The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-02-22

Some Facts About the History and
Treatment of the Dread Disease.

Treatment of the Dread Disease.
Washington Letter Chicago Record.
DIR. Walter Wyman of the Marine Hos
pital Service has just made to the Secre-
tary of the Treasury a very valuable re-
port upon the bubonic plague. which he
says is surely though slowly extending
and for the first time in history, has in
vaded the Western Hemisphere" DIR.
Wyman corrects the mistaken impression
that the bubonic plague is a modern dis
ease. 1t has been known from the earliest
times as the black plague and black
DEATH" and the literature on the sub
ject is so voluminous that the mere
enumeration of titles covers forty royal
quarto pages in the Index Medicus 1t is
described by the Egyptians at the time of
the Pharaohs; ThucydideS and I4ivy tell
all about 1t, and it is even referred to in
the Bible-Zachariah xiv, is. In the four
teenth century 1t is said that 250G9, 900 peo-
pie, or one-fourth the entire population
of Europe, died of this plague and in
nearly every century succeeding it has
prevailed with more or less severity in
Europe Asia and Africa, but until 1850
its ives tern limits were the Canary ISL
ands and its eastern limits the island of
Formosa, off the coast of China. In 1892
1t flrst appeared in China. and in the fol-
lowing year in Japan, and in 1899 at San
toS, Brazil, where, in October of that year
the disease appeared for the first time
in the American hemisphere, and was fol-
lowed by an extraordinary mortality
among the wharf rats, which doubtless
were infected by eating the rice in the
cargo of the ship Rel de Portugal upon
which there were two cases brought from
OportO. In December, 1899, the plague
appeared in Honolulu. where at offers a
great source of danger 10 the United
States, although it Is believed to have
been suppressed.
1t was not until 1894 that a remedy for
the bubonic plague was found effective,
and the discovery is due to Japanese
physician DR.. KitasatO, a graduate of
the laboratory of the famous DIR. Koch.
In the year named he was sent by the
Japanese government to study the dis
ease in China, and found that it was due
to bacillus somewhat resembling that of
chicken cholera, "a small, short rod, with
rounded ends, of the non-store bearing
variety, characterized by its property of
extremely rapid multiplication and the
facility with which it entered the human
organism either by incubation through
external wounds or abrasions of the skin
by inhalation or by being taken into the
stomach with food. One of DR.. Kitasato's
colleagues, DR.. Aoyama, contracted the
disease by incubation during a post-mor-
TEN, and other assistants died from the
same cause shortly after,
The fatality is appalling. The official re-
ports show, however, that Europeans en-
dure the disease much better than Asiatics
and Africans, because of their superior
constitutions, their intelligent treatment
and their confidence in medical skill.
The symptoms are first a chill follow
ed by fever, overwhelming prostration.
nausea and vomiting and the rapid form
alton of bubos in the glands. Early in the
disease a delirium is noticed, followed by
stupor. Pneumonia symptoms appear In
many cases, and are most insidious and
difficult of treatment being followed by
hemorrhages in eXpectoration.
The only remedy known is an "antipest
SERUM secured by injecting horses. The
recent treatment in Oporto shows re-
markable results and 20 per cent. of re-
coveries. Fourteen per cent Of the NOR
tality there were cases OF pneumonic
form.
The preparation Of "antipest serum,
has already begun in the laboratory Of
the marine hospital service in Washing
ton in anticipation OF the approach of the
plague toward this country.