The Wadsworth dispatch. [volume] (Wadsworth, Nev.) 1892-1899, 1898-10-08
THE BLACK DEATH.
That FEARFUL PLAGUE THAT FcL
Lows III TEE WAKs or war.

IN the Focttennth Century 1t Swept t.,
Whole of Errope, killing Twenty-Five
Millions Of People In T:lreo Years-The
F'estiIeDce In london.
The plague, or restilcnce, that ms.
tcr1frs and tCGrful visitation which has
moved its hosts i'll tie wake of armies
to Stay more tlan war itself, is supposed
to have IL CHS mated among the dense
II asses g people who crowded tGSether
i'll tie great cities CT Asia and EGYPT. or
who formed tie oncarlpnaent of Xer.es,
Cyrus and Tamerlane the Tartar. 1t
probably sprang from the ir1purity
which must have existed in the MIDST
CT srch vast gatherings and in part also
from leaving the unburied dead upon
the field Of battle. At any rate the
germs ct this fearful human poison have
always been most active where condi
tons similar to those have prevailed. 1t
has always been war and the march of
armies that has spread it broadcast over
the world from time to time, and as
war became less frequent and less
worldwide the frequency and extent Of
these rayages have lessened also.
The first recorded outbreak of the
plague in Europe occurred i'll the six
tenth century. It came from lower
Egypt. This was the first tapping of the
wave that reached into the east again,
there to stay its movement SO far as the
west was concerned until 544 A. D.,
when the returning logions of the EN-
peror Justinian brought it again into
the western world from the batties.elds
of Persia. Constantinople was the first
place it attacked. Here in a single day
as many as 10, 900 persons are said to
have fallen victims to it. But the plague
did not stop with Ccnstantinorle. 1t
had found a too congenial soil in Eu-
rope, which was little else than one
great battlefield at the time. 1t was
carried into Caul, where it followed
close in the wake of the Frankish
armies, and from Gaul it moved into
Italy, with the Lombards, and so devas-
tated the country as to leave 1t entirely
NJ Lux 1AttCy VI itiC AAradSAo. r
The various crusades, which extended
over u space of about zoo years, no
doubt did much to, hold the pestilence
in Europe, for they served to keep open
the channels of intercourse between the
east ard the west. Periodic epidemics
were common during their continuance,
and these seem to have eliminated in
the fourteenth century with what is
known in history as the black death.
The black death was more fatal to hu-
nan life than any other single cause
since the world began. The havoc of war
was nothing in comparison to 1t. 1t
swept the whole of Europe, leaving in
it's path such misery and restitution as
the world had never known. 1t killed i'll
three years some %, 600, 900 of people.
Such figures stagger the comprehension,
but the records Of the time cannot be
doubted. The entire population Of Eu-
rope ia estimated to have been about
100. 900, 000-kept down as it was by
the constant warfare-and of these l00,-
900, 900 at least q fourth persisted.
The ravages CT the plague in Italy,
where it came in the track of the war
of the Cuelrhs and Chibellines, was
particularly disastrous to mankind. 1t
ragged with terrible fury i'll Naples,
where go, 900 persons are said to have
died, 1t fell upon Pisa and sever out Of
every ten persisted. 1t utterly and for
ever destroyed the prosperity of Siena.
Florence also suffered severely, while
100 900 of the inhabitants of Venice
were literally wiped off the face of the
earth. From Italy it movedintO France,
where the mortality was almost as
great; in Paris alone 30, 600 people died
from it. One ct the worst features pre-
scented by the history Of the black death
was the cruel persecution it aroused
against the Jews. They were supposed
to have infected the air in some mys-
FERROUS manner, and they were accused
of having poisoned the wells and
springs. In otrassburg 2 1000 of them
were buried alive III their Owl burial
ground. sf =.
Tie order Ct tire Flagellarto arose at
this time, coming from the belief that
the sins Ct the world had at last brought
down the. wrath of heaven, 1t was the
beginning of tho so called Hundred
Years war that carried the LACK d ath
into England, where in Lc'don its vic
tins numbered 100, 900. len at last
the plague had worked its ravages, 1t
doubled back over its course, to disap-
pear in the east. In l845 it appeared
again il England, dlrst among the sol.
dicrs Of Richmond after the latte OF
Bosworth Field, aud when the victo-
rious army n.arcled to London the
plague went with them to work Its