The Daily Missoulian., 1911-01-12
Historic Scourges
1.-The Plague.
BY Frederic J. haskln.

| There is no better illustration of the
progress that has been achieved by
the human race in its struggles up
ward from barabirsm and savagery
than it's successful combating Of dis
ease. In the infancy of the race, and,
in fact, through all but the last two
or three centuries of its existence, it
stood helpless before the ravages of
dread epilemics. Unable to discover
their source or to ascreton their cause,
the only resource in times of terrible
epidemics was to fast, and pray that
the Almighty would stay the afflic-
tion that was making men die like
flies--to die. in such numbers and with
such frequency that literally the dead
We're left to bury the dead.
In 1856 Naples ad $4,000 deaths in
single six-month period. The whole
city was charnal house. with it's
remnant Of population covering with
terror. In 1912 constantinople was
helpless before a plague that carried
away $4,000 of its population.
Throughout the middle ages whole ma
tions were stricken with epdemics
and half their population laid low on
frequently recurring dates. Cholera,
yellow fever. bubonic plague, small
pox and other fell messengers of
death waged warfare on the race as
relentless as 1t was ruinous.
Today these things are not possible
except In countries where ignorance
and superstition still reign. In the civ
ilized countries the santariums have
been able to fathom the source and
cause Of epidemics and to check them
in their incipiency. The fire that gets
beyond certain limits is beyond hui
man restraint, but the scientists Of
the world are now able to keep the
fire Of epidemic disease under control.
New diseases may arise--Or, rather,
old ones that were not understood
may be diagnosed and mastered-but
whether it be infantile paralysis or the
hOOkWOrm disease or pellagra, the
scientists delve into their mysteries
and find the means for their preven-
tion or abolition. The story Of the epi-
denies of the ages emphasizes human
it's debt to the sanitarian and dem
onstrates that Increased faith in him
bring increased freedom from disease.
The. first disease about which his
tory tells us is the plague. That it APP
peared and was recognized very early
in human annals is proved by the nu-
merous references thereto in both the
Old and New Testarnents, where
plague, pestilence and famine" are
linked together as inseparable evils.
These illusions also indicate that the
plague originally appeared in those
alluvial lands lying east of the Medi-
terranean, in some portion of which
1t was ''the great mortality" or "the
great sickness" But its symptoms diff
fered from those of the black death,
which was a distinct disease, though
equally deadly aThe black death never
was known to revisit a once stricken
locality, while the plague scourged the
same districts again and again.
Thucydides, visiting about 400 b. c..
gives a dramatic account of the plague
In Athens-practically the first trust
worthy historical and particular men,
ton now extant, and possibly marking
the earliest appearance of the plague
in Europe. That it had ragged for thou
sands of years in the Levant, In In
dia, in China, and in Egypt is also