The Popular Science Monthly, October, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900Various
History
The Popular Science Monthly, October, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
The disease continued in Marseilles until December, 1721, but isolated
cases persisted until April, 1722. During the fifteen months of its
duration it carried off 40,000 of the population. According to Defoe,
there died of the plague in Marseilles and within a league of its walls
60,000.
From Marseilles the plague reached Aix, and in the winter of 1720 and
1721 it carried off 18,000 of its people. It also reached Arles, where,
in 1721, out of a population of 23,000, 10,000 died (forty-five per
cent). The same year, in Toulon, which had a population of 26,000, the
plague attacked 20,000 of the population, and of these 13,000, or about
one-half of the original population, died.
The country districts about Marseilles were likewise invaded. Out of
a population of 248,000, there died of the plague 88,000, or fully
thirty-five per cent.
It is evident from this description that the plague of 1720 was in
nowise inferior to that of 1348. Fortunately, the disease did not
spread beyond Provence. It is noteworthy that in many instances, in
Marseilles, people secluded themselves in their houses, avoiding all
communication with the outer world, and in this way escaped. Similar
isolation of cloisters, insane asylums, likewise resulted in freedom
from the disease which stalked so freely throughout the stricken city.
It was experience of this kind in isolation of the healthy which led
Defoe to write his ‘Due Preparations for the Plague.’
Toward the middle of the century the plague reasserted itself in the
Danubian provinces, the constant battleground between the Turks and
Russians and Austrians. In 1738 it not only prevailed in Russia but
also invaded Hungary. Of more importance than this occurrence is the
outbreak of the plague in 1743 in Sicily. The last epidemic of plague
had occurred in Messina in 1624. After a lapse of one hundred and
twenty years, it reappeared with terrible results. In Messina, as in
Marseilles and in London, the first cases were not recognized as plague
cases and, as a result, the infection spread until, like a veritable
explosion, the disease developed all over the city. The plague, with
its attendant misery of lack of food, and even of water, was in vain
combated by religious processions. The plague corpses were in heaps in
the streets, as in Marseilles, and cremation was resorted to in order
to effect their removal. That year 30,000 died of plague in the city of
Messina. With the exception of a slight epidemic at Noja in 1815, this
outbreak in Messina in 1743 was the last one to appear in Italy.
In 1755, the plague was introduced into Transylvania by an Armenian
merchant from the Black Sea. Before it was extinguished, 4,300 deaths
were recorded.
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