The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-07-20

IL
Cyrus Edison, in New York Herald
What the ingenious Mr. Rider Haggard
to use an old-time phrase in order to
characterize that popular writer-calls
THE Word of Fear is undoubtedly the
plague. So terrible have been the kill
ings of the people when this most dreaded
emissary of death has been let loose
among them that the terror of the plague
has become part of our heredity.
Generation after generation were
taught by bitter experience that no
appeals to God to avert the doom were of
avail were taught that the science of
physicians was but burned fax and a
breaking reed, were taught that when
the plague came death stalked abroad
swinging his scythe, and that naught
they could do would help. Thus it is
that dread of the plague became in time
one of those unexpressed traditions of our
human nature which we call nowadays a
part of our heredity. We have an in
stinctive. unreasoning terror of it. l con-
fess. while | can dominate my fear by my
knowledge, | am yet conscious of the
fear.
Men have learned to dread typhus fever
under its many names. They dread chol-
era and they used to dread smallpox be-
fore Jenner discoveredivaccinatio Butno
disease has inspired the terror which at
taches to the plague. Small wonder, too,
when we read the records.
There were not left enough of the liv-
ing to bury the dead, " says the terrible
record of the Black Death of the four
teenth century, as kept in Paris. In 1870
100000 persons died in Moscow, and in
1872 90, 900 died in Lyons, France; in 1856
100000 died in Naples, and IA, 900 in Rome;
-, 6iad in, Of m
ulation estimated at AGO, 900, two-thirds
of which had fed the city to escape
This is 6S,596 out of 1853, 400-nearly one
in two We have no records of the
deaths in Florence during that outbreak
of the plague which gave Boccacio the
excuse for his "Decameron, ;" nor do we
know what was the death rate when the
plague invaded Spain in the twelfth cen
fury beyond the paragraph in the writ
ings of AbOu Ben Israel, the Jewish ply
sician, as quoted by Cervantes.
The dead lay in heaps" he says.
MANY families persisted, and none there
were who did not mourn" This was in
Cordova.
DESCRIBED BY DEFoE.
Of the plague in Turkey, or what we
now call Turkey, we know little. That,
men. women and children died as sheep
die when the murrain is in the flock we
KNOW, UQJ dS W uOW many OF NudG bu6
death rate was we know nothing The
little knowledge we have is derived from
the story tellers, and we might call their
accounts eXaggeratiOns were it not that
recorded facts are such that exaggeration
seems impossible.
In Egypt the plague swept down the
valley of the Nile many times, and the
people died until towns and villages were
tenanted only by rotting corpses. But of
no NJ mi her and thn Hnaotb 70 her ic
no tale told.
1t is to be noticed that among the his
torians of tho plague there have been two
men who were gifted with the power of
description above all but a very few, and
to the vividness of their narratives we
may trace, perhaps, part Of the horror
we feel These were Boccaccio, the Ital-
ian, and Daniel Defoe, the Englishmen,
who wrote that book which will never
die, Robinson Crusoe," Defoe in his
journal of the plague not only gave the
most graphic account of an epidemic
of disease that has ever been, but that
ever will be, written, because with the
modern system of treating an epidemic
Of infectious diseases no outbreak of the
plague could ever again be so destructive.
ONE OF MANY.
Read this story from Defoe-one of
many:
remember, and while I am writing this
story l think 1 hear lie very sound Of it,
certain lady had an only daughter, maiden
of ABOUT 10 years Old, and who was possessed
OF a very considerable fortune They were
only dodgers in the house where they were.
The young woman, her mother and the maid
had been abroad on some occasion, do not
remember what for the house was not shut
up; but about two hours after they came
home the young lady complained she was not
we'll. She vomited, and had violent pam in
her head Pray God saws the mother in u
my n n n
per, The pain in her head increasing her
mother ordered the bed warmed and resolved
TO put her to bed, and prepared to give her
things TO sweat, which was the ordinary rem
edy TO be taken when the first apprehension
OF the distemper.
While the bed was airing the mother I'M
dressed the young woman, and just as she
was laid down in the bed she, looking upon
her body with candle Immediately disoov
cred the fatal tokens. Her mother not being
able to contain herself, threw down her can
die and shrieked out in such a frightful man
ner that it was enough to place horror upon
the stoutest heart in the world; nor was it
one scream or one cry; but the fright having
seized her spirits she tainted first, then re-
covered, then ran all over the house, up the
stairs and down the stairs, like one dis
tracted, and indeed really was distracted,
ana continued screechtng and crying out for
several hours, void OF all sense, or, at least,
government of her senses and, as was told,
never came thoroughly to herself again. AS
TO the young maiden, she was dead corpse
two hours. | am not certain, but think the
mother died in two or three weeks after.
From time beyond which the records of
men run not to the contrary, the outbreak
OF the plague have been believed to be the
result of astronomical phenomena. The
use of the last word is not exactly war
ranted, because we now know the appear
ance of the comets is not phenomenal in
one way. However, for many generations
the people devoutly believed comets were
responsible for the plague just as on com
cts or conjunctions of the stars were
thrown the responsibility of wars of the
deaths of kings, of pestilence and of fam
inc.
belief of this kind was to have been
expected during ages when astrology was
called a science.
WHAT IT IS.
What is the plague? DIR. Karl Lieber-
meister who is one of the best authori-
Ties on the disease, defines it as follows.
have put his account into popular Ian
guage in order to be understood
The plague in well formed, typical
cases was fever of the most acute and
aggravated kind accompanied with swell
ings OF the glands in the body and car
ouncles -Four periods were recognized
one, the period Of invasion; ,, the period
OF intense fever; 3, the period Of fully
developed swellings Of the glands and the
N1phhnplQQ 4 ha cd If af.Y1 a al n