OUTBREAK OF THE PLAGUE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1552, 8 February 1879, Page 3

OUTBREAK OF THE PLAGUE.

With reference to the telegram stating that the plague had broken out in Russia, we have received (says the Australasian) the following particulars from a gentleman who has been for some years in those parts. He tells us that it is already three or four years since the plague first reappeared, for so long ago as 1874 it committed terrible ravages at Schuster, on the river Karun, in the south of Persia. It was next heard of at Bagdad in the winter of the following year, but disappeared as soon us the hot weather set in. It again broke out in 1870, and the virulence of the disease may he judged when it is stated that no less than 300 to 350 deaths occurred weekly for several weeks in succession. There was no actual epidemic last year, but without any warning it suddenly appeared at Resht, 500 miles away, which place, as stated in the telegram, is situated on the south coast of the Caspian Sea. Within a few months no less than 4000 deaths took place out of a population of 25,000 to 30,000 people, entire families being swept away by the disease. It is a remarkable fact that not a single case occurred beyond the limits of the town. It was greatly feared at the time that the disease might spread westwards, and attack the Russian and Turkish armies, then in the field in Asia Minor. Stringent measures were, however, adopted by the Russian authorities to prevent such a calamity by establishing quarantine all along the Russo-Persian frontier. Our informant was himself put into quarantine with his wife and family on a desert island in the Caspian Sea before he could pass through Russia. It was only in July last that the regulations were somewhat relaxed, no case of plague having been heard of at Resht for three or four months before. We now hear of it suddenly appearing at Astrakhan, the great centre of Russian trade, on the Caspian Sea, a city of 100,000 inhabitants, comprised of Persians, Armenians, Tartars, Bokhariotes, and Russians. From the eccentric manner in which it has travelled hitherto, there is every reason to fear that it may ere long find its way to Tsautzia Saratoff or Nidjni-Novgorod, and thence to Moscow and other great cities of Europe. There is a contest of opinion among medical men as to whether the disease is the “ plague ” rightly so called, but it is argued that if not quite of the same type as that which has committed such ravages in times past, yet that it is closely allied thereto.