Another objection to government charity was in the fact that the government could only hope to establish a few great central depots. Again, the Hindoo does not discriminate between the professional beggars, fakirs, hermits, yogis, and those whom we consider more deserving: and such discrimination as it was certain the government would make would only render it odious, and probably cause grave disturbances. So the government lost three weeks when it should have been actively at work. Meanwhile English residents were spending liberally their means in private relief depots.
The government found its way out by making quietly large grants to the private relief committees established. But it was two or three months ere the best scheme was adopted. Rice could be imported in abundance. How to place it within the purchasing power of the people was the problem. The government turned merchant, and established depots where the laborer could buy at a price within his means. But while placing the market rate within reach of the needy one-third, the rate for the remainder must not be disturbed, or the merchants would be antagonized. It was easily accomplished. The market was opened but a short time each day; and the “respectable” Hindoo would never expose himself or his family to be jostled by the hungry labor-stained multitude that at once thronged the places. And public opinion, all-powerful in little Bengali towns, strongly condemned any one who without good reason, bought at the relief depots.
By June, every one was anxious to know if the rains would come and insure the September crops—there are two rice harvests each year. Thousands of sacrifices were offered, and sometimes human beings were offered. But the rains came, and the fall brought abundant crops.
The total loss of life was about 1,250,000, of whom one-fourth starved outright, while the remainder perished from disease and pestilence resulting from the scarcity of food. A famine in the same region in 1769 carried off 6,000,000; but then the government did nothing, and after the scourge immense tracts of cultivated land returned to their original wilderness. The reverse was the result in 1866. The methodical work of the government and the great corporations left the land far more improved than ever before; with the increasing facilities for communication and transportation, a repetition of the disaster even of 1866 is almost impossible—certainly beyond probability.
We may not go into details of scores of famines, ancient and modern; we have selected this one, showing how, even in adverse circumstances, prompt work lessens the ravages of the destroyer. Judging from the percentage of 1769, the loss of life in 1866 would, but for the relief work, have been about 9,000,000—one-third the population of Bengal. The only other calamity in recent years at all comparable, is the terrible famine of 1876 in China. How many perished then may not be definitely known; but it has been variously estimated at from 15,000,000 to 50,000,000. We may not dwell upon the horrors of such things—the hideous cannibalism that has at times resulted; as when we are told that during one famine in Egypt, in the dark ages, human flesh was openly sold in the markets!
A terrible scourge that frequently visited the old world in the middle and dark ages is that known as the “Black Death.” As to its real character and source, the world is yet in ignorance. Whether it was readily conveyed in the atmosphere or not seems a mooted point. Modern medical science has robbed many contagious diseases of their terrors. Small-pox is easily guarded against. Diptheria has no terrors for clean streets. Yellow Jack has little chance against sound sanitation and hygiene. The germ theory of disease has greatly aided disinfective measures.
In contagious diseases, infection proceeds chiefly from personal contact with a diseased person or objects that have been touched by him. In malarial diseases there is no danger from personal contact; the disease resulting clearly from a poisoned atmosphere. But in the case of what are known as epidemics, the source of infection is not clear. The disease may attack thousands in a short time, and yet not appear readily communicable by personal contact. Doubtless in these cases the atmosphere is the medium of infection. Hence, disinfective measures are of little or no use against them. So while such can not properly be classed among atmospheric phenomena, yet it would seem that in the atmosphere we find the chief vehicle of the disease.
We may not here undertake any discussion of the several deadly contagious diseases that are known to modern medicine. Suffice it to say nearly all of them may be classed as filth diseases, arising from impure food or water, or filthy streets. Most notable of these is perhaps the terrible Asiatic cholera, that has swept Europe frequently, and which is now known to originate in the overcrowding and filth attendant upon the great twelve-yearly festival in honor of a Hindoo idol. Had the people of the middle ages, who regarded its ravages as a visitation of God upon them for their sins, been aware of its origin, they might have been disposed to wonder why they should be punished for the idolatry of a people thousands of miles away. Possibly such reflections might have originated either a new species of crusade, or have opened the missionary movement several centuries earlier than it really began.
Comparatively speaking, there is little mystery left in connection with the greater contagious plagues known to modern medicine. But the famous Black Death, or Plague, or the Pestilence, as it is variously called, remains a secret so far as its origin and its proper treatment are concerned. Its symptoms are somewhat variously described by various ancient writers. In one point all agree: that when near death the body of the victim was covered with dark, gangrenous or carbuncular spots and swellings, or boils made their appearance in the glands of the neck, armpit and groin. It may be that the plague of boils and blains sent upon the Egyptians was none other than this Black Death. And doubtless it is identical with the terrible plague that visited Athens, B. C., 430, continuing its ravages through three years. People died in swarms, and the dead lay about the streets.
During the middle ages it appeared in Europe on an average, every fifty years, its last visitation being upon London, in 1665, when 100,000 people perished. Here its danger was increased by the fact that its character was more insidious than usual. The plague described by Thucydides was characterized by high fever and unquenchable thirst, and a reddish inflammation or eruption of the skin lasting seven or eight days before the appearance of the fatal spots; while from Defoe’s account of the plague in London, these symptoms, though common, were anything but universal; and frequently persons felt no special disorder till the appearance of the spots told that death was at hand. Both in Athens and London, contact with the dead bodies seems to have been fatal to any animal. The suddenness of death in many cases calls to mind the last plague of Egypt, or the fate of Sennacherib’s host: