THE PLAGUE AT BAGDAD

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 5, 1877

THE PLAGUE AT BAGDAD.

It is just possible that the Turkish and Russian armies may both have to reckon with a foe for whom they are not prepared, and against whom no amount of bastions or earthworks, no iron-plated ships or turret vessels, can be of avail. The plague is said to be raging in Bagdad with a fury which can no longer be concealed, and to be extending with slow but steady progress along the line of the Tigris. The Constitutional affirms that nearly as many as fifty deaths occur every day in the city, although the total population does not now amount to more than 100,000 souls. The same paper points out that it is more than forty years since this scourge last visited the East. In 1835 Egypt and Turkey were devastated by it, and before that there was an outbreak in Western Europe in 1815, while the disease which had made its appearance in Egypt in 1798 continued its ravages for several years into the present century.

If the malady which is now carrying off so many victims in the old Mohammedan capital is really the same plague known to historians and medical men, it would seem there can be little hope of “localizing” it by any human precautions, even if the Turkish Government had wisdom and leisure enough to devise and put in force such precautions. Modern times appear in some respects to be even more favorable for the spread of the evil than the days gone by. The increased rapidity and frequency of communications between one part of the world and another obviously favor the propagation of infection, even in regions so backward as the Asiatic Turkish provinces.

But a still more powerful agent in spreading the malady is to be found in the pilgrimages which are becoming more numerous and better attended every year. A devotee may now carry with him for scores of miles the seeds of the mortal disease before his retreat is cut off by the growing strength of the hidden malady. Should the infection once reach either of the armies, the scene would be frightful beyond description. No place can possibly be better calculated to attract and retain the plague than a large camp; and now that vast armies are encamped in districts not far removed from Bagdad there are evidently perils still more terrible than war to be faced by the soldiers on each side.—Ex.