Histories of the Plague, exhibiting the modifications it undergoes in different climates, must at all times and in all places be acceptable, if not to the public at large, at least to that class of persons who make the art of medicine their study and employ: But, to a country situated like our own, histories of this terrible disorder occurring in the northern parts of Europe are more particularly interesting, by holding up to our view a picture of what it probably would be, whenever it should visit us again. Such a picture is presented to us in the history of the plague which depopulated Moscow and other parts of the Russian empire, in the year 1771, and which forms the subject of the following pages. What, at the present time, must give a greater degree of interest to such a subject, is the danger to which we are exposed of importing the pestilential contagion from America[1], on the one hand, and from Turkey and the Levant on the other: For, although the cold has, happily, suppressed for the present the pestilence which has been committing such dreadful ravages at Philadelphia and New York; yet is it to be feared that it may be retained in many houses, and lie dormant in various goods, ready to break out again, whenever it shall be favoured by the weather[2]: And no one who is acquainted with the nature of that contagion can deny the possibility of its importation from America into this country, either now or hereafter, by infected persons or infected merchandise. On the other hand, are we not threatened with a similar danger from the East? In executing the hostile operations which are going forwards in the Mediterranean, it seems scarcely possible for our fleets and armies to keep clear of contagion. No nation was ever long engaged in a war with the Turks, without taking the plague. In this respect they are as much to be dreaded by their friends as their foes. If, in the present contest, Italy, and France, and England shall escape this scourge, it will form an exception to past events, which all Europe must devoutly pray for.
Under these circumstances the Translator thought it would be useful to call the attention of the practitioners in medicine of this country, to the subject of pestilential contagion, by publishing the following Account of the Plague at Moscow in the year 1771. Besides the narrative of the rise and progress of the disorder, and the description of its symptoms and treatment, this account contains also a detail of the methods which were successfully employed in that city for checking and totally extinguishing the contagion; and in particular a detail of the means by which a large edifice, situated in the centre of Moscow, and containing about one thousand four hundred persons, was preserved from the pestilence during the whole of the time that it raged there.
This account is translated from a treatise republished in French, and originally written in Latin by Dr. Mertens, under the following title: “TraitÉ de la Peste, contenant l’Histoire de celle qui a rÉgnÉ À Moscou en 1771; par Charles de Mertens, Docteur en Medecine, &c. ouvrage publiÉ d’abord en Latin[3]; actuellement mis en FranÇois, &c. À Vienne, 1784.” The author (who was physician to the Foundling-Hospital, at Moscow, and resided in that city during the whole of the time that the plague raged there) divides his treatise into four chapters; in the first of which he gives a history of the plague as it appeared at Moscow; in the second, he treats of the diagnosis; in the third, of the curative treatment; and in the fourth, of the precautions or methods of prevention.
So many works have been published on the plague, that whoever writes a regular treatise on this disorder cannot avoid repeating many observations that have been made by others before him. Hence, instead of dividing the present pamphlet into chapters and sections, and following the original word for word throughout; the translator has taken the liberty of extracting from the two last chapters those parts only which contain new observations, or which have an immediate reference to the narrative; which last he has translated entire, excepting half a dozen lines at the beginning, that seem to have been introduced by the author for no other purpose but that of quoting professor Schreiber’s[4] work on the plague, which broke out in the Ukraine in the years 1738 and 1739.
Besides the preface[5], and some other matters noticed in their respective places, the following topics of discussion have been omitted; viz.
1st. the comparison between the plague and the smallpox;
2d. the reflexions on the inoculation of the plague;
3d. the precautions to be employed in wars with the Turks; and
4th. the precautions continually necessary in places exposed to the pestilential contagion.
These topics have been omitted, because with regard to the first, as the smallpox and the plague agree in no other respect but in that of being propagated by contagion, a comparison between them seems to be quite unnecessary; because, as to the second, the inoculation of the plague is proved to be useless by the well-established fact, that the same person is susceptible of taking it several times[6]; and because with regard to the third and fourth points, they only lead to repetitions of general and particular precautions mentioned in other parts of the pamphlet, or suggest hints which do not apply to an insular situation like ours.
Next to a detail of all the events which took place during the raging of the plague at Moscow, the translator has especially aimed at a full and accurate delineation of the symptoms. In doing this, he has taken the pains to compare the description given by Dr. Mertens, with those of two other writers on the same subject; viz. OrrÆus and SamoÏlowitz. Thus he flatters himself that all the different types and modifications which the plague assumes in the Northern parts of Europe, are here developed in such a manner, as to enable those who have never seen the disorder, to detect it on its first appearance, or in its early progress, should this country have the misfortune to be visited by it again.
January 2, 1799.
