New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1897-02-04
Scare TALK ABOUT THE PLAGUE.

rho mon responsible for letting into TINS cry
without disinfcctiou some mailbags from bolil-
hov are deserving of severe censure. Ihey
wero negligent. and disobeyed orders. and negll-
corco and diSobedicnce are always clllpaDle.
Tho fact that no harm was done. or was likely
to no done 10 the public health does not mat
fer II was their duty to disinfect the mall
and they should have done IT, But just be-
cause they did not DO It is no reason for alarm
or for any scare talk about danger from the
Fearful bnbonic plague" No such danger OK
lists or probably would exist if our Quarantine
were abolished altogether The man who is
afraid of the bubonic plague in New-iOrk had
better keep away from the North Pole ior rear
of dropping into Symmess Hole.
There has been an extraordinary amount
of nonsense talked and published about this
plague much of it is not only foolish. but Grim
ipal. A few weeks ago we were solemny told
that one-fifih of the entire population of Bombay
was diving every week That would mean that
Bombay had been reduced from city of Soo-
600 to n town of 1000, the other 795,o having
died of the plague. AS matter OF fact the
death rate. instead of being one-ffth, has never
been more than e-two-thousandth, and instead
of $4,000 persons having persisted, the total
city of 100000 is less than 1000. In other words,
the mortality from plague in Bombay has been
proportonatoly far less than from numerous re-
cent epdcmics Of typhoid. influenza and other
diseases elsewhere, and both proportionately
and actually far less than from smallpox and
other epidcmics In Havana at the present time.
The bubOnic plague Is bad thing, no doubt
So is ANYTHING that kills folk. But 10 say it is
the most contagious and deadly scourge ever
known TO mankind is exaggcration. The fact
IS. as now widely recognized, that IL Is not
contagious at all in the ordinary sense Of the
term, as smallpox or measles is, and in large
proportion Of cases 1t yields readily 10 medi-
cal treatment healthy person may live in
the room with n plague patient. and nurse him
and come in the most intimate personal contact
with him, and run no risk Of contracting the
disease There Is incomparably moro danger of
catching smallpox, or yellow or scarlet or typhus
fever or any one Of dozen other maladies. than
there is Of catching the plague: some Of them are
quite rs deadly as the plague when contracted.
and their greater powers of spreading make
them more formidable. All the deaths that
have occurred at Bombay from the plague are
but handful compared with those in the
United States from an outbreak of yellow fever,
and the appearance of n single case Of fever
in Florida would be greater cause for alarm
than the arrival of whole shipload of plague
patients in the harbor of NcwYOrk
The plague M Bombay to-day, as it was in
London in Dcfoc's and Pepyss time. is a filth
diSpaSp pure and simple 1t is propagated eX
clusvely by germs which do not exist in the
air but must be conveyed into the system in
food or drink through the alimcntary canal
Two centuries ago in London, people of clean
lives who ate proper food and lived in SAM
tary conditions. We're exempt from the plague
Two years ago. in Hong Kong, the same was
true II Is true to-day at Bombay and Kur
rachce 1t would be true in Newly York Those
poor and ignorant. who are crowded in squald
novels swarming with rats and vermin Of all
kinds. No Europeans are STRICKEN, nor any of
the better classes of Hindoos. Parsees and Ma
hometans, nor Is there any reason 10 fear they
will be. II is well, of course. to suspend the
pilgrimages 10 Mecca, as has been DONE and
TO exercise AL possible precautions against the
extension Of the epidemic; and no port in the
world should be guarded more carefully than
that Of NewYork But if ever an unfumgated
mailbag gets in. even q ship with plague
patients aboard should come 20 DOrt-thOugh the
odds are a thousand 10 one against the latter
ever occurrlng-it would be folly of criminal
proportions to get up panic over II. No mat
ter what may or may not happen, New-York
will not be stricken by the plague
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