The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1897-01-27
The Black Death.

The pestilence which is depopulatiug
Bombay at the present time is the same
as that which did to death q, ,596 inhabit-
ants of London in 1865. which once reduc-
ed the population of Norway from 2,ooo,-
600 10 100000. and from which in the 18th
century d 000. 900 persons are said TO have
perished in Europe. II is characterized
by boils and carbuncles, especially in the
groin. These are known as buboes hence
the name, bubonic plague, which is now
generally used.
The following from the New York Sun,
gives some idea of its devastations since
the dawn of history:
As cholera has its home in the lower
valley of the Ganges, so plague has Tor
centuries had its habitat and starting
point in Yunnan, a province of southern
China, about midway between Hongkong
aud Calcutta, and near the head waters of
rivers which flow southwark through
Burnah and Siam. From Yunnan the
disease was carried in 1894 to Canton
where q, 600 died in few weeks, and to
Hongkong, where for time there were
100 deaths per day. 1t was at Canton and
Hongkong in that year tsat the eminent
Japanese bacteriologist, DIR. Kitasato,
discovered the characteristic bacillus OF
plague and by his fearless investigations
| demonstrated that the malady was ident-
ical with that which ravaged London in
1865, and of which DeFoe wrote in ITO,
when England was alarmed at the great
mortality from the same disease in Mar
seilles.
The historical accounts of the appalling
epidemics of plague during the last 700
years are almost incredible. 1t may safe
| ly be said that the germs were always
borne westward from India, TO which
they had been brought from Southern
China, and that the paths followed were
substantially those in which cholera also
has made its way from the Orient to civ
| ilized Europe. In the Middle Ages Con-
stantinople and Egypt were the half way
houses of plague, There is long list of
devastating epidemics, but the worst of
them was what was called the Black
Death, prevailing throughout Europe
and Asia in the years 1861.
The path of this pestilence was from
China to India, Egypt, COnstantinople.
and Italy, and thence through Europe.
London's loss was much greater than in
the epidemic of which De Foe wrote,
| (when 5000 died in two months, and
even in such town as Norwich the dead
numbered 5000. Ii was estimated and
reported that 100000 persons died in
China of the plague during this epidemic
and that in the other parts Of Asia there
were %, 10000 victims. Certain coun-
tries were said to have been depopulated.
In Cairo the mortality exceeded 10000
per day. Germany lost l,244.0o0 of her
Italy are said to have perished. DIR.
Hecker, of Berlin, a respected authority,
estimates that this epidemic swept away
one-quarter Of the people of Europe, or
25,OO0,0O persons,
The disease which so ravaged the world
in the fourteenth century was identical
with the malady prevailing in Bombay
now, but during the last half century il
has appeared in Europe only once in Sc
rious epidemic from-in 1889 at the
mouth of the Volga.
Owing to the famine and to conditions
indicated by death-rate increasing for
the last decade and half, there may be a
great loss of life in India during the next
six months, but the European powers
can protect themselves.