THE BLACK DEATH.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 12377, 10 February 1911, Page 5

THE BLACK DEATH.

(Press Assn.— By Telegraph. — Copyright.) PEKIN, Feb. 9. The authorities at Harbin have overcome the natives' aversion to cremation, and 800 bodies were burned in immense pyres on Wednesday. The doctors report that the plague has assumed the superlative septicaemia form. Death follows in four hours. Banditti, taking advantage of the general disorganisation, defied the troops, and a division has been ordered from Mukden. HORRORS OF THE PLAGUE. PEKIN, February 3. The present outbreak of plague in Manchuria represents the gravest problem with which medical science in the Orient has ever been faced. All towns within a radius of. 200 miles of Harbin, in Manchuria, are infected. It is estimated that 1000 persons are dying daily at Fuchiatien. Of the 30,000 inhabitants of that city 4000 are already dead. Half the population has fled, and the remainder are being kept within the city limits by troops. A horrible feature of the epidemic is the ravenousness with which starving dogs and cats are attacking the corpses lying in the Streets. The animals are being shot to prevent their spreading the disease. As a safeguard against infection all the whites and Japanese employed on the railroads from Mukden northward are garbed from head to foot, in medicated gauze, with only small slits for them to see through. Dr. Peck declares that the present form in which the disease is manifestnig itself is harder to treat than bubonic plague, as expectoration is the principal means of infection.