An account of the plague which raged at Moscow, in 1771Mertens, Charles de
History
An account of the plague which raged at Moscow, in 1771
Mertens, Charles de
Plague -- Russia (Federation) -- Moscow -- Early works to 1800
According to the reports of the physicians, surgeons, and
police-officers, the town appeared to be healthy. Almost every body
believed that the physicians who had called the disorder the plague, had
imposed upon the public; others entertained doubts on the subject.
Things went on in this way until the middle of June, during which time
nearly two hundred persons had died at the hospital of St. Nicholas. The
number of sick and dead diminished daily there, in so much that, for a
whole week, although the weather was very warm, not one fell ill of the
disorder, and there only remained in the hospital a few convalescents.
No further vestige of the disorder could be traced in the town.
As among the workmen of the manufactory, who had been removed from their
own houses to a third convent at a distance from the other two, in order
to perform quarantine, not one had been attacked with the disorder for
the space of two months, they were allowed to return to their respective
homes.
We now began to flatter ourselves that the plague had been entirely
eradicated by the precautions which had been adopted. Scarcely, however,
had we indulged in these fond hopes, when, towards the end of June, some
people are taken ill of the same disorder at the hospital of St. Simon,
where the quarantine was performed. On the 2nd of July, six people die
in one night at a house in the suburb of Preobraginsky; a seventh, who
lived with them, absconded[17]. Livid spots, buboes, and carbuncles are
found upon the dead bodies. On the following days, many of the common
people fall sick in different quarters of the town, and the mortality
increases to such a pitch, that the number of deaths, which commonly
amounted to about ten or fifteen _per_ day, and which, even during the
prevalence of putrid fevers (as was the case for the two last years) did
not exceed thirty, amounted at the end of July to as many as two hundred
in the space of twenty-four hours. The sick, as well as the dead bodies,
exhibited large purple spots and vibices; in many there were carbuncles
and buboes. Some died suddenly, or in the space of twenty-four hours,
before the buboes and carbuncles had time to come out; but the greatest
number died on the third or fourth day.
In the middle of August, the number of deaths amounted daily to four
hundred; and at the end of the same month to as many as six hundred. At
this time buboes and carbuncles were more frequent than they had been in
July. At the beginning of September there were seven hundred deaths in
the space of twenty-four hours; in a few days, there were eight hundred
deaths within the same number of hours; and a short time after, the
deaths amounted to one thousand in a day!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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