Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1879.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 662, 28 March 1879, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1879.

A gentleman,, whose name he does not care we should publish, forward* US:a highly interesting communication touching upon an article which ap pearetl in our columns of yesterday's and this morning's issues. It refers to the Plague. now raging in Russia and which has extended to large tracts »of .fcountry in South America. Th< "writer is a member of the faculty oi Medicine. „jp[e places., great .emphasis on the* fact 'that diseases of a fata] nature, which assume .the form o! epidemic, are confined chiefly to tliost /IMHfaft/i*!* 6 P eo P le 9? which ar« ' dwellers on sand soils. .Where there are deep strata' of sand, the water is seldom pure when it flows under and not over the sand. In the latter case the water is invariably pure.-; In the *"°. rm ,er, _ tu ; e _ . w ater is always more oi less unwholesome. That- the greatest sanitary precautions are uecessai*y in such locations, or otherwise the most deadly .--. diseases will «. spring ink existence from time to time. The writer considers that two essentials must be obtained if Gisborne is tc maintain a character for healthfulness. First, an ample supply of pure water : next, the greatest attention to be paid ~&>4rainage> :He .refers to one peculiarity which is somewhat remarkable, and at variance with some of the highest medical authorities. The fever cases, prevailing, and which have prevailed in this part, appear to attack those more generally who are abfrom stimulants, such as 'young women and children. That this fever is frequently kept off among Adults ; by the free, but temperate use of stimulants, always, in the case :,'of:alcohol, well diluted. In olden days, the writer goes on to Bay, the term Plague was applied to all kinds of epidemics, but it is the Levant which is supposed to. be the home of this scourge. The " Black Death," * Vnich raged with unparalleled severity in .Europe in the fourteenth century, is known to have in China, from whence it '^is- Stated <f its advance towards the West, may actually be tracked;" Through this terrible outbreak no less than 25,000,000 of human beings perished in Europe in 1348. " Everywhere was death. All animal life •was threatened. Rivers were consecrated to receive corpses, for which none dared perform the rites of burial, and which in other places were cast in thousands into huge pits made for their reception. Death was on the sea, too, as "well as on the land, -ranll theimagination^is quickened to the/realization of the terrible .mortality by -accounts of ships without . crews* — the crews dead and putrefying - m\ .the ..decks of the aimless hulls y > — jaud cursing iwith the contagion the shores on which the winds or the tide chanced to cast them." This pestilcuce travelled along the northern coast of the Black Sea to Constantinople, and thence to the Italian seaports, whence it spread itself all over Europe, passing through Germany and France to England, and afterwards to Sweden. This is the epidemic which now. goes under the name of the plague. Since 1790 "Western

Europe has been almost entirely free from it, and it is stated to be " limited chiefly to Egypt, Syria, Anatolia, Greece, and Turkey, occasionally extending northward towards Russia, and westward as far as Malta. Science thus far has failed to discover the cause of this malignant disorder. Although for many years it was stated to be non-contagious, it is now pretty generally admitted to be the reverse, although it is known that it " may 1 also be spontaneously engendered by. endemic or epidemic influences." This view is supported by a mass of evidence. Thus there seems to be no doubt that the Great Plague of Lonl don was transmitted from Turkey to , Holland, and from the latter country passed on to England. In most cases the disease ends fatally, and science is powerless to arrest its progress. : The symptoms are scarcety such as can be minutely described here. The ' person attacked experiences a feeling , of '• iutense weariness and fatigue, slight shivering, nausea and sickness, . confusion of ideas, giddiness, and 1 pain. The disease usually runs its course in five or six days. It is evidently this pestilence which is preva- ' lent in Southern Russia, arid which has occasioned such a panic amongst the neighbouring nations. It is worthy of note that * the " black death " has never been known to show I itself in tropical countries, although, * as we have stated, scarcely any part of the earth's surface has been free from malignant epidemics, which until the fourteenth century were all classed under one head and called plagues. The writer concludes his communit cation, which we have been comr pelled to curtail somewhat, by urging upon the inhabitants of Gisborne to abolish their cesspits at once, and 3 substitute closets, which can be deodorised and the contents Frequently removed. In its present undrained state, rain is a disease breeder, because it causes all noxious matter to • sink through the sand only to bo vaporised by the heat of the sun's " rays. Nothing off the surface soil of the town is carried away, excepting - by the very heaviest and exceptional I storm rains. We have to thank our correspondent for his interesting and intelligent letter ; and trusting that we may receive more from him on future occasions, we shall ask him to = allow us to remain his most obedient and obliged servant.