580 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ends at Uzun Ada on the Caspian Sea opposite Baku. Early in 1899 

 an outbreak of the plague occurred near Samarcand, undoubtedly 

 brought up from India. The precautions taken to prevent the spread 

 were entirely successful, and although no accounts have been officially 

 published as to the means employed, nevertheless it will be seen that 

 the radical procedure employed by Loris Melikoff some twenty years 

 ago was again resorted to. Inasmuch as the entire village was said to 

 be afflicted it was surrounded by troops, and no one was allowed to enter 

 or leave. The village and all that it contained was destroyed by fire. 

 With this route open continually it is evident that fresh importation 

 must be expected sooner or later. 



Apparently a new plague focus, independent of that in Yunnan 

 and Hong Kong, has been recently discovered in Manchuria. The 

 plague seems to have existed in this province for more than ten years 

 under the name of Tarabagan plague, and is believed to be spread by 

 a rodent, the Arctomis cobuc, which is subject to a hemorrhagic pneu- 

 monia. The presence of such an independent endemic focus in Man- 

 churia indicates the possibility of the spread of the disease by caravan 

 to Lake Baikal, and thence by the Siberian railroad to Eussia. Indeed, 

 the epidemic of pneumonic type which began July, 1899, at Kolobovka, 

 in Astrakhan, while it may have been imported from Persia, might also 

 owe its origin to the Mongolian focus. 



Eussia, however, is not the only country endangered by the over- 

 land transmission of the disease. There are commercial highways 

 which lead from Northwestern India through Baluchistan and Persia to 

 the Caucasus, and through Turkey to Constantinople. Grave danger 

 threatens from this source, and more especially from the cities along 

 the Persian Gulf. Two important cities here are already infected, 

 namely, Bushire, in Persia, and Bassorah on the Tigris, in Turkey. It 

 would appear as if Turkey and Persia would escape with difficulty 

 from a visitation of this dread disease. 



Such, then, is the geographical distribution of the present out- 

 break of the plague. This, an apparently extinct disease, has suddenly 

 reappeared and given evidence of its power to spread death and desola- 

 tion. Fortunately, however, modern sanitary precautions are quite able 

 to restrict its progress, provided they be applied at the proper time 

 and place. Filth and overcrowding, protracted wars and famine, have 

 been the powerful allies of the plague in the past. Through their aid 

 this disease has made a deep impression upon the pages of history. It 

 may not be out of place, therefore, to turn from the present outbreak of 

 the disease and trace its grewsome past. 



In ancient writings references are found which would seem to in- 

 dicate the existence of the plague at a very early date. The Bible con- 

 tains several such references (Deuteronomy, Chapter 28, paragraph 27. 



