occasion Of the great
Juggernaut festival The outbreak in
London i'm 1669-12 was not Asiatic cholera,
but mider form that often visits individ-
ual cases without injecting others.
When the French and English struggled
for the Coromandel coast of India repeated
epidemcs were noticed near Madras and
PoDdicherry In connection with the great
Hindoo pilgrlmages The year 1856 marks
the recognition of periodical returning
twelve-yearly eridemics. connected with
the great twelve yearly Hindoo festivals
at the great temples. The occurrences
were in 1856 116S and 1871.
The scourge of 1881.
March -, 1881. 1000 English troops, under
Col Pearse, marching near CANAAN. not
far from the great temple of Juggernaut,
and very shortly after the huge twelve
yearly festival had taken place, were at
tackled with the disease very suddenly and
with inconceivable fury, after camping on
foul pilgrim grounds and drinking polluted
water. Men previously healthy dropped
down by dozens and those less severely
affected were generally past recovery in
twenty four hours. Besides those who had
died there were 500 on the sick list the first
day, and in two days more nearly 5000
were affected. This epidemic was carried
by returning pilgrims up to Calcutta and
down to Madras
Three times twelve, or thirty-siX, years
subsequently the great historical epidemic
of 1917 occurred. This proceeded up the
Gauges as far as Allahabad. when it was
DETECTED southwark to the province of
Bundeicund. in which the Marquis of Hast
ings was carrying on war against the NAH
rattas with 90. 900 men. OF the natives
TO- 900 had already died in Allahabad. and
many others had joined the army as camp
followers. among whom the disease crept
about for several days until sufficient
number of foci had been developed for IL to
burst forth with irresistible fury in every
direction. The natives deserted in great
numbers, and the highways and fields for
many miles around were strewed with the
bodies of those who had fed with the dis
ease upon them.
The encampments and lines Of march of
the army presented most deplorable spec
tacles Hundreds OF soldiers dropped down
In every days advance and on every nights
halt, that the whole presented the APP
pearance of successive battlehclds and the
track OF an army retreating under every
circumstance of defeat and discontinue.
In two weeks 9, 900 men succumbed to the
pestlence. A subsidiary force coming up
from the south TO corporate with Hastings
afforded the secon striking instance OF "a
large body OF men i'm high health coming
into pestilential regi0n and falling at
once into wretche state OF sickness
Seventy cases and twenty deaths occurred
the first day. and many were attacked
while lettering for wafer at contaminated
springs and rivulets.
How the Pestilence Spread.
Other le-enforc amenis werS advancing
from Bombay in the southwest. and the
course of the disease bad long been so regu-
lar along the line Of much travelled roads
and the marches of troops that the Bombay
authorities prepared for IL when it was
many hundreds Of miles off. step by step
the disease could lie traced marching from
town to town and creeping from village TO
village, by the arrival OF person. afflicted
with it from places where il was known 10
prevail From Bombay IL was carried up
'No BassC rah, at the head OF the Persian
Gulf, where $4,000 persons died i'm eighteen
da@s, and from there along tho Rivers
EupfNates and Tigris to Bagdad. Damus-
Gus, Af@ppo, and the Mediterranean coast,
whore it Also faded away in 1921
Every successive epidemic of cholera has
always teen carried up the Persian Gulf
from Bombay. Surat, Kurrachee and other
ports on the western coast Of India, and
thus reached the Mediterranean, Black
and Caspian Seas and neighboring coun-
tries by the So called Persian Gulf route
In the Bombay presidency are ninety
four shrnes to which large pilgrimages are
made, and from which the disease is
brought To the sea coast In India the
epidemic of 1917 spread in every direction
with the march OF armies, pilgrims mer-
chants and travellers, often in the face Of
contrary winds and monsoons, although