Plague

th here, as briefly and concisely as their importance will permit, the principal facts related to the causati

d facts, some of them long known to men, in the clear light of modern method; the story of the application of analysis, synthesis, logic and experiment,

, most engaging and fascinating, which one fin

era, the earlier record naturally being lacking in sufficient accuracy of description to enab

ending down through the centuries to the period of the Crusades. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the returning Crusaders spread the plague widely through Europe, which country it ravished from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries, reaching its climax of intensity in the "Black Death" of Europe of the Middle Ages. The disease thereafter continued to devastate Europe, the great population centres, Paris and London, suffering especially from its visitations and its more

from European and Asiatic Turkey, formerly its favorite haunts. In interior Asia it has probably exis

s to-day, a menace to the civilized and uncivilized world. In the days of the Crusades a religious invasion of the infected centres caused th

e in the following countries since 1894, when it spread from interior China. In every

Africa, Mediterranean ports, Great Britain (Scotland), the West Indies and Brazil. In the last twenty years plague has caused millions of deaths, and, during a single week in April, 1907, it destroyed more than 75,000 lives in India, a number about equal to the deaths of a y

ich the number of reported deaths per year exceeded one million, and it has been estimated th

few years, but so long as the annual death list, year after year, was measured by hundreds of

eply we may consider also the list of countries, states and islands from w

plague foci, any one of which might serve to extend the infection furt

in India, Mauritius, China, Japan, Egypt, Turkey, Russia, British East Africa, the Azo

the distribution of plague occurred, cases being reporte

erned, was not greatly changed, as may be seen from the following tabulation,

prevalent (1) United Provinces, 281,317; (2) Punjab, 171,084; (3) Bengal, 58

4 to August 21, 25

in (provinces and towns) Manchuria, Peking, Tien-tsin, Chefo, Sha

many cases reported. April 17 to May 7, 56 cases;

uring 1911 than in any previous year. Mar

, 105 cases and 62 deaths (one province). I

few cases, mostly imp

911. In Formosa, from April 2 t

airo and Alexandria; also from 11 provinces. The province of Ken

s reported from port

cases at Muscat, Basra

u and Port Florence reporte

1 to April 11, 110

lague was reported presen

in the Astrakan Government in

enezuela. No severe outbreak except in Peru, where from February to May many case

very of infected rats in New Orleans. Thus the Atlantic cities of the United States were for the first time seriously threatened, and the menace of the pestilence at home loomed up on our horizon with sufficient prominence to excite public co

leans has undergone and is still undergoing treatment which may be ex

a year we may fairly look upon the epidemic as ended. After so long an interval as this any reappearance of plague may fairly be viewed as a n