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Colonist, Volume LXI, Issue 15047, 15 April 1919, Page 3

DivH. W. M. Kendall, M.R.C.sJ.in an article in the, "New Zealand Nurses 7 Journal," contends that the scourge which devastated the Dominion at the latter end of last year was identical with the Black Plague of Charles 11.'s rei°-n The. primary cause of the visitation is' the doctor thinks undoubtedly due to emanations brought up to the earth's surface by the rise of suß-soil moisture from dead bodies of man or beast after more than ordinarily wet seasons. The disease, he says, is nothing.new, and will always be recurrent until cremation or burial in quicklime is universally adopted. I hat ordinary burial does not destroy the poison has been proved by cases recurring as late as the eighties, after the accidental opening of old . plague burial grounds in London. Having once started, it is air borne, or can be carried by traffic and passed on through the air to places^ devoid of previous infection.

When a New Zealand transport was in- the. Indian Ocean on May 24, 1917, a bottle was thrown overboard in which was a slip of paper bearing the names of Sergeant Cowie (Woodgrove), Corporal J. C. Dixon (Waimate), and Troopers Tom and Cliff. Spellman (Palmerston North). , The bottle was picked up near the mouth of the Juba river (East-Africa), on September 27, 1918, and forwarded to th*e Timaru "Herald." Trooper Tom Spellman, who returned to. Palmerston about a month ago, has just learnt that the message cast into the sea nearly two. years ago has arrived safely in New Zealand.