FAMOUS EPIDEMICS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXVI, Issue 7564, 7 May 1919, Page 8

FAMOUS EPIDEMICS

HOW PESTILENCE FOLLOWS WAR

" War, pestilence, and famine'"—these are the thrct great scourges which have afflicted the human race since the earliest dawn of history, and which seem, moreover, to have been always bound I together by some connecting; link &o Ithab a nation afflicted by one "has to go in feav of the other two. In olden I times, when people were content to we in every unusual state of things a direct i intervention of the hand of Providence in mundane affairs, they looked for no further explanation of the connection between war, p'ague, or scarcity, bat without troubling to so into cause or effect, set down all these ills as divine visitations, against which it was in .1 sense impious to rebel. A broader view of the workings of divine Providence, together with the advance of medicil, hygienic, and economic science, has taught, the world to see that the evils which generally follow great wars are to a certain extent as much within human control as thosa war hemselves, and tJtn.t. while to some degree they may •>© inevitable, they may be as much mitigated by preventive and curative methods as have l)een the sufFerinpc of the wounded on the field of battle themselves. THE ''BLACK DEATH." Consequently it is unlikely that the world will ever again be devastated by so terrible a visitation as the fearful epidemic which ravaged the whole of Europe in the 14th century, and is known in history by the name of the "Black Death." This mysterious pestilence is believed to have been originated by a beries of violent convulsions of fclto earth's structure, especially affecting China, where the disease first broke out a few years before its appearance in Europe. Droughts, famines, floods, and earthquakes all caused a terrible mortality in China, and the theory has been ! advaned that these violent disturbances of the earth's surface, combined with tli9 decomposition of great numbers of dead men and beasts to bring about an atmospheric condition unfavourable to life. However that may be, chroniclers record that the approach of the plag.ioladen air vrna actually visible—"n. dense and awful fog was seen in the heavens, rising in'the East imd descending upon Italy." Tin? general slnte of Europe at the time was one which rendered its population n.n easy prey to the terribly, silent invnlor. Exhausted by continual and devastating wars, worn out by the resu'ting scarcity and the low standard o!" living, the peasant classes fell ready victims to tlk> awful scourge; while trie : prevailing license and eyi] living in som« of the city communities predisposed those no less io take the infection, which, entering; Furone by the caravan routes from China, reached first the seaports of Tt.nly, passed from Italy through Germany and France to Britain, nnc?. from Britain to Sweden.

Jt is difficult to estimate the mortality caused Ivy the Black Death in its relent- ■ less course. Nearly forty millions are said to have died from it in the East, but the figures are more or less conjectural. In Europe they are more exact, though here also they cannot be accounted so reliable as the accurate statistics of a later period. London alone, we are told Jost 100.000 inhabitants; Germany-a million and a (juarter; an;l Italy one-half of its population. In England it has been calculated that half of tho population of two millions was swept invay

Tlie effects of this dire catastrophe were many and "various, and some in i sense have endured to this day. Amonj its immediate consequences were, on the one hand, an outbreak of religions fervour culminating in the sombre extravagances of the Flagellants, whose pilgrimages were a powerful factor in spreading: the plague both by creating d panic-stricken state of mind and by carrying the infection from place to ■place; and on the other hand a tendency to las: morality and reckless gaiety in certain circi'es, which took for their motto, "Eeat, drink, and be merry, i'oi to-morrow wo die." Perhaps the most vivid account of the ravages of the "'Black Dejith" "r to be found in Boecnryio's "Decameron," whence in a 1! likelihood Ri'lwer T.-ytton drew much materi.il for the description of plague-stricken Florence in "Rienzi." THE GREAT PLAGUE OF LONDON. The Black Death, or plague as it cojiie to be termed, revisited Europe several times during the 15th, 16th, and 17th centimes, but never with the same virulence as on its first invasion. fts last appearance in the British Isles whs at the time of what is' known as "the Plague of London" in 1663-5, when it visited practically the whole of England, but showed its greatest intensity ir the capital. The epidemic carried off a vast number of victims in London alone, being at its fiercest during ihe months of .August ;md September, which have l>een found to be the most favourable to the spread and vio'encc of the disease in Europe. In London in 1655 the deaths from the plague rose from 590 in June to 26,000 in September, going down afterwards rapidly to less than 1000 in December. The terrible scenes which, accompanied the proyresx of the epidemic, the dramatic sichts and incidents which were daily witnessed .are made as real by Defoe'? wonderful "Journal"' as if they bad happened but yesterday while for other contemporary witness the pages of Mr. Pepys bear witness to the deep impression left by the restilence on the national life. The after-effects of the plague unon the national morale -were very simi'ar to those left as a legacy by th«* Black Death : religions gloom * and feverish caiety marking the nponsite extremes of its influence. The evtravannnces and licentiousness of Charles TT.'s Court were unquestionably increased by the reaction pft rar the srloom ca^t lmon the Hot?rt and people by the shadow of death. LATEI? T-'T>TDE"\rFCS. The- 19th and '20th eentiu'es iiavo also seen most of the other and less terrible epidemic diseases shorn of many of their perils. Prior to the introduction of inoculation, for instance, it w;:s considered worthy of mention to be unmarked by smallpox, a, disease v.-hich must have carried off in its time nsarly nr. largo i tota 1 of victims as tbe more trended and dramatic, plague. One of tbn most serious epidemics which visited. Britain in the IDth century was the outbreak of Asiatic cholera at the time of the Crimean "War. 1 lie "Russian inHuenza" kpi'iti has been a fairiv regular visior. srenerally in the sT/i'mn; or autumn months and th" epi'.ivmics have, hpon varied in their r-harao-t<T and violence, with complications sometimes gastric. .sor>W.im <•<-•. pnl«ioniiry. and less ofton oardiac. The "Snn.i-it-li influenza" proved fi mur-h mur« fain. 1 visitant, au<! was prohahlv able to .'ram [i bold more easily ibrouvb i]\c sboi'tati^ uf doctors, V'lirst's. srimidanf s. and modifa! comforts of a.!I kin-Is, while the r.ien-[.l-'ii vi-ilo of " n-u'.i'-...r'n"sv"' no doubt j ■minced a pro-disposition to the disease. ']'!.» oTij Ijvnjjl.-. V.itfriir'" alikf, in its origin and if.s Jiatur'.1, left practically no' i.art. of tbo word untourbod and wonlrt no doubt liavn been far more s^rioivs li.nd -nt pro'nnt ii'^hkujvs bp"n taken fa tt.ov its inroads. But. con ibis may !>;> con! >'clevcd to havo hnd at l»rtst one bone- i ifia 1 i-e>nlt- if to » + ni;i\- Ikl r>.<!"ril>/»rl (lie ! "oundaiicn of ;i Minimi ry of Health.