Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/177

Rh PLAGUE 107 in that country. According to one view it was imported from the opposite coast of Dalmatia, though no definite history of contagion tvas established ; according to others, it originated endemically in that place. It remained, however, strictly confined to a small district, perhaps in consequence of the extraordinarily rigorous measures of isolation adopted by the Italian Government. In 1828 an isolated epidemic appeared in Greece in the Morea, supposed to have been brought by troops from Egypt. 1 In 1824-25 an outbreak took place atTutchkoffin Bessarabia; the town was strictly isolated by a military cordon and the disease did not spread.- Cronstadt in Transylvania was the scene of a small outbreak in 1828, which was said to be isolated by similar measures (Lorinser). A far more serious epidemic was connected with the campaign of the Russian army against Turkey in 1828-29. Moldavia, Wallachia, and Bes sarabia were widely att ected ; the disease broke out also in Odessa and the Crimea, and isolated cases occurred in Transylvania. The most northerly points reached by the plague were near Czernowitz on the frontier of Bessarabia, and Bukowina, and it.s limitation was as before attributed to the Russian and Austrian military cordons. In 1831 another epidemic occurred in Constantinople and Roumelia ; in 1837 again in Roumelia, and in Odessa, its last appearance in those regions, and the last on the European continent except an isolated outbreak in Dalmatia in 1840, and one in Con stantinople in 1841. 3 The plague-epidemics in Egypt between 1833 and 1845, when it was last observed in that country, are very important in the history of plague, since the disease was almost for the first time scientifically studied in its home by skilled European physicians, chiefly French. The disease was found to be less contagious than reported to be by popular tradition, and most of the French school went so far as to deny the contagiousness of the disease altogether. The epidemic of 1834-35 was not less destructive than many of those notorious in history ; but in 1844-45 the disease disappeared, and it has never been seen since in the country which was for centuries regarded as its native home. This result can hardly be attributed to quaran tine, though it is probable that increased attention to sanitary measures under the influence of educated medical officials may have had much to do with it. But on the large scale it is a part of the great eastward recession of the plague, which is an undoubted fact, however it is to be explained. In 1840 Dalmatia (17 E. long.), in 1841 Constantinople (29 E. long.), in 1843-44 the eastern parts of Egypt (31 E. long.), were the western boundaries of plague. The same law has, with one notable exception, been observed since. 1853-84. Since the apparent extinction of plague in Egypt in 1845, it has appeared in several points of Asia and Africa, and once in Europe. In 1853 plague appeared in a district of western Arabia, the Asir country in North Yemen, and it is known to have occurred in the same district in 1815, as it did afterwards in 1874 and 1879. In 1874 the disease extended within four days march of Mecca. From the scantiness of population the mortality has not been great, but it is clear that this is one of the endemic seats of plague. 4 In June 1858 intelligence was received in Constantinople of an outbreak of disease at the small town Benghazi, in the district of Barca, province of Tripoli, North Africa, which though at first misunderstood was clearly bubonic plague. From later researches there is reason to believe that it commenced in 1856 or in 1855. The disease did not spread, and ceased in the autumn, to return with less violence in 1859, when it died out. In the autumn of 1873 it returned, but apparently came again to a spontaneous termi nation. At all events it has not been heard of since. 5 After the epidemic of Benghazi in 1856-59, plague was next heard of in the district of Maku, in the extreme north-west of Persia in November 1863. It occurred in a scattered population, and the mortality was not absolutely large. 6 In 1867 an outbreak of plague was reported in Mesopotamia (Irak), among the marshes of Hindieh bordering on the lower Euphrates ; and, as it has prevailed at intervals up to the present time in the same country, great importance attaches to its history. The epi demic began in December 1866 (or probably earlier) and ceased in June 1867. But numerous cases of non-fatal mild bubonic disease (mild plague or pestis minor) occurred both before and after the epidemic, and according to Tholozan similar cases had been observed nearly every year from 1856 to 1865. 7 The next severe epidemic of plague in Irak began in December 1873. But facts collected by Tholozan show that pestis minor, or sporadic cases of true plague, had appeared in 1868 and subsequent years. The outbreak of 1873-74 began about 60 miles from the origin of that of 1867. It caused a much greater mortality and extended over a much wider area than that of 1867, including the 1 L. A. Gossc, Relation de la Pefte en Grece, 1827-28, Paris, 1838. 2 Lorinser, Peft des Orients, p. 319. 3 For the authorities, see llaeser, Op. cit. 4 J. N. Radcliffe, Report of Local Government Board 1879-80, suppl., p. 42. 6 J. Netten Kaddiffe, Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, &c., 187o ; also in Papers on Levantine Plague, presented to parliament, 1879, p. 7. 7 Tholozan, La Piste en Turquie, p. 86. towns of Kerbela and Hilleh. After a short interval it reaj t at Divanieh in December 1874, and spread over a much wider area than in the previous epidemics. This epidemic was carefully studied by Surgeon-Major Colvill. 8 He estimated the mortality at 4000. The epidemic ceased in July, but broke out again earl} in 1876, and in this year extended northwards to Baghdad, and beyond. The whole area now affected extended 250 miles from north-west to south-east, and the total number of deaths was believed to be 20,000. In 1877 plague also occurred at Sinister in south-west Persia, probably conveyed by pilgrims returning from Irak, and caused great mortality. After its customary cessation in the autumn (a pause attributed as before to the efficiency of quarantine regulations), the epidemic began again in October 1876, though sporadic eases occurred all the summer. The disease appeared in 1877 in other parts of Mesopo tamia also with less severity than in 1876, but over a wider area, being now announced at Samara, a town 70 miles above Baghdad on the Tigris. Since then the existence of plague in Baghdad or Mesopotamia has not been announced till the year 1884, when ac counts again appeared in the newspapers, and in July the usual official statement occurs that the plague has been stamped out. The above account of plague in Irak is the most complete history of a succession of epidemics in one country which we have had of late years. To complete the history of plague in Persia it should be stated that iu 1870-71 it appeared in a district of Mukri in Persian Kurdistan to the south of Lake Urumiah (far removed from the out break of 1863). The epidemic appears, however, to have died out in 1871, and no further accounts of plague there have been received. The district had suffered in the great epidemic of plague in Persia in 1829-35. In the winter 1876-77 a disease which appears to have been plague appeared in two villages in the extreme north of the province of Khorasan, about 25 leagues from the south-east angle of the Caspian Sea. In March 1877 plague broke out in Resht, a town of 20,000 inhabitants, in the province of Ghilan, near the Caspian Sea at its south-west angle, from which there is a certain amount of trade with Astrakhan. In 1832 a very destruc tive plague had carried off half the inhabitants. In 1877 the plague was very fatal. From March to September 4000 persons were calculated to have died. The disease continued till the spring of 1878. In 1877 there was a doubtful report of the same disease at Astrabad, and also in some parts near the Perso- Afghan frontier. In 1878 plague again occurred in Kurdistan in the district of So-uj- Bulak, said by Dr Tholozan to be the same as in the district of Mukri where it occurred in 1870-71. These scattered outbreaks of plague in Persian territory are the more remarkable because that country has been generally noted for its freedom from plague (as compared with Asiatic Turkey and the Levant). It has since been known that a few cases of plague occurred in January 1877 at Baku on the west shore of the Caspian, in Russian territory. 9 The last outbreak of plague on European soil was that of 1878-79 on the banks of the Volga, which caused a panic throughout Europe. 10 It is now known that in the summer of 1877 a disease prevailed in several villages in the neighbourhood of Astrakhan and in the city itself, which was clearly a mild form of plague (pestis minor). It caused no deaths (or only one due to a complica tion) and died out apparently spontaneously. An official physician, Dr Kastorsky, who investigated the matter for the Government, declared the disease to be identical with that prevailing in the same year at Resht in Persia ; another physician, Dr Janizky, even gave it the name of pestis nostras. In October 1878 some cases appeared in the stanitza or Cossack military settlement of Vetlanka, 130 miles from Astrakhan on the right bank of the Volga, which seem to have puzzled the physicians who first observed them, but on Nov ember 30th were recognized as being but the same mild plague as had been observed the year before near Astrakhan by Dr Db ppner, chief medical officer of the Cossacks of Astrakhan. His report on the epidemic is the only original one we have. At the end of November 11 the disease became suddenly more severe, and most of those attacked died ; and from the 21st December it became still more malignant, death occurring in some cases in a few hours, and without any buboes being formed. No case of recovery was known in this period. At the end of the year it rapidly declined, and in the first weeks of January still more so. The last death was on January 24. In the second half of December, when the disease had already lasted tvo months, cases of plague occurred in several neighbouring villages, all of an extremely malignant type, so that in some places all who were attacked died. In most of these cases the disease began with persons who had been at Vetlanka, though this was not universally established. The inhabitants of these 8 See his report cited by Radcliffe, Papers on Levantine Plague, 1879. 9 J. Netten Radcliffe, Reports ; Tholozan Ilistoire de la Peste Bubonique en Perse. Paris, 1874. 10 See Radcliffe, Reports, 1879-80 ; Ilirsch and Sommerbrodt, Pest-Epidcmie, 1878-9, in Astrachan, Berlin, 1880; Zuber, La Peste &amp;lt;! Astrakhan en 1878-9, Paiis, 1880 ; Colvill and Payne, Report to the Lord President of the Council, 1879. i The dates are all reduced to new style.
 * Tholozan, La Peste en Turquie dans les Temps. Modemes, Paris, 1880.