Plague, The

Plague, The, is a very malignant kind of highly contagious fever, marked by swellings of the lymphatic glands. From the development of purple patches due to subcutaneous hæmorrhages the European epidemic of 1348-50 was called the Black Death. A quarter of the European population perished on that occasion. Other visitations devastated London in 1665, Northern Europe 1707-14, Marseilles and Provence 1720-22, and South-East Russia 1878-79. The home of the Plague was formerly Lower Egypt, Turkey, and the shores of the Levant. From these it has been absent since 1844. Its home since then has been in India, where it has assumed epidemic form 1836-38 and 1896-99.

Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)