The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-02-07
IN AGES PAST
Surgeon Gen. Wyman
On Plague.
Government Report on the Disease
and Its Rayages in An
Gent Times.

DIR. Carmichael of the United States |
Marine Hospital Service received by |
the last mail copies of the Treasury |
Department pamphlet on plague, writ !
ten by Surgeon General Wyman of the |
Marine Service The pamphlet con-
tains valuable treatises on plague in
general and gives graphic and chron-
illogical history of it's rayages since
the days of the Pharaohs. In the open
ing chapter the writer says. in sub
stance:
The plague, known as the bubonic
plague, pests bubonica, Leyantine,
Oriental, black plague and black death,
is disease which has ravaged from
time to time the several countries of
| Africa, Asia and Europe almost from
time immemorial. The literature on
the subject is appalling in extent, a
mere enumeration of titles with au-
thors covering forty pages, royal quar-
to size of the Index Catalogue of the
library of the Surgeon Generals Office,
United States Army, and score or
more of the columns of the Index Med
icus.
Manetho, an Egyptian historian who
lived at the beginning of the third CEN
fury, B. c., described pestilences sup
S, posed to have been the plague, as hav-
ing occurred in the reign of the most
ancient Egyptian kings. 1t prevailed
in Athens 432-429 B. c., and reap
peared in eighteen months after the
last-named date. Thucydides has also
described it, and had the disease, and
Hippocrates noted it. 1t is said that
Athens lost more than one-third of it's
population by a plague epidemic.
According to Rufus of Ephesus,
plague prevailed in Lydia in the third
century, B. c., and its home was con-
sidered to be in Northern Africa. The
great plague reported by Livy, who
died 221 B. c., is said to have destroyed
a million of persons in Africa, but il
is not mentioned that it passed into
Europe Plague is also referred to in
the Bible, Zachariah xiv:1S, as pecu.
liarly Egyptian, in which country this
disease has been great scourge.
In the Christian era it is not unit
= the sixth century that we find bubonit
plague in Europe. In the year SAP il
spread over Egypt, and passed to Con
stantinople, where it carried off 10 .O0(
persons in one day, and in the same
century appeared in Italy, and extend
ed also along the northern coast O
Africa. 1t prevailed in England in tn,
. seventh century.
In the fourteenth century it was in
troduced from the East and prevailed
throughout Armenia, Asia Minor
Egypt, Northern Africa, and nearly tn,
whole of Europe. Hecker calculate
that one-fourth of the population O
Europe, or 25,000,000 persons. died il
all OF the epidemics in the fourteenth
century. 1t was in this century tina
the first measures were taken to pre
vent the spread of the plague, Venic
appointing in 134S guardians of tn
public health for this purpose.
In the fifteenth century the plagr
occurred frequently in nearly all mart
Oh EUROPE, In one year, 1865, the MOI
tally reaching 10000. The first qua,
antine establishment was founded i
thls century, namely, at Venice, /
l4O3' on small island adjoining til
city.
The sixteenth century was not mo,
Tree from plague than the fifteenth
In 1872, $4,000 died at LYONS. Tn 157
Venice lost 10000.
In the seventeenth century it sti
prevailed in Europe. In 1866 it is sa
to have carried off 800 900 in Naples
a period Of five months. The ere;
plague in London was in 1864 and 166
The total number of deaths in 1865 W;
1896 in an estimated population .
100000 out of whom two-thirds a
supposed to have fed to escape CO.
tagion.
The nineteenth century has be,
marked by recession of the plag,
toward the East.
WALTER WYMAN.
Surg.-General U. S. Marine Hospit
Service