THE PLAGUE OF INDIA.

Waikato Argus, Volume II, Issue 118, 10 April 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE PLAGUE OF INDIA.

This bubonic plague now raging in India, and which lias caused so much uneasiness in Eastern countries, judging by the reports published from t'me to time, is a revisitation of one of those great scourges which history tells us swept off countless thousands during the Middle Ages. The following vivid description of the plague of Florence, in I.'UO, by Boccaccio, the illustrious Italian writer who nourished in the 14th century, will be of interest to our readers ;--• Iu the year of our Lord 1-310, there happened at Florence, the finest city in Italy, a most terrible plague ; which whether owing to the iufiuemo of the planets, or tint it was sent from G >d as a just punishment for our sins, had broken out some years before in the Levant, and after passing from place to place, and making terrible havoc all tho way, had now reached the west; whore, spite of all the means that art and human foresight could suggest, ns keeping the city clear from filth, and ex --.hiding all suspend persons : notwithst inding frequent consultations what olso was to bo done ; nor omitting prayers to God in frequent processions ; in tho spring of the foregoing year it began to show itself in a sad and wonderful manner ; and different from what it had been in the last, where Heeling from the nose is the fatal prognostic, hero there appeared certa ; n tumours in the groin, or under the arm-pits, some as big as a small apple, others as bit,' as an egg : aud afterwards purple spots in m ispirtsof the boly: in some cases large and but few in number, in others less aud more numerous, both sorts the usual messengers of death. To the cure of this malady neither medical knowlelgo, nor the power of drugs was of any off set, whether because the disease was in its own nature mortal, or that the phjs'ciaas (the number of whom, taking quacks and women pretenders i-'.to the account, was grown very groat) could form no just idea of the cause, nor consequently ground a true method of cure; whiohever was the reason, few or none escaped ; but they generally diod the third day from the first appearance of the symptoms, without a fever or other bad circumstance attending. And the disease, by being communicated from the t-ick to the well, seemed daily to get ahead, and to rage the more, as fire will do by laying on fre-h combustibles. Nor was it o lly given by conversing with, or coming near, the sick, but even by touching their clothes, or anything that they had before touched. It is wonderful what I am goiti;? to mention ; which had I not seen it with my own eyes, and there wore not so many witnesses to attest it beside myself, I should never venture to relate, however credibly I might have been informed about it : such, I say, was the quality of the pestilential matter, as to pass not only from man to man, but, what is moro strange, has been often known, that anything belonging to the infected, if touched by any other creature, would cerainly iu'eut, an 1 even kil' that creature iu a short space of time : and one iustance of this kind I took particular notice of ; namely, that the rags of a poor man just dead, being thrown into the street, and two hogs coming by at the same time, and rooting amongst them, aud shaking them about in their mouths in less than an hour turned round and and died on the spot'. These accidents, aud othert of the like sort, occasioned various fears aud devices amongst those people that survived, all tending to the s imo uncharitable and cruel end ; which was, to avoid the sick, and everything that had been near them, expecting by that means to save thomsoives. And some holding it best 10 live temperately, and to avoid excesses of all kinds, made partie?, and shut themselves up from the rest of the world; eating and drinking moderately of the best, and diverting themselves with music, and such other entertainment as they might have within doots ; never listening to anything from without, to make them uneasy. Others maintained free living to bo a better preservative, and would baulk no passion or appetite they wished to gratify, drinking and revelling incessantly from tavern to tavern, or iu private houses ; which were frequently found deserted by the owner-, aud therefore common to every one, yet avoiding, with all this irregularity, to eoiro near tho infected. And such, at that time, was the public distress, that the laws, human and divine, were no moro regarded; for, the officers to put them in force being either dead, sick, or in want of persons to assist them, every one did just as he pleased. A third sort of people choose a method between these two; not confining themselves to rules of diet like tin former, an J yet avoiding the imtemperance of tho latter; but eating and drinking what their appetites required, ihey walked everywhere with odours and nosegays to smell to ; as holding it best to corroborate the brain : for they supposed the whole atmosphere to bo tainted with the stink of dead bodies, arising p irty from the distemper itself, and partly from the fermenting of the medicine within them. Othors, of a more cruel disposition, as perhaps the mo.-t safe to themselves, declared, that the only remedy was to avoid it: persuaded, therefore, of this, and taking eiro of thorns lives only, men and women in great numbers left the country : as if the wrath of God had been restrained to visit those only within the walls of the city : or else concluded that none ought to "stay in a place thus doomed to destruction. Divided as they were, neither did all die, nor all escape ; but falling sick indifferently, as well those of one as of another opinion, they who first set the example by forsaking others now languish themselves without mercy. I pass over the little regard that citizens and relations showed to each other ; for their terror was such, that a brother often tied from his brother, a wife from her husband, and, what is more uncommon, a parent from its own child. On which account numbers that fell sick could have no help but what the charity of trieuds, who were very few, or the avarice of servants, supplied ; and even theso were m; irce, aud at extravagant wages, and so little u-"ed to the business, they were fit only to reach what was called for, and observe when they died ; and this desire of getting money often cost them their life. And many lost their lives who might have escaped had they been looked after at all. So that, between tho scarcity of s rvants and the violence of the distemper, s icli numbers were continually dying as male it, terrible to bear as well as to boholl. Whence, from mere necessity, mauy customs were introduced, different from what has been known iu the city. It has been usual, as it now is, for the women who were friends and neighbours tj the deceased to meet together at his house, and to lament with his relations; at the same time the men would get together at (he door, with a number of clergy, accord ill" to the person's circumstances: and the corps : was carried by tho people of bis owd rank, with thesolomuity of tapers and singiug, to that church where the person has desired to bo buried: which custom was now laid aside, and, so far from having a crowd of women to lament over them, that great numbers passed out of I he world without a single person : and few had the tears of their friends at their departure: for even the women had learned to postpone every other concern to that of their own lives. Nor was a corpse altculo-l by more thau ton or a

dozen, nor those citizens of credit, but fellows hired for the purpose: who put, thomsidoi utile" th > bier, mid air,' it with all possible haste to the nearest church; and tho e >rpso was interred without any groat ceremony, wherj they could find room. With regard to the lower s at, and many of a middling 1 rank, tho scene was si ill more aft'-cting; for they, staying at home, eith r through poverty or hopes of succour in distress. fell sick dlily by thousands, and having nobody to attend thorn, generally died : Homo breathed their last iil the streets, and others shut up in their own houses, when the stench that came from tho-n made the first discovery of their deaths to tin neighbourhood. And, indeed, eveiy plaec was filled with tho do id. A melhod now was taken, as well out of regard to the living as pit}' for the dead, for the neighbours, as isted by what porters tiny could meet with, to clear all the houses, and lay the bodies at the doors ; and every morning great numbers might be seen brought out in thi3 manner , from whence they were carried away on biers, or tables, two or three at a time ; and sometimes it happened, that a wife and her husband, two or three brothers, and a father and sou. have bean laid 01 together ; it has been observed also, whilst two or three pries's have walked before a rorpso with their crueifix, that two or three sets of porters have fallen in with them ; and, where they knew but of one, they had buried six, eight, or more: nor was there any to follow, and shed a few tears over them ; for things were come to that pass, that men's lives were no more regarded than the lives of so many b3a-ts. Hence it plainly appearoi that what tho wisest in the ordinary courso of things, and by a common train of calamities, could never be taught, namely, to bear them patiently,—-this, by the excess of those calamities, was now grown a familiar lesson to tho most simple and u ithinkinsr. The consecrated ground no longer containing the numbers which were continually brought thither, especially us they were desirous of laying every one in the part alloted to their families, they were forcel to dig trenches, and to put them in by hundreds, piling thorn up in rows, as goods are stored in a ship, and throwing in a little earth till they were filled to the top. Not to rake any further into the particulars of our misery, I shall observe, that it fared no better with the adjacent country ; for, to omit the different castles about us, which pros sented the same view in miniature with the city, you might see the poor distressed labourers, with their families, without e'ther the plague of physicians, or help of servants, languishing on the highways, in the fields, and in their own houses, and dying rather like cattle thin human creatures ; aud growing dis3olute in their manners like the citizens, and careless of everything, as supposing every day to be their last, their thoughts were not so much employed how to improve as to make use of their substance for their present support; whence it happened that the flocks, herds, &c, and the dogs themselves ever faithful to their masters, being driven from their own homes, would wander, no regard being had to them among the forsaken harvest, and many times, after thoy had filled themselves in the day, would return of their own accord like rational creatures at night. What can I say more, if I return to the city 'i unless sach was the cruelty of Heaven, and perhaps of mon, that between March and .J uly following it is supposed, and made pretty certain, that upward of a hundred thousand souls perished in the city only ; whereas, before that calamity, it was not supposed to have contained so many inhabitants.