Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1898-11-16


PestiIence In London.
The plague, or pestilence, that mys
terious ard fearful visitation which ha.
moved its hosts i'll the wake of armie:
to slay more than war itself, is supposed
to have first originated among the dense
masses Of people who crowded together
IN the great cities of Asia and Egypt, OF
who formed the encampment of Xerxes,
Cyrus and Tamerlane the Tartar. II
probably sprang from the impurity
which must have existed in the midst
Of such vast gatherings and in part also
from leaving the unburied dead upon
the field Of battle. At any rate the
germs Of this fearful human poison have
always been most active where CCndi
tions 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 Tavages have lessenCd also.
The first recorded outbreak of the
plague in Europe occurred in the six
teenth 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 ga y. D.,
when the returning legions of the En-
peror Justinian brought it again into
the western world from the battlefields
Of Persia. Constantinople was the first
place it attacked. Here III a single day
rs many as 10, 900 persons are said to
70, no vi
did not stop with Constantinople. 1t
had found n too congenial soil in En-
rope, which was little else than one
great battlefield at the time. It was
carried into Gaul, where it followed
close III the wake of the Frankish
armies, and from Gaul it moved into
Italy, with the Lombards, and so devas-
tated the country rs to leave it entirely
at the mercy of the invaders.
The various crUsades, which extended
over a space of about goo years, no
doubt did much to hold the pestilence
in Europe, for they served to keep open
the channels Of intercourse between the
cast and the west. Periodic epidemics
were common during their continuance,
and these seem to have eliminated ii
the fourteenth century with what Is
known il history as the black death.
The black death was more fatal to hu-
man life than any other single cause
since the world began. The havoc of war
was nothing in comparison TO it. 1t
swept the whole of Europe leaving i'll
its path such misery and destitutiCn az
the world had never known. 1t killed III
three years some %, GOO, 600 of people.
Such figures staSgcr the comprehension,
but the records of the time cannot be
doubted. The entire population of Eu-
rope Is estimated TO have been about
100, 600, O0O-kept down as it was by
the constant warfare-and of these 100,
600, 600 at least fourth persisted.
The ravagos of the plague in Italy,
where il came in the track of the war
of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, was
particularly disastrous to mankind. 1t
ragged with terrible fury III Naples,
where 60, 600 persons are said to have
died. It fell upon Pisa and seven out Of
every ten persisted. 1t utterly and for
ever destroyed the prosperity of Siena.
Florence also suffered severely, while
100, 600 of the Inhabitants of Venice
were literally wiped off the face Of the
Garth. From Italy it moved into France,
where the mortality was almost as
great; in Paris alone 80, 900 people died
from it. One of the worst features pre-
scented by the history Of the black death
was the cruel persecution it aroused
against tho Jews They We're supposed
to have infected the air in some mys-
FERROUS manner, and they We're accused
of having poisoned the wells and
springs. In Strassburg 1000 of chem
were buried alive III their own burial
ground.
The order of the Flagellanto arose at
this time, coming from the belief that
the sins Of the world had at last brought
down the wrath of heaven. 1t was the
beginning of the so called Hundred
Years war that carried the black death
into England. where in London its vic
TINS numbered 100, 600. When at last
the plague had worked its ravages, it
doubled back over its course, to disap-
pear in the east. In 1915 it appeared
again in England, first among the SOL
diers of Richmond after the battle Of
Bosworth Field, and when the victo-
rious army marched to London the
plague went with them to work its
havoc there. As long as it lasted the
mortality was as great as that caused
by the black death half u century be-
fore. Five thousand people died in five
weeks, and then the plague left London
as suddenly as it had appeared there, to
sweep over the rest of England.
In Scotland the plague of 1868 came
after the battle of Lang
side, when Queen Mary was dethroned,
bat no records of the mortality 1T occa-
STONED seem TO have been preserved.
The piagre visited London in 1873.
This followed after the civil war which
ended with the death OF Charles II, but
SO may years interv aned that it is i'm
possible 10 trace any connection between
the two events. In modern wars danger
from the plague seems gradually to
have lesscned, perhaps as a result of
better sani ary conditions maintained
by the armies of today.-Philadelphia