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
[45] The petechiæ and other eruptions vary in size and colour. They are
mostly small and distinct, but sometimes run together and form broad
maculæ, which now and then end in carbuncles. Their colour in many
instances is livid or black, in others (when the disease is milder)
purplish, in some reddish. In convalescents, they turn first red, then
yellow, and afterwards disappear. They are so common in the beginning of
the plague, that scarcely any one dies without them; though buboes and
carbuncles are not observable. Hence those who have never seen the
plague under all its forms are apt to be deceived respecting the nature
of the disorder.
[46] The patients complain of this more than of any other symptom. The
pain begins in the frontal sinus, and the orbits of the eyes, and
afterwards extends to the temples and sides of the head as far as to the
back part, and gradually over the whole head; so, however, as to be most
violent in the fore part.
[47] The appearance of the eyes in the plague is such as, when once
seen, will ever afterwards enable even the commonest observers to
recognise the disease. The eyes are unusually prominent, and the vessels
of the tunica albuginea are turgid with blood, so as to produce a
præternatural redness. They are, moreover, watery, sometimes full of
tears (lacrymantes), and have a sparkling fierceness. But in the
advanced stage of the disease, when the powers of life become exhausted,
the eyes sink in, the redness gradually goes off, and a little while
before death they become dull, and appear as if they had a film over
them.
[48] Although the delirium is rather higher than it is in the slow type
of the plague, yet it is very rarely of the furious kind, in the present
type of the disease. The patients are affected with stupor, and lie
motionless in a dozing state; or if they awake, they are perpetually
stretching out their hands and trying to raise themselves up, as if they
wanted to get out of bed. They talk incessantly, but in consequence of
the turgid and swollen state of the tongue, their speech is broken and
stuttering, like that of drunken people, so as to be scarcely
intelligible.
[49] The buboes are dispersed or resolved by critical sweats breaking
out on the first day of the attack. Often, at the same time, there is a
discharge from the urethra of a white, viscid fluid, resembling pus,
similar to what happens in a gleet; but this running is not accompanied
with pain, and ceases spontaneously after a few days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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