Part 5

[11] We have omitted a sentence or two in this paragraph which threw no light on the subject, and might have appeared exceptionable to some readers. Tr.

[12] The author relates in a note, which it did not appear necessary to translate entire, that he found himself in a very disagreeable situation, in consequence of having been one of the first to assert the existence of the plague. The language used by some rival practitioners on this occasion, tended (as he believes) to stir up the populace to attack his house in the manner hereafter mentioned.

[13] See Gustavi Orræi Descriptio Pestis. 4to. Petropoli, 1784, p. 29.

[14] The state physician, Dr. _Rinder_, was attacked at the end of February with a gangrenous ulcer in the leg, which prevented his attendance at this meeting:--He died soon after.

[15] Orræus, as before quoted, p. 29.

[16] Three versts are equal to two English miles. Tr.

[17] In what manner the contagion got among these people could not be ascertained. Perhaps, through the negligence of the centinels, they had some communication with the persons under quarantine; or had become infected by bringing into use clothes and other effects, which the last-mentioned persons might have concealed under ground before their removal to the quarantine-hospital.

[18] Besides praying by them in the ordinary manner, it is customary, in Russia, to carry in great pomp to the sick the images of their saints, which every person present kisses in rotation.

[19] In their paroxysm of phrensy, the populace attempted to wreak their vengeance upon those who had laboured for their preservation. After they had sacrificed one victim to their blind rage, they sought for the physicians and surgeons. Some of the lowest rabble broke into my house, and destroyed every thing they could lay hold of; they also went in search of the other physicians and surgeons, and pursued such as they met with. Providence rescued us all from their hands. Little suspecting what was to happen, I had gone four days before, by order of council, to the Foundling-Hospital, to superintend more closely the health of the children there.

[20] There is some little variation between this author's spelling of these Russian names and Mr. _Coxe_'s. The last-mentioned traveller writes the 1st. Kremlin; the 2nd. Khitaigorod; the 3rd. Bielgorod; and the 4th. Semlainogorod. This last takes its name from the rampart of earth with which it is surrounded. Tr.

[21] Mr. _Coxe_ describes the wooden houses of the common people in Moscow, as mean hovels, in no degree superior to peasants cottages. It is easy to conceive how favourable these low and crouded habitations must have been to the harbouring and spreading of contagion. Tr.

[22] Now Prince _Orlow_.

[23] See Addenda, Note B.

[24] In Russia it is no uncommon thing to have a large edifice built of wood in a few days. See _Coxe_'s Travels. To persons unacquainted with this fact, the erecting of new hospitals might seem a very tardy measure for checking the progress of the plague. Tr.

[25] _Reaumur_'s thermometer was constantly in the morning between 16 and 22 degrees below the freezing point.

[26] See Addenda, note C.

[27] Dr. _Pogaretzky_, who had the care of the pest-hospital, Laforte, told me that some of the bearers of the dead had put on sheep-skins that had been worn by the impested, after having exposed them to the open air for forty-eight hours, in the month of December, when the frost was very intense; and that none of them became infected.

[28] The author remarks in a note, that the number of deaths in the month of September, probably amounted to as many as twenty-seven thousand. At this time, which was during the riots, the number of deaths could not be accurately registered.

[29] The number of these was by no means inconsiderable; for during the height of the plague, there was scarcely a sufficient number of men, horses, and carts to carry off the dead; many remained uninterred for two or three days, and were at length taken away by their relations, friends, or poor people hired for that purpose. Many of these could not be registered, besides numbers of others who were buried in secret, and whose illness was never reported to the Senate.

[30] According to the returns made to the Council of Health, and published by _Orræus_ (Descriptio Pestis, p. 48,) the number of persons carried off by the plague at Moscow in the year 1771, did not amount to more than fifty-six thousand seven hundred and seventy-two. It is to be remarked, however, that this list of deaths is dated only from the month of April, whereas the plague broke out in the cloth-manufactory in the beginning of March. Indeed, _Orræus_ himself acknowledges, (p. 49,) that a much greater number than what appears from the reports laid before the Council must have died of the plague, as, on pulling down the houses in different parts of the city, so many dead bodies were found that had been secretly interred, and as, moreover, in the beginning of the disorder, the returns were very inaccurately made. Tr.

[31] These towns did not suffer greatly from the plague, as the inhabitants took warning from the unhappy fate of Moscow, and attended to the necessary precautions from the beginning. It was more destructive in the villages, and particularly in those that were at the greatest distance from Moscow.

[32] I mean those physicians who, with myself, remained in the town; but not such as had the care of the pest-hospitals.

[33] Although the atmosphere may not be capable of communicating the pestilential contagion beyond a very limited distance from its source, yet to approach so near as within a foot of the infected, appears to us (notwithstanding the present instance to the contrary) to be a practice not generally safe. Dr. _Russell_ proceeded with more caution in his examinations of the infected at Aleppo. He prescribed to most of his patients out of a window, about fifteen feet above them. A stair passed near one of the windows, by which he had such of the infected, whose eruptions he wanted to examine, brought within a smaller distance, viz. within four or five feet. _Russell_, on the Plague, book I. ch. vi. Tr.

[34] Almost all the youngest children were out at nurse in the country.

(Mr. _Coxe_ relates, that, at the time he was at Moscow, this noble institution contained three thousand foundlings. Tr.)

[35] See Addenda, D.

[36] It is remarkable, that it is towards the summer-solstice, according to _Russell_ (Natural History of Aleppo) and _Prosper Alpinus_ (Medicina Ægyptiorum) that the plague generally ceases in Asia and Africa; whilst in Europe it rages with the greatest fury at that season, and is only subdued by the winter-cold.

[37] From the author's expressions in this place, the reader might be led to believe that he meant to restrict the communication of infection to contact of the sick and infected goods; but in other parts of his book, he admits the possibility of the contagion being communicated by the breath and other effluvia from the sick. Indeed there can be no doubt that the pestilential particles are (especially in the worst forms of the disease) contained in the moisture perspired through the skin, and in the vapour emitted from the lungs. If not, where was the use of the precaution, which the author adopted in his own person, of holding a handkerchief moistened with vinegar before the mouth and nose on approaching the sick? The conclusion, from all this is, that the sphere of contagion in cases of the plague, extends to a greater distance (several feet at least) than Dr. _Mertens_ imagines. Tr.

[38] For a more particular account of the symptoms, see Addenda, A.

[39] The author did not venture to feel the pulse of those impested patients who were under his own care, lest he should take infection. As the observations communicated to him by others on this head, which he has inserted in his book, coincide with those of _Orræus_ and _Samoïlowitz_, which we shall afterwards notice, we have omitted them, to avoid repetition. Tr.

[40] It will be sufficient for readers in this country to refer to _Sydenham_'s works, Sect. II. Cap. II. without transcribing the quotation which the author has introduced in this place. _Sydenham_ observes of the London plague (1665), that it was most suddenly mortal in the beginning; whereas the Russian plague was the most rapid in its action when it was at its height. Dr. _Mertens_ reconciles this contrariety of observation, by remarking that the London plague began in the summer, a season the most favourable for its activity. Tr.

[41] The description and treatment of the buboes, carbuncles, and other eruptions, which are to be found in every treatise on the Plague, the translator has purposely omitted, that the pamphlet might not be swelled out to an unnecessary bulk.

[42] Frequently in the progress of the disease there is no heat on the surface of the body; but the burning heat under the axillæ shows that the internal heat is very intense.

[43] A febrile, but not very quick pulse; sometimes almost natural.

[44] The faburra brought up by vomiting, is commonly of a dirty yellow colour, viscid, and sometimes frothy. The quantity thrown up is astonishingly great, much greater than is observed in any other fever.

[45] The petechiæ and other eruptions vary in size and colour. They are mostly small and distinct, but sometimes run together and form broad maculæ, which now and then end in carbuncles. Their colour in many instances is livid or black, in others (when the disease is milder) purplish, in some reddish. In convalescents, they turn first red, then yellow, and afterwards disappear. They are so common in the beginning of the plague, that scarcely any one dies without them; though buboes and carbuncles are not observable. Hence those who have never seen the plague under all its forms are apt to be deceived respecting the nature of the disorder.

[46] The patients complain of this more than of any other symptom. The pain begins in the frontal sinus, and the orbits of the eyes, and afterwards extends to the temples and sides of the head as far as to the back part, and gradually over the whole head; so, however, as to be most violent in the fore part.

[47] The appearance of the eyes in the plague is such as, when once seen, will ever afterwards enable even the commonest observers to recognise the disease. The eyes are unusually prominent, and the vessels of the tunica albuginea are turgid with blood, so as to produce a præternatural redness. They are, moreover, watery, sometimes full of tears (lacrymantes), and have a sparkling fierceness. But in the advanced stage of the disease, when the powers of life become exhausted, the eyes sink in, the redness gradually goes off, and a little while before death they become dull, and appear as if they had a film over them.

[48] Although the delirium is rather higher than it is in the slow type of the plague, yet it is very rarely of the furious kind, in the present type of the disease. The patients are affected with stupor, and lie motionless in a dozing state; or if they awake, they are perpetually stretching out their hands and trying to raise themselves up, as if they wanted to get out of bed. They talk incessantly, but in consequence of the turgid and swollen state of the tongue, their speech is broken and stuttering, like that of drunken people, so as to be scarcely intelligible.

[49] The buboes are dispersed or resolved by critical sweats breaking out on the first day of the attack. Often, at the same time, there is a discharge from the urethra of a white, viscid fluid, resembling pus, similar to what happens in a gleet; but this running is not accompanied with pain, and ceases spontaneously after a few days.

[50] A moderate bleeding from the nose in the beginning of the disease, was, especially in plethoric habits, sometimes salutary; but in most instances it was otherwise. Such as spat up frothy blood, mixed with a great quantity of thin phlegm, though they might not at the time exhibit symptoms of great debility, or appear to be in danger, did, nevertheless, contrary to expectation, die soon afterwards. Hæmorrhages happened more frequently, and proved more fatal to women than to men. An immoderate flow of the menses coming on suddenly and before the stated time, carried off the patient in many instances. When pregnant women were attacked with this type of the plague, they almost always miscarried, and lost their lives by the subsequent hæmorrhage. This was also very generally the case with those who were delivered after having gone their natural time.

[51] This anxiety about the præcordia may be regarded as a pathognomonic symptom of the plague in its most acute type. It is so excessive that the patients are at a loss for words capable of expressing it. It does not consist in a violent pain, but in a certain oppressive, suffocating, and altogether intolerable sensation at the pit of the stomach. In this state, they make known their anguish and show the danger they are in by sighs, tears, and lamentations, writhing their bodies in the most violent manner, and, especially when their delirium comes on, falling down upon the ground or floor, and crawling about as long as any muscular power remains. Others who are affected with extreme debility from the first, although they feel the same anguish, are not capable of tossing and writhing themselves about so much.

[52] In the same manner as those who die of the catarrhus suffocativus.

[53] Memoire sur la Peste, qui en 1771, ravagea l'Empire de Russie, sur tout Moscou, &c. par M. D. Samoïlowitz. A Paris, 1783.

[54] This remark respecting the rare occurrence of petechiæ in the beginning of the plague is contrary to the observations of _Mertens_ and _Orræus_. Mr. _Samoïlowitz_ did not see much of the plague at Moscow in the beginning; he was chiefly employed in the care of the pest-hospitals during the height of the disorder. Tr.

[55] Feeling the pulse of impested patients with the bare fingers, is always attended with great risk of taking the contagion, which is so readily communicated by contact. This, however, did not deter Mr. _Samoïlowitz_, from feeling the pulse in all the different forms or varieties of the plague, in the usual manner; though others took the precaution of putting on gloves, or having a leaf of tobacco applied to the patient's wrist before they ventured upon this examination. It is evident that much reliance cannot be placed upon the reports of those who felt the pulse through the intervening substances just mentioned. This and other observers have remarked, that after the pulse was once ascertained in each form or variety of the plague, it became unnecessary to feel it any more. According as the head-ache was either dull or acute, the delirium high or low, &c. the physician could pronounce, without feeling the wrist, upon the state of the pulse. Tr.

[56] If the symptoms in the decline of the plague were precisely the same with those in the beginning, there would be but two types or varieties of the disorder; the 1st, comprehending the phenomena of the plague at its beginning and in its decline; and the 2d, the phenomena which belong to its height. But from the observations of _Mertens_ and others, it appears that although there is a great resemblance between the plague at its decline and in the beginning (viz. that in both cases the symptoms are less violent and less fatal than those which occur in the middle period or at the height of the epidemic) yet there is also a difference between them, the plague in the beginning of its career being accompanied with petechiæ and other spots, as well as buboes; whereas at the decline, scarcely any other external marks, besides buboes, are observed. Tr.

[57] We suppose this query to relate to those physicians who received reports from the surgeons and their assistants, without visiting the sick themselves. Tr.

[58] Although Dr. _Mertens_ maintains (what we believe no physician in these days will be disposed to contradict) that the contagion is not disseminated by the common atmosphere; yet, in other parts of his Treatise, he admits that the air may become infected to a certain distance by a great number of bodies, dead of the plague, lying unburied. Tr.

[59] There are many reasons why the poor must be the chief victims of the plague, whenever it rages in any country; for 1st, They are the persons who are employed to remove or destroy infected goods, to carry away and bury the dead, &c. 2dly, As they live in small, crouded habitations, when any one of them is attacked by the disorder, all the rest of the same family are exposed to the contagion, in consequence of breathing an air tainted by the breath and other effluvia of the sick. 3dly, They are generally destitute of nurses and other necessary attendants, and particularly they cannot have that change of linen, which contributes in a very great degree to carry off the contagion and promote the recovery. 4thly, When the plague is at its height, the number of sick is so great that it becomes impossible for the physicians and surgeons to visit all of them, even once in twenty-four hours, though to be of real service, the visits should be repeated, in every family, twice within that space of time. Lastly, They have not wherewithal to procure themselves the proper food and diet; or, if these are provided for them out of the parochial funds, by the contributions of the wealthy, or by government, they do not strictly adhere to them, but fly to spirituous liquors and other hurtful things. Tr.

[60] _Sydenham_ Oper. Sect. II. Cap. 2. and _Van Swieten_ Comment. Tom. V. § 1407.

We have deemed it sufficient to refer to these authors, without transcribing the passages which Dr. _Mertens_ has introduced. Tr.

[61] The author includes in his definition of the plague the circumstance of the disorder being brought by infected persons or goods from Egypt, or some other province of the Turkish empire; but as this is a circumstance which relates merely to its origin, without serving to mark its properties or pourtray its features, we thought it foreign to a definition, and have accordingly omitted it. Tr.

[62] See _Chenot_ de Peste, p. 93, and _Russell_'s Aleppo, p. 229 and 235.

[63] From the manner in which the author makes mention of _James_'s powder, it appears that it was administered in such large doses as produced vomiting. It should have been given in small quantities, so as to have acted as a diaphoretic, both alone, and in conjunction with opiates. Perhaps, however, it may be objected that this and other antimonials, in small doses, repeated at intervals of three or four hours, are too tardy in their operation for a disease so rapid in its progress? In larger doses they would be apt to purge. Thus there seems to be little encouragement for administering them in any way, in cases of the plague. Tr.

[64] As the author's observations relative to the treatment of the buboes and carbuncles, coincide with those of other writers on this subject, they have been purposely omitted. See _Russell_ on the Plague, Book II. Chap. V. Tr.

[65] Why no animal food? _Orræus_ found broths and soups seasoned with salt and vinegar, and having the fat taken off them, and even boiled meat of a light texture, to be very restorative to the convalescent. Tr.

[66] If there should be any doubts respecting the nature of the disorder on its first appearance, and because, as yet, only a single family happens to be attacked with it; Dr. _Mertens_ proposes that criminals condemned to death should be shut up with the sick, and be made to wear their clothes. Thus in two or three weeks, according as they became infected or not, it would be decided whether the disorder was the plague. But in a free country, like England, neither the removing of a family in the night-time, under the circumstances just mentioned, nor the exposing of criminals to the contagion, are measures which would be deemed justifiable. Indeed, it seems almost impossible to stifle the plague, in any country, in the very beginning, before it has become publicly known and excited a general alarm. Tr.

[67] Those who are employed to burn the goods, should not stand too near the fire, so as to be exposed to the thick smoke which arises from it; and the more effectually to destroy the pestilential particles, it may be useful to throw some gun-powder or nitre into the fire. It is infinitely better to burn the infected goods than to bury them, as some authors recommend; since people may be tempted by avarice to dig them up again.

[68] See _Chenot_ de Peste, p. 208.

[69] _Antrechaux_, Relation de la Peste, p. 65. _Chenot_, de Peste, p. 166.

[70] _Erndtel_ Warsavia physice illustrata, p. 171.

[71] By being distributed in this manner into several houses the sick will be less hurtful to each other; they will breathe a purer air, and recover much sooner. _Mead_ advises the impested to be removed to tents pitched out of the town. (This is not quite accurate. _Mead_'s words are,--"as the advice I have been giving is founded upon this principle, that the best method for stopping infection, is to separate the healthy from the diseased; so in small towns and villages, where it is practicable, if the _sound remove themselves into barracks or the like airy habitations_, it may probably be even more useful, _than to remove the sick_. This method has been found beneficial in France after all others have failed.") Tr. I do not think a better method for stopping the contagion can be suggested; but the season of the year, climate, and other circumstances must often render this measure impracticable; in that case, the doors and windows of the sick-rooms should remain open, and a free circulation of air be constantly kept up. The exposure to the air and wind seems to me to be the principal reason why the plague makes less havoc in armies that are encamped; for although the air or wind has very little power over the poison after it has entered the circulation, nevertheless it carries off the effluvia and dissipates them more quickly; so that the sound are not so readily infected by the sick.

[72] The physicians and surgeons, and all those who are about the sick, should put over their clothes a cloak made of oil-cloth; they should wear gloves and boots made of the same material, which should be frequently washed with vinegar; and they should hold before the mouth and nose, a sponge moistened with vinegar. On other preservatives, see D.

[73] The following is the composition of these fumigating powders, as published by the Council of Health. (See _Orræus_ p. 136, 137.)

_The strong antipestilential powder_ consisted of juniper tops (cut small,) guaiacum shavings, juniper berries, bran, of each 6 lb, nitre 8 lb, sulphur 6 lb, myrrh 2 lb.

_The weaker antipestilential powder_ consisted of the herb abrotanum 6 lb, juniper tops 4 lb, juniper berries 3 lb, nitre 4 lb, sulphur 2-1/2 lb, myrrh 1-1/2 lb.

_The odoriferous antipestilential powder_ consisted of calamus aromaticus 3 lb, frankincense 2 lb, amber 1 lb, storax and dried roses, of each 1/2 lb, myrrh 1 lb, nitre 1 lb 8 oz., sulphur 4 oz.

Of these powders, the first was employed to fumigate the houses and goods of the infected, such as woollens, furs, &c.; the second, for fumigating houses only suspected, and more delicate articles, which would have been spoiled by the first; the last was employed (by way of prevention) in inhabited houses.