The horrors of the plague of the fourteenth century have been depicted by Hecker and others. The moral depravity brought to light by this great epidemic is hardly credible. Many believed themselves poisoned, and suspicion fell upon the Jews, who have so often been treated by Christians with barbaric cruelty. Under the torture confessions were made, and then began the wholesale slaughter of the children of Abraham. In Basle, the whole Jewish population was brought together in a wooden building constructed for the purpose and burned. "At Strasburg two thousand Jews were burned alive in their own burial ground. . . . At Eslingen the whole Jewish community burned themselves in their synagogue; and mothers were often seen throwing their children on the pile to prevent their being baptized, and then precipitating themselves into the flames. . . . In all the countries on the Rhine these cruelties continued to be perpetrated during the succeeding months; and after quiet was in some degree restored, the people thought to render an acceptable service to God by taking the bricks of the destroyed dwellings and the tombstones of the Jews to repair churches and to erect belfries."
Knowing, as we now do, the specific cause of the plague, we may easily predicate the modes of its distribution. Anything that carries the bacillus may be an agent of its transmission from one person to another, or from one country to another. It is needless to dwell upon this point.
Is there danger of the plague being imported to this country? Yes, there is danger, but this being foreseen may be easily avoided. Thorough inspection of persons and disinfection of things from infected districts will keep the disease out of Europe and America. Only by the most gross carelessness could the plague be permitted to enter either of these continents. The method of disinfecting the mails from the Orient, as practiced by the English, is wholly inadequate, and the American authorities should redisinfect all such matter coming from the infected districts of India.
