Compiler: Zhao Xingwei, Lin Bijun, Li Xiaoyu
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Illustrated Tribune Sunday, Italy
February 12, 1911
The plague of the Qing Dynasty
The plague devastated the lives of the Qing Dynasty. In some areas, terrible diseases kill hundreds of people every day, and people don't know how to stop its deadly tracks. One of the areas most affected by the plague is Harbin, where 2,000 coffins containing the bodies of infected people have been burned. In some places, the ground was too solid to bury the dead, and people had to dig pits with explosives.
In order to motivate doctors, the Qing government decided to posthumously honor those who died fighting the plague, treat them as martyrs, and give allowances to their heirs. The regent ordered an allocation of $1,000,000 to the governors of the three eastern provinces for sanitary measures.
The color book depicts the alarming epidemic in Harbin. In another photo, a group of Harbin residents are isolated due to infection.
In Harbin, people tried to stop the spread of the plague by burning coffins. Abel draws.
A group of Harbin residents suspected of being infected were quarantined. Photo by Argus.
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Pictorial
Saturday, February 18, 1911 Issue No. 3547
A terrible catastrophe
The bubonic plague is now engulfing cities in northeastern China, and this outbreak in Harbin has spread throughout the region with lightning speed despite the efforts of doctors in Western countries and China. THE DAILY DEATH TOLL IS SO GREAT THAT SEVERAL CITIES, SUCH AS FUJIADIAN AND ACHIKKE NEAR HARBIN, HAVE BEEN EMPTY. Detailed reports from the affected areas have only appeared in the New York Herald and a few Russian newspapers, and the first-hand images must still be in the process of being reviewed by the health authorities, and Europe has not yet received any information. Thanks to our American and Russian counterparts, G. Scott Mr. Scott painted the picture, and it was fitting to accompany Russkoie's telegram: "Fujiadian became a city of death, with streets and houses deserted, the shops in the bazaar closed, dogs gnawing at corpses, and only the smell of burning corpses reminded people that the city had once lived." Hospitals are deserted, and both patients and doctors have been devoured by the disease. ”
Plague in the Northeast
A cemetery of horrors on the outskirts of Hankow, February 15, 1908.
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French "Petit Daily"
Sunday, February 19, 1911, No. 1057
The Great Plague of Manchuria
The plague wreaked havoc on the Far East, leaving some areas deserted. To fight the spread of germs, people simply burned down contaminated cities and villages. One has to ask: Aren't we worried about the spread of the plague to Europe? Scholars generally agree that there is no need to worry about such assumptions. As we describe in the "Anthology" section below, the plague has been absent from the area we live in for almost 200 years. The last major plague experienced by France was the Great Plague of Marseille in 1720.
In the plague that swept through Turkey and the Balkan countries in the 18th and first half of the 19th century, there were only sporadic cases in Western European countries. In 1898, there were two simultaneous cases in Europe, one at a quarantine station on the Taius River and one in the laboratory of the François Joseph Hospital in Vienna. The former killed two sailors, the latter killed three. However, the source of infection in both cases was successfully contained, and timely disinfection also inhibited the further development of infectious diseases. These two cases are representative and can help to dispel all concerns. And if that's not enough, here's what Dr. Lu, director of the Institut Pasteur, has to offer:
"Like all infectious diseases, plague cannot resist the health campaign carried out by science. We will know how to build a barrier between the plague and the people, so that the plague can be eradicated before it reaches us. ”
"In addition, the plague that is raging in China is of the pneumonia type, which is more rapid and more fatal, and it needs a more special environment to amplify this devastation," he added. The very dry climate in these parts of China is ideal for the spread of the plague, and the mild climate of the continent and the precautions we take will curb the spread of the plague on the mainland. ”
Therefore, we don't have to worry about it anymore.
The Great Plague of Manchuria
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French newspaper "The Pious"
Sunday, February 12, 1911, No. 1780
The terrible plague of Manchuria
The plague is rampant in China, and there is a mess everywhere. Several people who traveled to Fujiadian in Manchuria described the devastation caused by the plague as follows:
On the first street, seven or eight paces away from our car, we found the bodies of seven Chinese, and there were thirty or forty Chinese gathered around to watch the excitement. Five paces away, on both sides of the street, two bodies lay in the stream. After stepping out of the pile of dead people, we saw the following scene: a Chinese vendor selling hazelnuts and lotus seeds was dying in front of his open-air stall, vomiting incessantly and staining his goods. After a few moments, he stopped breathing. We watched as the Chinese picked up lotus seeds and quietly ate them, some of which filled their pockets with lotus seeds.
At a neighbouring stall, we saw some people dragging a dying man out and throwing him out into the street. We asked a Chinese policeman why he was indifferent, and he told us it had nothing to do with him. When we came to the Songhua River, we saw three more corpses, two of them completely naked and the other half naked. Two dogs were gnawing on their heads, and the birds were pecking.
The scene was so horrific that almost all the ladies who were with us fainted. We continued to the steamship dock, where a total of 18 graves and 36 bodies were found in the bushes. When we boarded the ship, the Chinese mechanic told us that 150 to 200 people were dying of the plague every day, and that it was not only the poor who were now infected with the plague, but also the merchants and officials.
Two Harbin officials traveling down the Songhua River to Fujiadian filmed several horrific scenes: We saw several dogs dragging the body of a Chinese on the edge of a small island opposite the Delijin Flour Mill, with only the head and upper body left.
On the other side of the island, we see an open coffin, and the body inside has been changed beyond recognition. On the other side of the island, we saw another dog gnawing on a corpse. As soon as the river thaws, the river will flow to Heilongjiang with these poor corpses.
Two weeks ago, a doctor and a group of nurses visited Harbin, and we selected the following passages from his notepad:
Midnight – We took the 3 bodies we had collected to the Vroblev Brewery.
6 a.m. - Next to the Dartkov flour mill, we carried away the body of a Chinese.
9 o'clock - I carried the body of a Chinese by the city wall and 3 others in the city.
10 o'clock - I lifted the body of a Chinese who had been dumped on the street.
10:30 - We took away 4 Chinese who looked like they were infected with the plague from the Vroblev factory.
……
On the street, the Chinese robbed the dead bodies. Many dying Chinese are abandoned on public roads. 10 Men placed the coffin on the bank of the Songhua River, and a group of dogs ran to eat the corpse. The plague has reached Tianjin and Beijing. In Harbin, the bodies of those killed in the plague were burned on a large scale. The coffins were stacked in 4 huge pits filled with corpses.
People poured gasoline on the bodies and set them on fire. The cremation sites were chosen two miles from the city and guarded by troops. Cremation takes place every day. Dogs and crows gnawed on hundreds of dying people in the fields.
On the Siberian border, the most drastic measures were taken to prevent the plague from entering Russian territory. All trains from Manchuria are subject to an ultra-long quarantine. The situation in Guangcheng Temple is the same as that of Fujiadian, which is littered with dead bodies. When spring arrives, flies and insects will appear, spreading the deadly germ everywhere and causing more harm. Fearing the further spread of the plague, China has asked Western powers to assist them in fighting the plague. Japan, given China's weakness and incompetence, has announced that it will use its own methods to combat the epidemic.
The terrible Manchurian plague (uninfected residents fled in panic, abandoning their bodies in the streets. When Brown draws)
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French "Petit Daily"
Sunday, February 12, 1911, No. 1056
Manchurian plague (ordinary people fleeing the disaster were stopped by Chinese troops on the side of the Great Wall)
The people of Manchuria were in a desperate struggle against the plague. In the "Anthology" section, we have already briefly described the recent plague epidemics in the Far East. The plague that is raging is arguably the most difficult of them all. It is estimated that about 1,000 people in northern Manchuria die every day from the plague. Although 22 doctors worked together to stop the spread of the epidemic in Harbin, the Chinese city is now nothing more than a dead city.
People set fire to the whole street, and it was thought necessary to burn the whole city down. Residents hid their bodies in their houses so that they would not be taken to the quarantine area, where they would be sentenced to death. Every morning, the streets are filled with corpses thrown there the night before. The plague is fierce and formidable. Several cases of people who looked good were recorded: when the doctor came to make his rounds, before the doctor could get to him, he suddenly stumbled and fell to the ground.
As soon as the plague began, a horde of panicked Chinese coolies prepared to flee south from Mukden and the surrounding cities, but the Chinese government had already moved to prevent them from crossing the Great Wall. These poor people were confronted by the troops guarding the passage, and they were penniless and had to stay in the plague-ravaged countryside.
Manchurian plague (ordinary people fleeing the disaster were stopped by Chinese troops on the side of the Great Wall)
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Pictorial
Saturday, February 25, 1911 No. 3548
The land of the plague
In Paris, we have just received the first batch of footage previously filmed in Northeast China, where the bubonic plague is spreading wildly and countless people are dying. Our compatriot Excelsior, who is in the affected area, sent the information directly to Mr. Fries-Orlowa through the post office (to avoid censorship) and urged him to disseminate it. In this email, Mr. Frey-Orrova also found a letter describing the images.
"The villages near Harbin are devastated. In order to ride from Harbin to Fujiadian, I had to be fully armed: with gloves on my hands, a mask on my head, only gaps in my eyes, protective clothing on my body, and a silent message in my heart that God would bless me from infection.
"People mercilessly burned down the homes of local residents near the train station, forcing them to flee and cutting off their crossroads with passengers. We were met by a convoy full of coffins, about twenty vehicles, the coffin boards were not covered, and the heads, arms, and thighs were sticking out of the gaps in the wooden boards. It's horrible!
"In Harbin, there is no place for people to put their bodies. In one of the paintings I sent, there was a pile of corpses in front of a building, five hundred in all, and those who couldn't fit it had to be piled up outside. ”
In the cemetery: A dog finds its lunch
焚尸点
In Harbin: Bodies abandoned outside a crowded morgue.
The plague in the northeast region was transported from Fujiadian to the coffin of the cemetery.
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Pictorial
Saturday, March 11, 1911 No. 3550
Plague in the Northeast, photo by A. Kalkine (A. Brown). Galkine)。
A mountain of coffins piled up outside Fujiadian City.
Coffins and bodies that did not find a cemetery were discarded haphazardly in pits or piled directly on the snow and then doused with gasoline and burned.
A crematorium: the bodies were not completely burned due to a lack of wood and enough oil.
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Pictorial
Saturday, March 18, 1911 No. 3551
The nightmare of the Northeast
People infected with the plague
Inspection in front of the carriage: Chinese in quarantine, doctors take the temperature of a suspected case.
A plague patient's home marked with a red cross
A convoy transporting corpses to crematoriums
Near Fujiadian: Hundreds of bodies were dumped with gasoline into a deep pit dug and burned.
In the vicinity of abandoned houses, graveyards dug for the dead.
Crematorium in the Northeast
On top of the burned corpses, people threw down a bunch of corpses to be burned.
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Pictorial
Saturday, March 25, 1911 No. 3552
Scene on the streets of Harbin
Russian soldiers caught a Chinese who had just contracted the plague on the street, and this poor man was coughing up blood, which showed that all those who came into contact with him were in danger, and he could not go anywhere now. The soldier held a gun to control him and whistled to alert the other epidemic prevention personnel.
For three months, such a scene had to be played out countless times a day. In minutes, a vehicle will transport him to the quarantine site, where he and hundreds of other infected people will be transported and incinerated.
Mr. Rene Lebaut, correspondent of the French newspaper Petit Zeitung in Manchuria, confirmed that there is currently no effective drug for the disease. "There is no cure, and all patients, both European and Chinese, have died without exception. Only one patient survived for seven days thanks to a large amount of serum injection. The staff who came into contact with the patients died one after another, and the medical staff had to do as much as possible to protect themselves. The so-called nursing staff are the scum of society, and the government pays them a lot of money, fifty or sixty roubles a month, and they also collect money from the dead.
According to the latest news, the epidemic raging in Harbin has a tendency to spread to Beijing, and people are taking strict precautions to prepare for it.
Catch a man infected with the plague
The above content is provided with permission from "Diorama: China 1800-1938 in Italian Color Pictorial" and "History of China Lost in the West: China 1850-1937 in French Color Pictorial".