RUDIMENTS. pt 1041
Black Death..to..Cholera...and back
The earliest 'quarantines'
were a response to the
Black Death, which, between
1347 and 1351, killed
something like a third of
Europe and ushered in
what's became known as
the 'second plague pandemic.'
As with the first, the second
pandemic worked its havoc
fitfully. Plague would spread,
then abate, only to flare up
again. During one such
flare-up, in the fifteenth
century, the Venetians
erected lazarettos - or
isolation wards - on
outlying islands, where they
forced arriving ships to dock.
The Venetians believed that by
airing out the ships they were
dissipating plague-causing
vapors. If the theory was
off-base, the results were
still good because forty days
gave the plague time enough
to kill infected rats and sailors.
Professor Snowden, of Yale,
again, says "Such measures
were one of the first forms
of 'institutionalized public
health'" and he argues that
they helped legitimize the
'accretion of power' by the
modern state.
-
That's an interesting enough
point, to be looked at in light
of today's climate of everyone
being chained and pulled in
as many directions as it is that
Authority - viewing the dilemma
as merely monetary - cannot
even decide on. The one thing
I notice (growth of 'The State')
is how it often tries to tout its
underpinnings by undertaking
varied schemes of 'thanking'
essential workers and first
responders, as they are called.
That baffles me, in light of the
fact of Freedom and Free Choice
each of which are supposed to
still be extant. A person, in this
life, can be anything - if they
select 'Accountant,' they do
amortization and profit/loss,
balancing books and returns, etc.
Their choice. If they decide for
sport, they play and travel as
needed, and take their limps.
Same for construction workers,
contractors, designers, etc. No
one is forced into anything. The
choice made to be an 'Essential
Worker' or 'First Responder,' it
seems to me, is a choice made
in the full knowledge of the
burdens and chances involved.
A pandemic of some horrible
catastrophe or event is and always
was part of the horizon for that
sort of job. Why now do they
need special attention? I've
seen it all - free oil changes for
First Responders; free donuts
and coffee; this or that special
item for 'Essential' personnel. In
light of tragedy and grief, I don't
really get it. There ought to be
NO surprises when you take
on a career such as that. What
did they expect? Easy living,
and a continuous picnic? They
should have read the fine print.
(It's not really 'free' anyway; you
and I pay for it. At the end of the
year those businesses say 'we gave
away $187,000 in goods, product,
and merchandise, as Good Will for
Pandemic Providers.' That number,
worked by Accountants, comes off
year-end taxes in whatever way is
approved (or not). There's really
little 'generosity' involved. Ask
the next merchant you see doing
this if they're not going to work
it into their tax writeoffs.
-
I don't know how they packed
up the dead and the ailing in those
other days, but it seems quite often
people simply died at home and
stayed where that occurred.
-
The last major outbreak of Black
Death occurred in 1720 at Marseilles,
a French port. Efforts at control,
there, caused 'evasion, resistance,
and riot.' Public health measures
ran up against religion and tradition,
as, of course, they still do. (My
brother-in-law just died, and there
was no mourning, no wake, no
groups and no attendance at the
burial, but for the wife. My sister.
She's about as traditional as they
come, regarding this stuff especially.
It was a forced and gruesome
sacrifice all around. Tradition and
Religion are still large factors, all
now being gutted). The fear, in these
later Marseilles cases, of being
separated from loved ones prompted
many families to conceal cases.
'And, in fact,those charged with
enforcing the rules often had
little interest in protecting the
public.'
-
Cholera perhaps would come in
third, after the Plague and Smallpox.
It is caused by a comma-shaped
bacterium, and for most of human
history it was restricted to the Ganges
Delta (India). Then in the eighteen
hundreds, steamships and colonialism
sent it traveling - the first pandemic
broke out in 1817, at 'Calcutta.' It
moved over to Siam (modern-day
Thailand), and then by ship to
Oman, where it was carried down
to Zanzibar. The second wave
began again in India in 1829,
going through Russia, into
Europe and from there to the
United States. Cholera is
primarily a disease of the
urban slums, spread by
contaminated food or water.
While it was raging in St.
Petersburg, Russia, in 1831,
there were riots, fights, and
accusations. Doctors were said
to be mixing Cholera victims
with other sick cases, in the
hopes they would all die off,
The following Spring, Cholera
broke out in Liverpool; again
doctors were the main target,
of both abuse and violence.
They were accused of poisoning
patients (before death, a cholera
victim, so dehydrated, turns
blue). Similar riots broke out
in Aberdeen, Glasgow, and
Dublin. Most tellingly, when
the 1830's cholera epidemic
hit Italy (Naples), the city
dispatched inspectors to
confiscate suspect produce.
It also sent out disinfectant
squads, which arrived at the
city's tenements with guns
drawn. The inhabitants were
skeptical of both the inspectors
and the squads. They responded
with a sense of humor : Demonstrators
showed up at City Hall with baskets
of over-ripe figs and melons, and
then proceeded "to consume the
forbidden fruit in enormous
quantities while those who
watched applauded and bet on
which binger would eat the
most."
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A real good last item here :
"Eight years later, one of the
most violent cholera riots broke
out in the Ukrainian city of
Donetsk. Scores of ships were
looted, and homes and businesses
were burned. The Authorities,
from St. Petersburg, Russia,
responded to the violence by
cracking down on workers
promoting 'lawlessness.' The
crackdown promoted more civil
unrest, which in turn prompted
more repression, and, thus, in
a roundabout sort of way, Cholera
helped 'set the stage' for the
Russian Revolution." Which
you may have heard of.
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Myself? Me? In all this? I'll
be frank with you. I feel as if I
am racing my own time against
Death, which, something is telling
me, isn't far off. Don't know why,
but I intuit. What's it mean? Am
I fortunate? Does any of this have a
meaning? Where did I come from.
and where have I been? Which
only then begs the question....
where am I going? Do we mourn
the loss of what we had, or the loss
of that which we never had? And,
either way, isn't it all the same?
Black Death. White Death.
Call it the dead-ship of fools,
afloat on a meager sea of grime.
My heart wants to stay. Maybe
it's only me that wants to go.
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