The Bubonic Plague

Part 1

THE BUBONIC PLAGUE.

BY A. MITRA, L.R.C.P., L.R.C.S., F.C.S., Chief Medical Officer, Kashmir.

Calcutta: THACKER, SPINK AND CO., 5 & 6, Government Place. 1897.

CONTENTS.

Page What is it? 1 Its History 1 The London Epidemic of 1865 3 Geographical Distribution 8 Causes 8 Bacillus 9 Contagious as well as Infectious 11 Nature of an Epidemic 13 Incubation 17 Symptoms 17 Varieties 21 Diagnosis 21 Prognosis 23 Microscopic and Macroscopic Appearances 24 Prevention 24 Sanitary Measures by Municipal Authorities 26 Private Hygiene 29 Inoculation against Plague 32 Treatment 33 Treatment of Symptoms 38 Disinfection 40 Purification of a Room after Plague Cases 41

THE BUBONIC PLAGUE.

WHAT IS IT?

Any contagious and fatal epidemic disease was originally called a plague (from plaga, a stroke), but this term is now applied to that particular kind of plague which is characterised by the appearance of high fever with inflammation of lymphatic glands or bubo, and is therefore called the Bubonic Plague. In Sanskrit Medical Books it has been described as Vidradhi and Visharpa, and in Yonani as Taoon. The following definition given by Cantlie is comprehensive. “Plague or Malignant Polyadenites is an acute febrile disease of an intensely fatal nature characterised by inflammation of the lymphatic glands, marked cerebral and vascular disturbances, and by the presence of a specific bacillus.”

ITS HISTORY.

It is an ancient disease mentioned in Hindoo and Christian Scriptures. Long before the Christian era it prevailed in Greece, attacking the town of Piræus, where it raged for two years. Egypt, Syria, Constantinople and Rome were visited by the plague. In Constantinople the outbreak was once so furious that during three months from 5,000 to 10,000 deaths occurred daily. The first historical allusion to plague was made by Rufus, a physician who lived in the reign of Trajan (A.D. 98-117), and who mentions of glandular swellings. In 1347, plague appeared in almost all countries in Europe, where Hecker believes, 25 millions of persons perished. Ireland was visited by plague three hundred years after its invasion by Patrolan, and it is said that 9,000 people died in a week and were buried at Tallagh near Dublin—a name which means the burial place of the plague-stricken. Plague visited England frequently, and no fewer than eighteen epidemics are said to have occurred before the great plague of 1665. In 1720, 40,000 out of a population of 90,000 died at Marseilles. In 1751, 150,000 died of plague in Constantinople. In 1799 the French Army in Syria was devastated by plague. 6,000 persons died in Malta in 1813. In 1834-35, 14,888 persons died in Alexandria out of a population of 42,000. In 1876 there was an outbreak of the disease at Kumaon in Northern India, where it prevailed several times during the present century, and where it is known as the Maha-Mari. It is also said that it prevailed in 1815 on the Island of Kutch, and lasted till 1821 in Kutch and Sindh. It also occurred between the years 1828 and 1838 in Jhansi, Bareilly, Pali and Jodhpore. In China the plague has been present for a long time in an epidemic form. In 1894 60,000 persons died at Canton. From Canton it spread to Hongkong and to Amoy. In 1895, it visited many places in Southern China. In 1896, it was present at Hongkong. Some people think that the disease has come to Bombay probably from Singapore. There was an epidemic at Merv when the Bombay outbreak appeared, others, however, think that the epidemic at Merv was not that of plague and that the disease has come from Hongkong.

THE LONDON EPIDEMIC OF 1665.

The following graphic and interesting account of the great London Epidemic of 1665 is taken from Sir William Guy’s book on “Public Health.”

“I now turn for a more exact account of the plague of 1665 to the work of Dr. Nathaniel Hodges, a Fellow of the College of Physicians, resident in the City, and, as his book shows, in active practice among the victims of the disease.

“Dr. Munk, in his roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London, says that he ‘acquired a great name among the citizens of London; that he remained at his post and continued in unremitting attendance on the sick,’ and that ‘during the latter part of his life he received a regular stipend from the City of London for the performance of his charitable office.’

“Dr. Hodges tells us that about the close of 1664, two or three persons died suddenly with symptoms of the plague in one family at Westminster, that some timid neighbours of theirs took fright and removed into the City of London carrying the taint of pestilence with them whereby the disease, which existed only in a family or two, gained strength and spread abroad, and ‘for want of confining the persons first seized with it, the whole city was in a little time irrecoverably infected.’

“In December a hard frost set in, which lasted three months, and during that time very few died of the plague. But the disease was not extinguished; for, in the middle of the Christmas holidays, the doctor was called to a young man in a fever, who after two days ‘had two risings about the bigness of a nutmeg,’ ‘one on each thigh,’ with a ‘black hue’ and a ‘circle round them.’ By these and subsequent symptoms, he judged it to be a case of plague. It did not prove fatal.

“When the frost broke, the disease gained ground and extended into several parishes; and the authorities issued an order ‘to shut up all the infected houses,’ so as to prevent ingress and egress. To give effect to this order, the houses of the infected were to be marked with a red cross, and to carry the inscription, ‘Lord have mercy upon us,’ and a guard was set whose duty it was to hand food and medicine to the sick, and to prevent them from going abroad till forty days after their recovery. In spite of these harsh measures, ‘the plague more and more increased.’ Nor will this surprise us if we imagine the frantic and successful efforts that must have been made by the non-infected to escape, and the temptation to servants and nurses to appropriate and remove the property of the dying and dead. Indeed, Dr. Hodges accuses the nurses of strangling their patients, and secretly conveying the pestilential taint from sores of the infected to those who were well; and he justifies his accusation of ‘these abandoned miscreants,’ the Gamps and Prigs of the seventeenth century, by two instances; the one of a nurse who, ‘as she was leaving the house of a family, all dead, loaded with her robberies, fell down dead under her burden in the streets,’ the other of a ‘worthy citizen’ ‘who, being suspected dying by his nurse, was beforehand stripped by her; but recovering again, he came a second time into the world naked.’

“In spite of the well intentioned measures of the authorities, the plague continued through May and June with more or less severity, sometimes in one place, sometimes in another, till the people becoming thoroughly frightened, flocked out of town in crowds. But the disease raged with redoubled fury among those that remained. Then the authorities bestirred themselves to the utmost. They instituted a monthly fast; and the King commanded the College of Physicians ‘to write somewhat in English,’ that might serve as ‘a general directory.’ The college not only obeyed the royal commands, by inventing a ‘Plague Water,’ consisting of a cordial distilled off from a vinous infusion of a score of very harmless roots, leaves, and flowers, but also appointed two of their number to co-operate with two chosen from among the aldermen in attending the infected; while Dr. Glisson, Regius Professor at Cambridge, and Drs. Paget, Wharton, Berwick and Brookes volunteered their help, with many others who survived, and eight or nine who fell victims to their self-devotion, among whom Dr. Conyers receives honourable mention.

“Still, in the face of every precaution, the plague continued its work of destruction, especially among the common people, so as to be called the ‘Poor’s Plague,’ and, in August and September, completely got the mastery, ‘so that three, four or five thousand died in a week, and once 8,000.’

“And here I will follow Dr. Hodges’ example, and try to give you some idea of the state of things then prevailing. But in doing so I must shorten and tone down his description. ‘In some houses,’ he says ‘carcases lay waiting for burial,’ ‘in others, persons in their last agonies.’ ‘In one room might be heard dying groans, in another the ravings of delirium,’ and, near at hand, relations and friends bewailing their loss and their own dismal prospects. ‘Death was the sure midwife to all children, and infants passed immediately from the womb to the grave.’ Some of the infected ran about staggering like drunken men, and fell down dead in the streets, or they lay there comatose and half dead; some lay vomiting as if they had drunk poison; others fell dead in the market in the act of buying provisions. The plague spared ‘no order, age or sex.’ The divine was taken in the very exercise of his priestly office, and the physician while administering his own antidote; and though the soldiers retreated, and encamped out of the city, the contagion followed, and vanquished them. Many in their old age, others in their prime, most women and still more children, perished; ‘and it was not uncommon to see an inheritance pass successively to three or four heirs in as many days.’ There were not sextons enough to bury the dead, the bells ceased tolling, the burying places were full, so that the dead were thrown into large pits, dug in waste ground, in heaps 30 or 40 together; and those who attended the funerals of their friends one evening were often carried the next to their own long home.

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