The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-08-11

/ years has attained anything ike the So
verify or produced the widespread des-
olation and death of the visitations Of
former times. Yet the repeated waves
/ of influenza that have visited Br1tIsh
shores during the last few years, in tht
aggregate, have produced a serious loss
of life and an incalculable amount o.
deterioration in the health of the coun-
! try. Il four years, 125, 600 lives have
been lost in England and Wales alone
through influenza, Yet we should be
thankful that improved sanitation, en-
lightened city and rural government
| and advanced scientific knowledge nave
saved us from any pestience comoar-
able in severity to the terrible vista
ticnsl of black death, sweating sickness
or plague, which formerly ragged al
| over the land and wrought fearful
/ havoc among the people of Britain.
The black death ragged for nearly 81
years during the fourteenth century X
various parts of Europe. From 1884 to
1880 it Travelled in unchecked progress
| through China, Western Asia and Al
RIGA to Europe, and even Iceland a--d
! Greenland. Wherever it appeared ii
did not leave till it had marked its cruel
| course with hundreds OF thousands OF
victims.
1t arrived in England in 1349, and
ragged all over the country for nearly
six months. In London, 100000 per
sons died: in other parts. of the cou--
try the mortality was equally apDail-
I ing. A register in the abbey of Glou-
cester says that two-thirds Cd of the
people died. The rich people fed FROM
the land: the poor people died off IN
crowds. The land was untitled trade
and commerce almost ceased. So seri-
ously was the royal treasury affected
by the flight of the richer people, and
the poverty-Stricken condition of the
lower classes. that King Edward III
issued an order to the mayors and
bailiffs of ports that only merchants
and messengers were to be allowed TO
go abroad. The demands of the few
IL borers left for eXorbitant wages, AID
the frequent quarrels between masters
and men. led to the interference of par
lament and the passing of the famous
statute of laborers," fixing a scale of
wages, to which adherence was en-
forced under penalty of the stocks.
At Yarmouth. 1000 persons died; in
Bristol, the living were scarce able
to bury the dead" in Norwich, 51,314
persons. besides religious and beg
CARS" died
Scotland long escaped the pestilence;
some charm seemed to prevent the in
lection crossing the border. But at last
the plague descended with awful vio-
lence upon camp of Scotch marauders
near Selkirk; 5000 of them died, and
the rest escaped, carrying the seeds
of infection all over their native LAID.
In Europe, ii is said, on moderate
computation. the black death claimed
q. 600 victims.
The disease generally appeared in the
Inflated sufferer as boils in the arm
pits and groins, and later, all over the
body, with rapidly purifying black
spots. Stupor, decomposition of the
tongue and the lungs rapidly superven-
ed and the patient died in from three
hours to as many days.
remedy, suggested in cold-blooded
selfishness by Bernarts. in 1879, led to
improvement and final extinction of the
plague. He advised that every patient
should be Immediately removed out in
to the open fields and left to live or die,
and that the attendants on the sick be
isolated for ten days. This plan was
adopted and ultimately laZarettoS-the
equivalent of our modern isolation hos
pitals-were erected, and this step was
quickly followed by a notable improve
ment in public health.
The Sweating Sickness first showed
itself in 1885 among Henry Tudor's SOL
diers after his landing at Milford Ha-
ven. In August, September and Octo-
Der of that year it prevailed in London,
then it departed, to return again in 1905.
For ten years afterward it was not
known, but, unfortunately, its long alb
sence was compensated for by the ter
rible severity with which it ragged in
1917. > In that year many victims died
in few hours, and it devastated equal
ly the palaces of the rich and the cot
tages of the poor.
Lord Bacon, in his History of the
Reign of King Henry the Seventh,
says, regarding this third and most Sc
we're epidemic: about this time, in
autumn, toward the end of September,
there began and reigned in the city and
other parts OF the kingdom a disease
then new, which, by the accidents and
manner thereof, they called the sweat
ing sickness. This disease had a swift
course, both in the sick body and in the
time and period of the lasting thereof;
for they that were taken with it, upon
four and twenty hours escaping, were
thought almost assured
1T was pestilential fever, but, as it
Seemeth. not seated in the veins of hu-
mors, for that there followed no car
buncle, no purple or livid spots, or the
like, the mass of the body not being
tainted, only a malign v2por flew TO
the heart and seized the vital spirits,
which stirred nature to strive to send
it forth by an extreme sweat"
The victims were generally men in
the prime of life, who were seized sud
denly with a sweating, accompanied
with faintness and drowsiness. Those
who had eaten heartily shortly before
the seizure, died Immediately, others
yielding to the irresistible inclination
to sleep, awoke only to die OF seven
citizens of London who one evening
supped together, six died before morn
ing, In one week 500 men died in the
metropolis
The treatment of the disease, which
was eventually successfully adopted,
was that advised by Caius, a lead
ing physician of the time, who wrote
"a Boke of Counseill against the Dis
ease commonly called the Sweate, or
Sweating Sickness" 1552) His direc-
lions might be summed up in two es-
sentials-to facilitate the sweat and to
avoid chills. He declares that the cause
of the epidemic was the soil diet" of
his countrymen. Those who had the
disease sore. with peril of death, were, -
he says, men of wealth, ease and well
fare; or, if the poorer sort, such as
We're idle persons, good ale drinkers and
tavern hunters-the laborious and thin
dieted escaped Grafton, in his 'Chron-
icles, says, 'tAll in maner as some as
the sweate took them, or within a short
space after. yielded up theyr ghost. So
that of all of them that sickened there
was not one amongst hundredth that
escaped There can be no doubt that
the mortality for several months was
frightful, but. fortunately, before the
end of the sixteenth century, the "Epn-
emera," or sweating sickness, left Brit
ish shores for good.
The so-called Great Plague of Lon
don began its ravages in December,
1864. The disease called Plague or Pest,
had long ben known as a terribly fatal