THE BLACK DEATH.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 26, 27 June 1891, Page 101

THE BLACK DEATH.

The plague is said to be ravaging Western Sibeiia from Samarcand to the Arctic < tcean. It has appeared at Tobolsk, whence news of its outbreak is telegraphed. From the extent of country covered, and the destruction of life reported, it must have prevailed for some time in remote districts. It is mentioned as the * Black Death,' which, as it appeared in Europe in the fourteenth century, was a peculiarly virulent development of the ordinary Oriental plague, with some special symptoms, including inflammation of the lungs and vomiting of blood. It may be that the Siberian pestilence is called * Black Death ’ from the appearance of the dark tumors which usually accompany the ordinary plague, and

that it is not the more malignant and epidemic form of the disease.

In its ordinary form the Oriental plague is endemic in Egypt, Syria and othern Eastern countries. Occasionally it becomes epidemic and extends its ravages far and wide. The frightful visitations which scourged Europe in the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries are matters of history. Since then the epidemic has several times made its appearance in Europe, principally in the Mediterranean countries and Russia. Marseilles was attacked in 1720. Moscow in 1771 and 1772, and Southern Italy as late as 1815 ami 1816. It still appears occasionally in European Turkey and Russia. In 1877 it prevailed in Astrakhan and along the Volga with the ireculiar symptons of the • Rlack Death.’ Strictquarantine prevented its extensive spread. Resides stopping the transportation of goods and baggage, the Russian Government drew a cordon of troops around infected localities, and cut oil’ communication with the surrounding country. It was gravely stated some time ago by Vicomte Eugene Melchoirde Vogue, inanarticlein Harpers concerning (leneral Loris Melikoll, the righthand man of the late Czar, that being ordered to suppress the plague in two neighbouring villages in which it had broken out, he assembled a lot of fire engines from neighbouring towns, inundated the villages with petroleum, and burned them with all that was in them, including their alllicted inhabitants. It is diflieult to

credit such an anecdote, though it was given as characteristic of Melikofl's methods. No doubt some

heroic anti-plague treatment was adopted, but hardly a human holocaust was to be expected.

It is not surprising that the plague should often get a baithold in Russia. The filthy habits of the lower classes, and especially the accumulation of ofl'al in the fishing villages of the Volga, the low, moist localities, and the scant diet of the poor, offer the disease its favourite conditions. In Western Europe, with its improved sanitary conditions, the epidemic is no longer likely to commit extensive ravages. There is some question as to bow it may he propagated. The report of a Commission to the French Academy in 1846 held that sporadic plague is not transmissible but that in its epidemic form it is transmissible both within ami without the localities in which it is raging ; that it is transmitted by means of miasmata given out from the bodies of the sick, but not by merchandise. This latter conclusion is nt variance with the commonly accepted opinion that the disease has been spread far and wide by infected clothing anti other goods.