View report page

14
are too often the cause of the wretchedly unwholesome
state of the tenements. At present these
matters are a subject of great anxiety to the sanitary
officers of every large City.
Excepting, therefore, the unusual prevalance of
fevers of the typhoid class, the mortality from
which, however, in the City has not been great, the
general health of the City during the year has not
been unfavourable; but our fears have been aroused
on more than one occasion by the seeming advent
of epidemic diseases. Early in the year (in March
last) our apprehensions were awakened by the
accounts which reached us of a new disease in
St. Petersburgh. which had caused an alarming
mortality. At first, the rumours of it were vague,
and its nature was unintelligible; it was described
as a kind of plague of peculiar virulence, and was
characterised by fever, convulsions, and carbuncles
or boils. It was called the Russian pestilence, and
was said to have come from the deserts of Siberia,
to have crossed the Ural mountains, and to have
existed for many months in St. Petersburgh,
whence it was advancing over the valley of the
Vistula into Western Europe, and was fast
approaching our own shores. The most conflicting
reports were circulated respecting it. According
to some it was a virulent form of Asiatic cholera;
according to others it was the true Oriental plague