Pestilence, or Pestilential Fever, is a very acute, malignant, and contagious disease; being a putrid fever of the worst kind, and seldom failing to prove mortal. Though it is generally defined a malignant fever, Diemerbrock thinks they ought to be distinguished, since the fever is not the essence of the disease, but merely a symptom or effect of it. See Medicine, No. 221.
The plague, as is generally agreed, is never bred or propagated in Britain, but always imported from abroad, especially from the Levant, Lesser Asia, Egypt, &c., where it is very common. Sydenham has remarked that it rarely infects this country oftener than once in 40 years, and happily we have been free of it for a much longer period.
Authors are not as yet agreed concerning the nature of this dreadful distemper. Some think that insects are the cause of it, in the same way that they are the cause of blights, being brought in swarms from other climates by the wind, when they are taken into the lungs in respiration; the consequence of which is, that they mix with the blood and juices, and attack and corrode the viscera. Mr. Boyle, on the other hand, thinks it originates from the effluvia or exhalations breathed into the atmosphere from noxious minerals, to which may be added stagnant waters and putrid bodies of every kind.
Mr. Gibbon thinks that the plague is derived from damp, hot, and stagnating air, and the putrefaction of animal substances, especially locusts. See Gibbon's Roman History, 4to edit. vol. iv. p. 327—332, where there is also a very particular account of the plague which depopulated the earth in the time of the emperor Julian.
The Mahometans believe that the plague proceeds from certain spirits, or goblins, armed with bows and arrows, sent by God to punish men for their sins; and that when the wounds are given by spectres of a black colour, they certainly prove fatal, but not so when the arrows are shot by those that appear white. They therefore take no precaution to guard themselves against it. The wisest professors of this religion, however, at present act otherwise; for we find a receipt recommended by Sidi Mohammed Zerroke, one of the most celebrated Marabouts, prefaced with these remarkable words: "The lives of us all are in the hands of God, when it is we must die. However, it hath pleased him to save many persons from the plague, by taking every morning while the infection rages, one pill or two of the following composition; viz. of myrrh two parts, saffron one part, of aloes two parts, of syrup of myrtle berries, &c." But this remedy is confined to the more enlightened; for the bigotry of the lower sort is so extreme as to make them despise all precautions which people of other nations use. Of this extreme and foolish prejudice Dr. Chandler gives an interesting account when speaking of the plague at Smyrna. This learned author is of opinion that the disease arises from animals, which he supposes to be invisible. See Chandler's Travels in Asia Minor, p. 279, &c.
It is a remarkable fact, that plagues are sometimes partial, and that they only attack particular animals, or a particular description of persons, avoiding others altogether, or attacking them but lightly. Thus Ferneius informs us of a plague, or murrain, in 1514, which invaded only cats. Dionysius Halicarnaeus mentions a plague which attacked none but maids; and that which raged in the time of Gentius, killed scarcely any women, and very few but lusty men. Boterus mentions another plague, which assaulted none but the younger sort; and we have instances of the same kind of a later standing (a). Cardan speaks of a plague at Baille, with which the Switzers were infected, and the Italians, Germans, or French, exempted: and John Utenhovius takes notice of a dreadful one at Copenhagen, which, though it raged among the Danes, spared the Germans, Dutch, and English, who went with all freedom, and without the least danger, to the houses of the infected. During the plague which ravaged Syria in 1760, it was observed that people of the fowdest constitutions were the most liable to it, and that the weak and delicate were either spared or easily cured. It was most fatal to the Moors; and, when it attacked them, it was generally incurable.
When the plague raged in Holland in 1636, a young girl was seized with it, had three carbuncles, and was removed to a garden, where her lover, who was betrothed to her, attended her as a nurse, and slept with her as his wife. He remained uninfected, and the recovered, and was married to him. The story is related by Vine. Fabricius in the Life. Cur. Ann. II. Olst. 188.
Many methods have been adopted in different countries to prevent the importation of this dreadful scourge of the human race, and to stop the progress of infection after it has been imported. In England, mayors, bailiffs, head officers of corporations, and justices of peace, have power to tax inhabitants, houses, and lands, &c. within their precincts, for the relief of persons infected with the plague; and justices of the county may tax persons within five miles round, on a parish's inability; the tax to be levied by distress and sale of goods, or in default thereof by imprisonment. Infected persons going abroad, after being commanded to keep house for avoiding farther infections, may be visited by watchmen, &c., and punished as vagrants, if they have no fires upon them; and if they have infectious sores on them it is felony. Justices of the peace, &c., are to appoint searchers, examiners, and buriers of the dead, in places infected, and administer oaths to them for the performance of their duties, &c.; flat. 1 Jac. I. cap. 31. See QUARANTINE.
The commission at Moscow having, in the year 1770, invented a fumigation-powder, which, from several other experiments, had proved efficacious in preventing the infection of the plague; in order more fully to ascertain its virtue in that respect, it was determined,
(a) See the account of the yellow fever under the article PHILADELPHIA, where it appears that the disease was less fatal to some sorts of persons than to others. Plague. determined, towards the end of the year, that ten malefactors under sentence of death should, without undergoing any other precautions than the fumigations, be confined three weeks in a lazaretto, be laid upon the beds, and drestled in the clothes, which had been used by persons sick, dying, and even dead, of the plague in the hospital. The experiment was accordingly tried, and none of the ten malefactors were then infected, or have been since ill. The fumigation powder is prepared as follows.
Powder of the first strength.] Take leaves of juniper, juniper-berries pounded, ears of wheat, guaiacum wood pounded, of each five pounds; common saltpetre pounded, eight pounds; sulphur pounded, five pounds; Smyrna tar, or myrrh, two pounds: mix all the above ingredients together, which will produce a pound of the powder of fumigation of the first strength. [N.B. A pound is 40 pounds Russian, which are equal to 35 pounds and a half or 36 pounds English avoirdupoise.]
Powder of the second strength.] Take southernwood cut into small pieces, four pounds; juniper berries pounded, three pounds; common saltpetre pounded, four pounds; sulphur pounded, two pounds and a half; Smyrna tar, or myrrh, one pound and a half: mix the above together, which will produce half a pound of the powder of fumigation of the second strength.
Odoriferous powder.] Take the root called kalmus cut into small pieces, three pounds; leaves of juniper cut into small pieces four pounds; frankincense pounded grossly, one pound; storax pounded, and rose flowers, half a pound; yellow amber pounded, one pound; common saltpetre pounded, one pound and a half; sulphur, a quarter of a pound: mix all the above together, which will produce nine pounds and three quarters of the odoriferous powder.
Remark on the powder of fumigation.] If guaiacum cannot be had, the cones of pines or firs may be used in its stead; likewise common tar of pines and firs may be used instead of the Smyrna tar, or myrrh, and mugwort may supply the place of southernwood.
Thucydides, who was himself infected, lib. ii. gives us an account of a dreadful plague which happened at Athens about the year before Christ 430, while the Peloponnesians under the command of Archidamus waited all her territory abroad; but of these two enemies the plague was by far the most dreadful and severe.
The most dreadful plague that ever raged at Rome was in the reign of Titus, A.D. 80. The emperor left no remedy unattempted to abate the malignity of the distemper, acting during its continuance like a father to his people. The same fatal disease raged in all the provinces of the Roman empire in the reign of M. Aurelius, A.D. 167, and was followed by a dreadful famine, by earthquakes, inundations, and other calamities. The Romans believed that Ascalaphus sometimes entered into a serpent, and cured the plague.
About the year 430 the plague visited Britain, just after the Picts and Scots had made a formidable invasion of the southern part of the island. The plague raged with uncommon fury, and swept away most of those whom the sword and famine had spared, so that the living were scarcely sufficient to bury the dead.
About the year 1348 the plague became almost general over Europe. A great many authors give an account of this plague, which is said to have appeared first in the kingdom of Cathay in the year 1346, and to have proceeded gradually westward to Constantinople and Egypt. From Constantinople it passed into Greece, Italy, France, and Africa, and by degrees along the coasts of the ocean into Britain and Ireland, and afterwards into Germany, Hungary, Poland, Denmark and the other northern kingdoms. According to Antoninus archbishop of Florence the distemper carried off 60,000 people in that city, among whom was the historian John Villani.
In the year 1656 the plague was brought from Sardinia to Naples, being introduced into the city by a transport with soldiers on board. It raged with excessive violence, carrying off in less than six months 400,000 of the inhabitants. The distemper was at first called by the physicians a malignant fever; but one of them affirming it to be pestilential, the viceroy, who was apprehensive lest such a report would occasion all communication with Naples to be broke off, was offended with this declaration, and ordered him to be imprisoned. As a favour, however, he allowed him to return and die in his own house. By this proceeding of the viceroy, the distemper being neglected, made a most rapid and furious progress, and filled the whole city with consternation. The streets were crowded with confused processions, which served to spread the infection through all the quarters. The terror of the people increased their superstition; and it being reported that a certain nun had prophesied that the pestilence would cease upon building a hermitage for her sisters nuns upon the hill of St Martin's, the edifice was immediately begun with the most ardent zeal. Persons of the highest quality strove who should perform the meanest offices; some loading themselves with beams, and others carrying baskets full of lime and nails, while persons of all ranks stripped themselves of their most valuable effects, which they threw into empty hogheads placed in the streets to receive the charitable contributions. Their violent agitation, however, and the increasing heats, diffused the malady through the whole city, and the streets and the stairs of the churches were filled with the dead; the number of whom, for some time of the month of July, amounted daily to 15,000.
The viceroy now used all possible precautions to abate the fury of the distemper, and to prevent its spreading to the provinces. The infection, however, defoliated the whole kingdom, excepting the provinces of Otranto and the Farther Calabria, and the cities of Gaeta, Sorrento, Paolo, and Belvedere. The general calamity was increased in Naples by malecontents, who infamated that the distemper had been designingly introduced by the Spaniards, and that there were people in disguise who went through the city fowling poisoned dust. This idle rumour enraged the populace, who began to insult the Spanish soldiers, and threaten a sedition; so that the viceroy, to pacify the mob, caused a criminal to be broke upon the wheel, under pretence that he was a disperser of the dust. A violent and plentiful rain falling about the middle of August, the distemper began to abate; and on the eighth of December the physicians made a solemn declaration that the city was entirely free from infection.
Of the dreadful plague which raged at London in the year 1665, the reader will find an account in the article LONDON, No. 21. In 1720 the city of Marseille was visited with this destructive disease, brought in a ship from the Levant; and in seven months, during which time it continued, it carried off not less than 60,000 people. This defoliation is not yet obliterated from the minds of the inhabitants; some survivors remained alive but a few years ago to transmit a traditional account of it to after ages. There are two fine pictures, painted by Puget, representing some of the horrid scenes of that time. "They are (says Lady Craven) only too well executed. I saw several dying figures taking leave of their friends, and looking their last, anxious, kind, and watchful prayers on their sick infants, that made the tears flow down my cheeks. I was told the physicians and noblemen who were afflicting the sick and dying, were all portraits: I can easily conceive it; for in some faces there is a look of reflection and concern which could only be drawn from the life." Letters, p. 34, 35. This fatal event has caused the laws of quarantine to be very strictly enforced in the lazaretto here, which is an extensive insulated building.
The ravages of this disease have been dreadful wherever it has made its appearance. On the first arrival of the Europeans at the island of Gran Canaria, it contained 14,000 fighting men, soon after which, two thirds of the whole inhabitants fell a sacrifice to the plague, which had doubtless been introduced by their new visitors. The destruction it has made in Turkey in Europe, and particularly in Constantinople, must be known to every reader; and its fatal effects have been particularly heightened there by that firm belief which prevails among the people of predestination, &c., as has been already mentioned. It is generally brought into European Turkey from Egypt; where it is very frequent, especially at Grand Cairo. To give even a list of all the plagues which have defoliated many flourishing countries, would extend this article beyond all bounds; and minutely to describe them all, would be impossible. For the plague at Smyrna, we refer to Chandler's Travels as above. Relating that which raged in Syria in 1762, we refer to the Abbé Mariti's Travels through Cyprus, Syria, and Palestine, vol. i. p. 278—296. This plague was one of the most malignant and fatal that Syria ever experienced; for it scarcely made its appearance in any part of the body when it carried off the patient.
In addition to what the reader will find upon this subject in the article MEDICINE, and the observations which have now been offered, we beg leave to state the sentiments of Berthier on this subject, in his account of Bonaparte's expedition into Syria.
"At the time of our entry into Syria, (says he) all the towns were infected by the plague; a malady which ignorance and barbarity render so fatal in the east. Those who are affected by it give themselves up for dead; they are immediately abandoned by every body, and are left to die, when they might have been saved by medicine and attention.
"Citizen Degenettes, principal physician to the army, displayed a courage and character which entitle him to the national gratitude. When our soldiers were attacked by the least fever, it was supposed that they had caught the plague, and these maladies were founded. The fever hospitals were abandoned by the officers of health and their attendants. Citizen Degenettes repaired in person to the hospitals, visited all the patients, felt the glandular swellings, drested them, declared and maintained that the distemper was not the plague, but a malignant fever with glandular swellings, which might easily be cured by attention, and keeping the patient's mind easy."
The views of Degenettes in making this distinction were worthy of the highest commendation; but Dr Mofley maintains that this fever was actually the plague. The physician, however, carried his courage so far, as to make two incisions, and to inoculate the suppuration matter from one of these buboes above his breast, and under his armpits, but was not affected with the malady. He thus eased the minds of the soldiers, the first step to a cure; and, by his fidelity and constant attendance in the hospitals, a number of men attacked with the plague were cured. His example was followed by other officers of health. "There are, says Dr Mofley, annual or seasonal disorders, more or less severe, in all countries; but the plague, and other great depopulating epidemics, do not always obey the seasons of the year. Like comets, their course is eccentric. They have their revolutions; but from whence they come, or whether they go after they have made their revolution, no mortal can tell.
"Diseases originating in the atmosphere seize some, and pass by others; and act exclusively on bodies graduated to receive their impressions; otherwise whole nations would be destroyed. In some constitutions of the body the access is easy, in some difficult, and in others impossible.
"The air of confined places may be so vitiated as to be unfit for the purposes of the healthy existence of any person. Hence gaol, hospital, and ship fevers. But, as these distempers are the offspring of a local cause, that local cause, and not the distempered people, communicate the disease.
"The infection, were it not in the atmosphere, would be confined within very narrow limits; have a determinate sphere of action; and none but physicians and attendants on the sick would suffer; and these must suffer; and the cause and the effects would be palpable to our senses. Upon this ground, the precaution of quarantine would be rational. But who then would visit and attend the sick, or could live in hospitals, prisons, and lazarettos?"
The author is convinced from these reasonings, that the bubo and carbuncle, of which we hear so much in Turkey, and read so much in our own history of plagues, arise from heating food and improper treatment; that they contain no infection; and consequently that they are not the natural deposit of the morbid virus separated from the contagion.
Speaking of the plague, Mr Brown says, "the first symptoms are said to be thirst; 2. Cephalalgia; 3. A stiff and uneasy sensation, with redness and tumour about the eyes; 4. Watering of the eyes; 5. White pustules on the tongue. Not uncommonly, all these have successively shown themselves, yet the patient has recovered; in which case, where suppuration has had place, the skin always remains discoloured, commonly of a purple hue. Many who have been bled in an early stage of the disorder, have recovered without any fatal symptoms;" symptoms; but whether from that or any other cause, does not appear certain."
Oil rubbed into the skin acts as a preventive, as well as a cure of the plague. When the operation is performed to prevent infection, it is successfully performed with that view at Smyrna, as often as the plague makes its appearance in the city. As it is not done for the purpose of promoting perspiration, it is not requisite that it should be performed with the same speed as when for curing the disorder; nor is it necessary to abstain from flesh, and to use soups; but it will be proper to use only fowls or veal for some days, without any seasoning. It will in fine be necessary to guard against indigestible food, and such liquors as might put in motion or inflame the maws of the blood.
This interesting discovery merits the attention of all medical men; for if olive oil has been found efficacious in curing or preserving against one species of infection, it is not absurd to suppose, that the same or other kinds of oil might be productive of much benefit in other malignant infectious diseases. We hope soon to hear of some trial being made with it in this country. Would it be of any service in the yellow fever, so prevalent in the western world?