Perihelion and Pestilence.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3052, 26 November 1878, Page 1

Perihelion and Pestilence.

What mat Ensttb .< Dubikg the Nbxt Seven Yeaes — A Period op SufFEBIITG'AND DEATH.

If there is anything in "astrological criology " we are approaching one of the most pestilential periods of the eartk'g history. Since the commencement of the Christian era, the perihelia of the four great planets of the solar system—-Jupiter, tfranus, Saturn and Neptune—hare'not been coincident. But this is about to occur, and, in the language of DrXnapp, who has traced the history of the greatest epidemics that ever afflicted the human race to the perihelia of these planets, " there will soon be lively times for the doctors." The theory is, that when one or more of the large planets is nearest to the sun, the temperature and condition of our atmosphere are so disturbed as to cause injurious vicissitudes, terrible rains, prolonged droughts, <fee, resulting in the destruction of crops and pestilence among human beings and domestic animals.

Dr. Kuapp has collected a mass of statistical data, all going to show that perihelion data have always been marked by unusual mortality, and that sicknesi and death have invariably corresponded with the planets in perihelion at the same time. The revolution of Jupiter round the sun is accomplished in a little less than 12 years; of Saturn in a little less than 30 years; of Uranus in about 84 years; and of Neptune in about 164 years. If it be true, therefore, that the perihelia of. these planets occasion atmospheric conditions unfavourable to life, pestilential periods should occur once in a dozen years, and aggravated and still more widespread epidemics at longer interval. In tracing the history of epidemics for more than 2000 years, Dr Knapp find* the facts in all cases to validate the" theory. Thus in the sixth, and again in the sixteenth centuries,' three of these planets were coincident in perihilion, and those were the most pestilential times of the Christian era.

But soon we are to hare, for the first time in two thousand years, all four of these planets against us. They will be at 'their nearest approach to the sun in or soon after 1880, so that for a few years, say from 1880 to 1885, the vitality of every living thing willbe put to a severe and trying ordeal. Some persons think they see, in the signs of the times, evidences of the great disasters in the immediate future. The excessive heat, the unexampled cold, the prevalence of flood and disasters at sea, the general failure of the potato crop, the .wide-spread chill fever among human being, and the equal prevalence of the epizootic among animals, are mentioned as among the premonitions of the rapidly-approaching,perihelion. Well/-" to be forewarned is to be forearmed. 1' Accidents expected, we know very well that the persons of more vigorous constitutions and more hygeinic habits will have the better chance to survive whatever adverse influences the extraordinary perihelia will occasion. It is well known to physicians that, in all pestilence,- plague, typhus, small-pox, cholera, murrain, &c, the intemperate, the dissipated, and those whose sanitary conditions were bad furnished the victims.

We do not write to alarm anyone, nor to make a sensation. We state the facts which all history attests. Headers can judge for themselves what importance to attach to the subject. That the conjoint perihelion of all large planets of the solar system, one of which, Jupiter, is a thousand times as large as the earth, must disturb our atmosphere and temperature very considerably, is probable; that this disturbance must be injurious to health and life is certain ; and that these periods have heretofore been pestilencial, is a matter of record. How -nuch we shall suffer during the next dozen or fifteen years, depends very much upon how nearly we lire a life in accordance with the laws of life.—Science of Health.