Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1891 — A DREADED PESTILENCE. [ARTICLE]

A DREADED PESTILENCE.

How “Black Death,” Now Ravaging Siberia, Affects It* Victims. No further details have been receive ed from Siberia concerning the ravages of that most dreaded pestilence known as “black death.” There is no record of its appearance in Siberia before, though it has known to ravaged Moscow over a century ago. Black death derives its name from the gangrenous scabs formed by carbuncles that accompany the disease. The causes of it are manifold and for the most part atmospheric. Alluvial or marshy grounds, a hot, moist air, bad ventilation, poor drainage, unwholesome diet, insufficient or ill cooked food, and irrational ways of life generally are given by medical authorities as specific causes. The incipient development of the disease lasts some eight days. After that the course varies in different cases. A mild fever sometimes follows, and small spots, like insect bites, appear on the body, especially the parts exposed to the air. These spots swell, turn black, and are finally an inch or an inch and a half in diameter. After the scabs from those sores fall away the fever subsides. In other eases large carbuncles come in the groin and armpits, and, occassionally, on the neck. The fever is then very high, and headaches, dizziness, chills, redness of the eyes, and weakness of the pulse are accompanying symptoms. The length of the course of the disease varies. Many cases are on record of deaths within twenty-four hours. Usually however, the disease runs a week or two. “It is transmitted,” says a report cf the French Academy, “by means of miasmata given out by the bodies of the sick. These miasmata, in close, ill-ventilated places, may create centers of pestilential infection. It results, from the observations made at the lazarettos for more than a year, that merchandise does not transmit the plague.” The origin of the plague dates back, in the opinion of many, to gray antiquity. Others believe it first appeared in the East in mediaeval times. The climates of Egypt, Syria and Turkey are especially favorable to the deveroptnent of the plague. Tn the mid-

die ages and up to 1665 the plague visited England every thirty or forty years. It was in Marseilles in 1720, in Moscow in 1771-72, and in the Neapolitan country as late as 1815. she most dreadful record of black death was made in the fourteenth century, when it started in Avignon and spread like wild-fire to the north and south. One hundred thousand person*, are said to have died of it in Venice, 60,000 in Florence, and 70,000 in Sfona. In East Anglia, 893 of the clergy were swept away in one year, courts were deserted, public places were closed, and whole villages were depopulated.