CHAPTER V. 

 BUBONIC PLAGUE. 



THE bacillus of bubonic plague (Fig. 102) seems to 

 have met an independent discovery at the hands of 



FIG. 1 02. Bacillus of bubonic plague (Yersin). 



Yersin and Kitasato in the summer of 1894, during the 

 activity of the plague then raging at Hong-Kong. There 

 seems to be not the slightest doubt that the micro-organ- 

 isms described by the two observers are identical. 



The bubonic plague is an extremely fatal infectious 

 disease, whose ravages in the hospital in which Yersin 

 made his observations carried off 95 per cent, of the 

 cases. It affects both men and animals, and is character- 

 ized by sudden onset, high fever, prostration, delirium, 

 and the occurrence of lymphatic swellings buboes 

 affecting chiefly the inguinal glands, though not infre- 

 quently the axillary, and sometimes the cervical, glands. 

 Death comes on in severe cases in forty-eight hours. If 

 the case is of longer duration, the prognosis is said to be 



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