The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1894-07-04
BLACK DEATH ABROAD,
THE SINGULAR PLAGUE NOW
RAVAGING CHINA.
Symptoms That Attend the Pestilence
Which May Spread Over the
Whole Earth-The Home of the
Disease and the Chinese Method

symptoms IDaC ACCeIfQ Cne feSt1lcnce
Which May Spread Over the
Whole Earth-The Home of the
Disease and the Chinese Method
OF Treatment.
The records Of the State Department at
Washington make 1t evident that the singu.
lar plague now ravaging China is the Black
Death or Plague which devastated London
In 1865.
It had its origin in Tunnun, Chinese
province where it is endemic. The Catholic
missionaries there hold that it is pestilencc
emanating from the grour1. As it slowly
rises all animals are drowned, so to speak.
in its poisonous flood-the smaller creatures
first. and man, tallest OF all, last.
Its approach often may he foretold from
the extraordinary movements Of rats, which
leave their holes and run about the floors
without a trace OF their accustomed tinidity,
springing continually upward, as If trying to
jump out Of something. The rats fall dead.
the poultry. pigs, goats, ponies and oxen
successively.
In man its approach is indicated by minute
red pusrules, generally in the arm-pits, but
occasionally in other glandular regions. II
plenty OF pustules appear the case is not con-
sldered so desperate as when they are few.
The sufferer Is soon seized with extreme
weakness, followed in few hours by agon-
izing pains In every part OF the body. Delir-
ium shortly ensues, and in nine cases out OF
ten the result Is fatal. It often happens that
the patient suddenly RECEIVERS 10 all appear
ancss and leaves his bed, but in such eases
the termination is always collapse and death.
AS soon as case appears the Chinese de-
%h,, tod vii irpi in 70
Jug OF water, peering In the windows at in
tervals and prodding the victim with long
pole to ascertain IL life Is extinct. In the
country the corpses are not buried. but laid
out 10 decay in the sun, poisoning the air for
miles around.
The disease Is known in Yan2tzu (unler
the name bubonis fever), In Laos, Siam,
In GLrmah and in Queycho, China, where 1t
has prevailed for years. Never before. how
ever has 1t made its way to Canton and to
Hong Kong, whence It may spread over the
earth. ,.s.. ....... ...
One reason for attributlng its origin to
miasmatic influences Is that it always ap-
pears upon the planting OF rice In May and
June. It penetrates by caravans and travel
ers to the upiands and becomes more severe
by fall. Sometimes 1t passes over certain
communities in its line Of progress, only to
return later on or the next year.
Whenever 1t appears the I.:o2le desert
their homes and crops and f's to tents in
Is decimated and whole families disappear.
DR.. J. F. Payne, In the encyclopaedia
Britannica, says that the plague Is specific
febrile disease transmissible from sick
to healthy persons, accompanied by gladu-
lar swpllings and sometimes carbucles., In
the rniIder forms swellings Of glands occur
in the arnpits, groin, neck and other parts,
which suppurate. The severe plague begins
with ague, the patient becomes distracted
an staggers about. The temperature rises
30 1oJ and 1o7degrees Fahrenheit. gladular
sYrI.inS, crbuncles and hemorrhagio spots
appear. In all plague epidemics cases occur
In which death sets In within twenty
iourhours. The nature OF the soil has little
influence on plague. but moderately high
temperature Is favorable. The disease Is
unknown In the tropics. In Northern coun-
tries rhe disease Is generally checked by the
cold weather. Bad sanitation is favorable TO
plague No special line Of treatment has
proved ef1cacious in checking it. But by
hygienlc measures locality can be made
unsuitable for the spread OF plague.
In the Middle Ages Europe was frequently
visited by plague, which was called the
Black Death. The Great Plague of London,
in 1865, from which nearly "a, 900 people died
out OF population OF about half q million.
was not an Isolated phenomenon, but was
preceded. by a series OF smaller epldemlcs,
the last of which occurred In 16f3-1664, In
Amsterdam, when $4,000 people died.
The disease has always shown tendency
to spread, but by q law not yet understood
each epidemic is liable to q spontaneous and
sudden decline.
In the eighteenth century the plague was
very prevalent in Europe, and visited Con-
stantinople, Austria, Poland. Russia, Ger
many, Italy and France. In 1915 Europe was
panic-stricken because the, plague had ap-
peared in Noja, on the eastern coast or
Italy. This was its last appearance in that
country.
The epidemics in Egypt between 1888 and
1945 are very important, because the disease
was then almost for the first me sclentif-
cally studied BY skilled physicians, chiefly
French. It was found 20 pe less contagious
than reported, ..
The last outbreak OF plague In Europe was
In 1888, on the bankS OF the Yolga. It was
very virulent, and at Vetlisnka, out OF u
population of 100, there were At attacked
and 362 died. The epidemic proDably took
It's rise in Astrakhan, in 1877, and was NOT
brought from Turkey by Cossacks after the
war, as was popularity supposed. But the
conditions under which miasmatic forms OF
plague are spread are as yet unknown.
Plague has bsen observed in China since
1871, in Yunnun and at Pakhoi, a port in
the Ionquin Gulf, since 1882, where 1t Is
said to nave prevailed for at least fifteen
years. In Yunnun it is endemic and at Pskhoi
1t occurs nearly every year.