In 1808 plague was at Constantinople, in 1809 at Smyrna.
In 1812 was a more general epidemic affecting these places and
also Egypt. An outbreak at Odessa is supposed to have been
brought from Constantinople, and thence to have passed to
Transylvania. In 1813 a severe plague at Bucharest is supposed
to havc been brought from Constantinople. About the
same time plague prevailed in Bosnia, and is supposed to have
passed thence to Dalmatia in 1815. In 1814–1815 it again
appeared in Egypt, and once more invaded the continent of
Europe in Albania and Bosnia. Two insular outbreaks, Malta
in 1813 and Corfu in 1815, attracted much attention as being
both thought to be cases of importation by sea-traffic[1] and
there seems good reason for this opinion.
A panic spread through Europe in 1815 in consequence of an outbreak in Noja on the eastern coast of Italy. According to one view it was imported from the opposite coast of Dalmatia, though no definite history of contagion was established; according to others, it originated endemically in that place. It remained, however, strictly confined to a small district, perhaps in consequence of the extraordinarily rigorous measures of isolation adopted by the Italian government. In 1828 an isolated epidemic appeared in Greece in the Morea, supposed to have been brought by troops from Egypt.[2] In 1824–1825 an outbreak took place at Tutchkoff in Bessarabia, the town was strictly isolated by a military cordon and the disease did not spread.[3] Croustadt in Transylvania was the scene of a small outbreak in 1828, which was said to be isolated by similar measures (Lorinser). A far more serious epidemic was connected viith the campaign of the Russian army against Turkey in 1828–1829 Moldavia, Wallachia and Bessarabia were widely affected, the disease broke out also in Odessa and the Crimea, and isolated cases occurred in Transylvania. The most northerly points reached by the plague were near Czernowitz on the frontier of Bessarabia and Bukowina, and its limitation vias as before attributed to the Russian and Austrian military cordons.
In 1831 another epidemic occurred in Constantinople and Roumelia, in 1837 again in Roumelia and in Odessa-its last appearance in these regions, and the last on the European continent except an isolated outbreak in Dalmatia in 1840, and one in Constantinople in 1841.[4]
The plague-epidemics in Egypt between 1833 and 1845 are very important in the history of plague, since the disease was almost for the first time scientifically studied in its home by skilled European physicians, chiefly French. The disease was found to be less contagious than reported to be by popular tradition, and most of the French school went so far as to deny the contagiousness of the disease altogether. The epidemic of 1834–1835 was not less destructive than many of those notorious in history; but in 1844–1845 the disease disappeared.
In 1853 plague appeared in a district of western Arabia, the Asir country in North Yemen, and it is known to have occurred in the same district in 1815, as it did afterwards in 1874 and 1879 In 1874 the disease extended within iour days' march of Mecca From the scantiness of population the mortality was not great, but it became clear that this is one of the endemic seats of plague.[5]
In June 1858 intelligence was received in Constantinople of an outbreak of disease at the small town Benghazi, in the district of Barca, province of Tripoli, North Africa, which though at first misunderstood was clearly bubonic plague. From later researches there is reason to believe that it began in 1856 or in 1855. The disease did not spread, and ceased in the autumn, to return with less violence in 1859, when it died out. In the autumn of 1873 it returned, but came again to a spontaneous termination.[6]
After the epidemic of Benghazi in 1856–1859, plague was next heard of in the district of Maku, in the extreme north-west of Persia in November 1863. It occurred in a scattered population, and the mortality was not absolutely large.[7]
In 1867 an outbreak of plague was reported in Mesopotamia (Irak), among the marshes of Hindieh bordering on the lower Euphrates The epidemic began in December 1866 (or probably earlier) and ceased in June 1867. But numerous cases of nonfatal mild bubonic disease (mild plague or pestis minor) occurred both before and after the epidemic, and according to Tholozan similar cases had been observed nearly every year from 1856 to 1865.[8]
The next severe epidemic of plague in Irak began in December 1873. But facts collected by Tholozan show that pestis 1/nnor, or sporadic cases of true plague, had appeared in 1868 and subsequent years. The outbreak of 1873–1874 began about 60 m. from the origin of that of 1867. It caused a much greater mortality and extended over a much wider area than that of 1867, including the towns of Kerbela and Hilleh. After a short interval it reappeared at Divanieh in December 1874, and spread over a much wider area than in the previous epidemics. This epidemic was carefully studied by Surgeon-Major Colvill.[9] He estimated the mortality at 4000. The epidemic ceased in July, but broke out again early in 1876, and in this year extended northwards to Bagdad and beyond. The whole area now affected extended 250 m. from north-west to south-east, and the total number of deaths was believed to be 20, oo0. In 1877 plague also occurred at Shuster in south-west Persia, probably conveyed by pilgrims returning from Irak, and caused great mortality.
After its customary cessation in the autumn the epidemic began again in October 1876, though sporadic cases occurred all the summer. The disease appeared in 1877 in other parts of Mesopotamia also with less severity than in 1876, but over a wider area, being now announced at Samara, a town 70 m. above Bagdad on the Tigris. The existence of plague in Bagdad or Mesopotamia was not again announced till the year 1884, when accounts again appeared in the newspapers, and in that July the usual official statement was made that the plague had been stamped out.
In 1870–1871 it appeared in a district of Mukri in Persian Kurdistan to the south of Lake Urumiah (far removed from the outbreak of 1863). The epidemic appears, however, to have died out in 1871, and no further accounts of plague there were received. The district had suffered in the great epidemic of plague in Persia in 1829–1835. In the winter 1876–1877 a disease which appears to have been plague appeared in two villages in the extreme north of the province of Khorasan, about 25 leagues from the south-east angle of the Caspian Sea. In March 1877 plague broke out in Resht, a town of 20,000 inhabitants, in the province of Ghilan, near the Caspian Sea at its south-west angle, from which there is a certain amount of trade with Astrakhan. In 1832 a very destructive plague had carried off half the inhabitants. In 1877 the plague was very fatal. From March to September 4000 persons were calculated to have died. The disease continued till the spring of 1878. In 1877 there was a doubtful report of the same disease at Astrabad, and also in some parts near the Perso-Afghan frontier. In 1878 plague again occurred in Kurdistan in the district of So-uj-Bulak, said by Dr Tholozan to be the same as in the district of Mukri where it occurred in 1870–1871. These scattered outbreaks of plague in Persian territory are the more remarkable because that country
- ↑ On the Plague in Malta (London, 1820), 8vo; J. D. Tully, History of the Plague in Malta, Gozo, Corfu and Cephalonia (London, 1821), 8vo; White, Treatise on the Plague (at Corfu) (London 1847); Calvert, " On the Plague in Malta, 1813," Med.-Chi. Transactions, vi. 1.
- ↑ A. Gosse, Relation de la peste en Grece, 1827–1828 (Paris, 1838).
- ↑ Lorinser, Pest des orients, p. 319.
- ↑ For the authorities, see Haser, Op. cit.
- ↑ Report of Local Government Board 1879–1880, suppl., p. 42.
- ↑ Tholozan, La Peste en Turquie dans les temps modernes (Paris, 1880).
- ↑ J. Netten Radcliffe, Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, &c. (1875); also in Papers on Levantine Plague, presented to parliament (1879), p. 7.
- ↑ Tholozan, La Peste en Turquie, p. 86.
- ↑ See his report cited by Radcliffe, Papers on Levantine Plague (1879).
