The year 1890 (the sixteenth year of Guangxu) was an uneventful year in Chinese history. In the winter of this year, the season has passed heavy snow, but the weather is not cold, and there is no snow in the winter. To people's surprise, a plague is creeping up.
Now it seems that this plague did not come out of thin air, but an epidemic that swept the world. The plague first originated in Russia, then spread in European countries, and gradually spread to Japan and China. The global death toll that year was said to be as high as 1 million, with 250,000 deaths in Europe alone. The Bulletin of Nations at the time recorded that of the 13,000 people in the London Post Office, 1,806 were sick, or nearly 14 percent. In Birmingham alone, 50,000 people are sick.
There was no globalization at that time, but the merchants who came and went also brought the plague to all parts of the world.
In Beijing, this winter, many people suddenly had cold, sweating, phlegm coughing and wheezing. The disease was different from before, and it quickly spread. According to the records of the ancients, it is difficult for modern people to judge the nature of this plague, which may be cholera, diphtheria, or scarlet fever, typhoid fever, or malaria.
There are many people who have been recruited by the plague, such as Zaidun the Prince of Yi, Pan Boyin of Shangshu, Sun Zishan of Shilang, Shilang Endang, Shilang Baoting, Feng Erchang, secretary of Dali Temple, and so on, all died of this plague. In short, this sudden plague blinded people.
Let's talk about a few famous people who didn't escape the plague.
One is Li Hongzhang's son-in-law, Zhang Peilun. This Zhang Peilun is the grandfather of the writer Zhang Ailing, who married Li Hongzhang's daughter Li Juling and lived in Li Hongzhang's mansion in Tianjin.
Li
On the night of December 7th of that year, Chamberlain finished washing up after dinner, and suddenly felt bored, and there was a breath in his stomach that was flipping up and down, making him unable to sleep in the middle of the night. After he sat up, he took a short rest, feeling a little better, but also sweating. At this time, he asked a doctor for diagnosis and treatment, and prescribed evacuation medicine, but the effect was not obvious.
Li Hongzhang is a representative of the Western school, he has a lifelong belief in Western medicine, and he is very contemptuous of Chinese medicine. He suggested that Zhang Peilun try Western medicine's cinchona cream. This pair of golden pheasants was ground from the bark of the Cinchona tree, a Peruvian madder family, and was brought to China by missionaries. In the thirty-second year of Kangxi, the Kangxi Emperor personally marched on Gardan, who knew that he had malaria in the grassland, and he could not afford to get sick, and the imperial medical treatment with the army was ineffective, and he almost lost his life. At this time, it happened that the French missionaries brought cinchona cream, which cured Kangxi's malaria at once, so this medicine was deeply trusted by the Kangxi Emperor and became a treasure used by the royal family. Cao Xueqin's grandfather, Cao Yin, once contracted malaria and wrote a special recital begging Kangxi to give him cinchona cream.
Zhang Peilun
Zhang Peilun was originally groggy and often talked nonsense, but after eating the golden rooster sodium cream, he miraculously improved. After three days, the fever subsided and the body recovered.
After this battle, Li Hongzhang trusted Western medicine even more. Cinchona Cream's reputation in China's aristocratic circles was even more shocking.
Another person recruited by the virus is a celebrity - Li Ciming.
Li Ciming's "Diary of Yue Man Tang" is very famous, which has a lot to do with the celebrities he deals with. On the third day of November of that year, Li Ciming invited many celebrities to his home to eat and drink, including Shen Zengzhi, Fan Zengxiang, Huang Tifang, Wang Renkan, Bao Lin, Huang Shaoji, etc. These people drank until midnight before dispersing.
However, after the guests left, Li Ciming suddenly felt abdominal pain, and even walking was difficult. For several days afterwards, he felt increasingly unwell, initially as a symptom of typhoid fever, followed by a few days of coughing and spitting for a few litres. He invited a famous Chinese medicine doctor to see himself, and took various expensive drugs such as ginseng, elk, and human milk. Then, his famous Chinese medicine master was a gourmet, and he prescribed a formula, made a pair of male and female lizards stewed with ginseng and mutton, and then ate them to play a role in nourishing the yin and nourishing the stomach. Who knows if this is the effect of psychological cues, or whether dietary therapy really works, he is miraculously better. It wasn't until the end of half a month that he recovered from a serious illness, and he walked around the ghost door.
Some people say, aren't you advocating Western medicine? Li Hongzhang was a firm believer in Western medicine, and then cured the plague infected by Zhang Peilun with cinchona cream. Didn't this Li Ciming, who asked the Chinese medicine doctor to prescribe medicine, cure the plague in the same way? Indeed, Chinese medicine has thousands of years of tradition, in the era when there was no Western medicine introduced into China, Chinese to see a doctor is Chinese medicine, Chinese medicine does have a lot of folk remedies, magic recipes, there are medicine to get rid of the effect. Therefore, the dispute between Western medicine and Traditional Chinese medicine, we do not involve here, who cures the disease is counted as who.
Let's talk about the deaths of a few important people.
One is Prince Zaidun of Yi. This Prince Yi was the younger brother of Emperor Xianfeng's eighth chancellor Zaiyuan, who later inherited the title. After the epidemic was infected, this Prince Yi caused him to cough and wheeze, because he was older, so he was unable to ask a doctor to return to heaven, and his illness became increasingly serious, and finally he died.
Prince of the Qing Dynasty
Another deceased figure was Princess Li. This lady is the charming concubine in the movie "Hanging Curtains and Listening to the Government" filmed by Hong Kong director Li Hanxiang. In the movie, after Cixi launched a palace coup, there is a plot in which Li Fei's hands and feet are cut off and placed in a jar. In fact, as the widow of the former emperor, Princess Li has always lived very peacefully in the harem, and there are not many legendary stories. When Princess Li was infected, she asked the imperial doctor to treat her, but it did not work, and she eventually died.
This is like the new crown virus pneumonia in Wuhan, most of the people who died were older people who had other diseases. Young and strong, strong resistance, can resist.
In 1890 (the sixteenth year of Guangxu), although this year was a dull year, it left people with memories because of this worldwide plague. When people are fighting against the new crown virus pneumonia, it should be instructive to understand the plague of that year.