Dr. J. G. Adami, in a recent number of the Montreal Medical Journal gives some interesting facts and theories with reference to the bubonic plague which is now attract~ ing so much attention all over the civilised world. Although it has not yet reached enough to be alarming. Mankind fan's very serious proportions in India, it is grave long memory, and one generation inherits from another the tradition of the terror of the scourge, handed down from: far back forefathers. The true home of the plague is apparently China. The black death white a Europe in the middle ages is described by contemporary writers as of Chinese origin, though the statement is not supported by any convincing evidence. But the disease is known. be epidemic in one of the southern provinces of China—Yunnan—and also Pakhoi, on the southern coast. Early in 1894 it appeared at Canton and caused more than 60,000 deaths in a few weeks. In " month or two Hongkong, at the mouth of the Canton River, became in-' fected, and about 2,500 are known to have died, the mortality among the cases admitted to the hospitals being over 93. per cent—an appalling death rate. All except 21 were Chinese cases, and it is believed that there were many more. There were only 10 Japanese and 11 Europeans; 6 of the former and 2 of the latter died,-the death rate in these cases being very much lower Better nourishment, cleanliness and ye: filation' probably. account largely forthe immunity of the European population and the s1 number-of deaths.
'The epidemic at. Hongkong gave the. first opportunity for the study of the disease..under modern conditions.' Dr. 'Aoyama, of the University of Tokio, was himself 'a sufferer, and has published:-an account of his experience in a communication" to: the medical' faculty of " his University.: After an incubation. period of three to nine days, the patient became the prey of a. sudden intense fever, -often accompanied by. delirium, From the: first day of. the fever a. bubo, or glandular swelling, was noticeable, generally in the groin.or. thigh, but sometimes in the armpits; in'75 per cent of the cases the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.