CHINA AND THE PLAGUE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 24, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 46.

CHINA AND THE PLAGUE.

THAT we may know China's inability to comprehend the necessity of hygienic measures, in connection with epidemic diseases, take the following account of the Chinese idea of the origin of the plague, as given in the North China (Shanghai) Daily News:—

“The empress dowager, jealous of the welfare of the people, keeps constantly burning in her palace eighteen lamps, which represent the eighteen provinces of China. . . . Not long ago one of the lamps, though it received precisely the same attention as all the others, was burning very badly, and the empress sent for the chief imperial astronomer to learn the reason. The chief astronomer, having carefully considered the matter and consulted the archives, told the empress that the lamp which was burning so badly represented the province of Canton, which was about to be afflicted with a serious epidemic, which the god of pestilence had determined, to take off eight-tenths of the people. The empress was very much concerned at being told this, and asked the chief astronomer how such a dreadful doom might be averted from eight-tenths of her people in the province. The chief astronomer said that the god might perhaps be moved with prayer and offerings, and everything was done to placate him, by the empress dowager's orders. After this the chief astronomer was asked what success had been achieved; and, after much consideration and consultation, he replied that the god of pestilence had consented to compromise—but this was absolutely the best that he could do—for four-tenths human beings and four-tenths rats. Thus the frightful mortality of rats and human beings at Canton this spring is explained.”

It is worthy of note that Japan sent the first noted scientist to Canton to investigate the plague, Dr. Kitasato, a pupil of Dr. Koch.