A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 1 (of 2): From A.D. 664 to the Extinction of PlagueCreighton, Charles
History
A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 1 (of 2): From A.D. 664 to the Extinction of Plague
Creighton, Charles
Epidemics -- Great Britain -- History
These events in 1874 were an exact repetition of those of 1858. In both
years heavy rains followed long drought, giving promise of an abundant
harvest after a period of famine. The dry years, in both instances, were
attended with sickness, typhus and other; the first wet season turned the
sickness to plague, that is to say, it added the complication of buboes
and haemorrhagic symptoms to the characters of typhus. The meaning of that
seems to be that the saturation of the ground generated a soil-poison
where there had previously been the milder aerial poison of typhus. This
view of plague, as a typhus of the soil, or a disease made so much more
malignant than typhus just because of underground fermentation of the
putrescible animal matters, is borne out by the facts already given for
China and for India. The latter country furnishes other illustrations of
typhus fever becoming complicated with buboes, and so becoming something
like plague. Perhaps the best instance is the fever observed in the
Yusufzai valley, near Peshawur, in 1852[317].
It arose mostly in the filthy Mohammedan houses, shared by cattle and
human beings; but it invaded some of the cleaner Hindoo houses also.
The disease began in low, marshy situations, which were covered with
water after rain and heavy night dews. It was of the type of typhus,
or relapsing fever, with yellowness of the skin, bleeding from the
gums, and from the bowels, and often from the nose. One of the
observers says: “The only other concomitant affection worthy of note
is swelling of the lymphatic glands over various parts of the body;
this, however, is only met with in a very few instances.” The other
authority says: “Inflammation and suppuration of the glands in the
groin, axilla, and neck occurred in some that survived the first or
second relapse.” To this outbreak, which is removed only in degree
from the Benghazi plague, the Pakhoi plague, and the Pali plague
(Gujerat), may be added some others, about which the information is
more general. Thus, the fevers which have become notorious in Burdwan
since the health of that province changed so disastrously owing to the
damming of the ground-water, are said to have been attended now and
then with buboes. The typhus fever at Saugor in 1859 was occasionally
complicated with suppuration of the lymphatic glands: “In the Doab, as
in the subsequent gaol attack, the glands in the groin were very
rarely affected; those in the neck were more frequently affected, but
this was not a prominent feature in the disease[318].” Again, General
Loris Melikoff told the correspondent of the _Golos_ that twenty men
died in a day in the Russo-Turkish war in the winter of 1878, with
glandular swellings; everywhere there was Schmutz, Schmutz! And
lastly, in the epidemic of 1878 at Vetlianka, on the Volga, which is
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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