and the rest are removed out of the town during the night, the uninfected to the convent of St. Simon, and the infected to the convent of St. Nicholas, one of which is distant six, and the other eight versts[16]; from Moscow. These convents are surrounded with high walls, and have only one entrance. As it was discovered that some had died among the workmen who lived in their own houses, these were taken to a third convent, situated in like manner out of the town. Orders were given to the surgeons who had the care of all these people, to transmit daily to the Board of Health a list of the sick and dead. A committee of physicians was appointed to regulate every thing concerning the treatment of the sick, and the keeping of those who were performing quarantine free from infection; and great attention was paid to the interment of the dead. Drs. Erasmus and Yagelsky (now no more!) were entitled to great praise for the manner in which they acquitted themselves in this business. When any one of those who were under quarantine was taken ill, he was put in a separate room, and kept there until the symptoms of the plague shewed themselves, when he was conveyed in a carriage, by persons hired for that purpose, to the pest-house, viz. the convent of St. Nicholas.

The public baths, where the people are accustomed to go, at least once a week, were shut up. The town was divided into seven districts, to each of which one physician and two surgeons were appointed, for the purpose of examining all the sick as well as the dead bodies; in which business police-officers were joined with them. It was forbidden to bury the dead within the city; proper places for burying-grounds were fixed upon at some distance from the town. It was ordered, that whenever any one of the common people should be seized with the plague, he should be sent to the hospital of St. Nicholas, and that, after burning his clothes and furniture, those who had been living in the same apartment should be detained for the space of forty days in some buildings appropriated to that purpose out of the town; that if the like occurrence should happen in the house of a principal inhabitant or person of rank, all the servants who had been in the same room with the patient should perform quarantine, and that the master, together with all his family, should remain shut up in his own house for the space of eleven days. All this was sanctioned and passed into the form of a law by a resolution of the Senate. General Peter Demitrewich de Yeropkin, not more distinguished by his birth and valour than by his polished manners and humane disposition, was appointed by the Empress, Director-General of Health.

Notwithstanding what had happened, the number of those who were convinced that the plague had reached Moscow, was as yet inconsiderable. Dr. Orræus, physician to the army, who had visited impested patients at Jassy, was now passing through Moscow in his way to Petersburgh, and was requested to examine the sick and dead bodies before mentioned, which he accordingly did, and declared, that the disorder was exactly like that which, a short time before, had proved so destructive in Moldavia and Wallachia; that it was, in fact, the plague. This was further confirmed by Dr. Lærch, who was just returned from Kiow, where he had remained during the time that the plague raged there.

The weather continued very cold until the middle of April, in consequence of which the contagion became more fixed and inactive, attacking only those who dwelt with the infected. In the pest-house, the daily number of deaths did not exceed three or four; and of the manufacturers who were performing quarantine only about the same number fell ill.

According to the reports of the physicians, surgeons, and police-officers, the town appeared to be healthy. Almost every body believed that the physicians who had called the disorder the plague, had imposed upon the public; others entertained doubts on the subject. Things went on in this way until the middle of June, during which time nearly two hundred persons had died at the hospital of St. Nicholas. The number of sick and dead diminished daily there, in so much that, for a whole week, although the weather was very warm, not one fell ill of the disorder, and there only remained in the hospital a few convalescents. No further vestige of the disorder could be traced in the town.

As among the workmen of the manufactory, who had been removed from their own houses to a third convent at a distance from the other two, in order to perform quarantine, not one had been attacked with the disorder for the space of two months, they were allowed to return to their respective homes.

We now began to flatter ourselves that the plague had been entirely eradicated by the precautions which had been adopted. Scarcely, however, had we indulged in these fond hopes, when, towards the end of June, some people are taken ill of the same disorder at the hospital of St. Simon, where the quarantine was performed. On the 2nd of July, six people die in one night at a house in the suburb of Preobraginsky; a seventh, who lived with them, absconded[17]. Livid spots, buboes, and carbuncles are found upon the dead bodies. On the following days, many of the common people fall sick in different quarters of the town, and the mortality increases to such a pitch, that the number of deaths, which commonly amounted to about ten or fifteen per day, and which, even during the prevalence of putrid fevers (as was the case for the two last years) did not exceed thirty, amounted at the end of July to as many as two hundred in the space of twenty-four hours. The sick, as well as the dead bodies, exhibited large purple spots and vibices; in many there were carbuncles and buboes. Some died suddenly, or in the space of twenty-four hours, before the buboes and carbuncles had time to come out; but the greatest number died on the third or fourth day.

In the middle of August, the number of deaths amounted daily to four hundred; and at the end of the same month to as many as six hundred. At this time buboes and carbuncles were more frequent than they had been in July. At the beginning of September there were seven hundred deaths in the space of twenty-four hours; in a few days, there were eight hundred deaths within the same number of hours; and a short time after, the deaths amounted to one thousand in a day!

The havoc was still greater during the time of the riots, which began on the 15th of September, in the evening; when an outrageous mob broke open the pest-houses and quarantine-hospitals, renewing all the religious ceremonies which it is customary with them to perform at the bed-side of the sick[18], and digging up the dead bodies and burying them afresh in the city. Agreeably to their ancient custom, the people began again to embrace the dead, despising all manner of precaution, which they declared to be of no avail, as the public calamity (I repeat their own words) was sent by God, to punish them for having neglected their ancient forms of worship. They further insisted, that as it