THE BUBONIC PLAGUE. 69 



Hecker gives the following statement, which must be an ex- 

 aggeration, concerning the mortality of the black death : " Cairo 

 lost daily, when the plague was raging with its greatest violence, 

 from ten to fifteen thousand. In China more than thirteen mil- 

 lions are said to have died. India was depopulated. In Caramania 

 and Csesarea none were left alive. On the roads, in the camps, in 

 the caravansaries, unburied bodies alone were seen. Twenty-two 

 thousand persons and most of the animals were carried off in 

 Gaza within six weeks. Cyprus lost almost all its inhabitants, 

 and ships without crews were often seen in the Mediterranean, as 

 afterward in the North Sea, driving about and spreading the 

 plague wherever they went on shore. It was reported to Pope 

 Clement that throughout the East, probably with the exception 

 of China, 23,840,000 people had fallen victims to the plague." 



Probably the most constant pathological lesion found after 

 death from this disease is an enlargement of the lymphatic glands. 

 The disease may run so rapid a course that the enlargement of the 

 glands is not observable during life, but, according to recent and 

 competent observers, changes in these tissues will be found in the 

 great majority of cases. This has led Cantline who studied the 

 disease at Hong Kong in 1894, to propose for it the appellation of 

 " malignant polyadenitis." The same authority offers the follow- 

 ing definition : " Plague or malignant polyadenitis is an acute 

 febrile disease of an intensely fatal nature, characterized by in- 

 flammation of the lymphatic glands, marked cerebral and vascu- 

 lar disturbances, and by the presence of a specific bacillus." 



Geographically the plague has been known as far east as the 

 island of Formosa, where it now prevails ; as far west as Ireland ; 

 as far north as Norway ; and there is no definite information con- 

 cerning its extension southward in Africa. It has never been 

 known in the western hemisphere, but this is only due to the fact 

 that up to the present time there has been no opportunity of its 

 importation to this half of the world. 



In this connection the following quotation from Hecker may 

 be of interest : " The inhabitants of Iceland and Greenland found 

 in the coldness of their inhospitable climate no protection against 

 the southern enemy who had penetrated to them from happier 

 countries. The plague caused great havoc among them. Nature 

 made no allowance for their constant warfare with the elements 

 and the parsimony with which she meted out to them the enjoy- 

 ments of life. In Denmark and Norway, however, people were so 

 occupied with their own misery that the accustomed voyages to 

 Greenland ceased. Towering icebergs formed at the same time 

 on the coast of east Greenland, in consequence of the general con- 

 cussion of the earth's organism, and no mortal from that time for- 

 ward has ever seen that shore or its inhabitants." 



