In September 1910, during this season of the year, a large number of hunters poured into Manzhouli, Manzhouli, located in the Hulunbuir Prairie in Northeast China, and began to hunt an animal called the "marmot" on a large scale. The marmot is the largest species in the family Squirrelidae. We are more familiar with its other name - "Marmot". The marmot's meat is edible and its fat can be used as medicine, but the most precious thing is its fur.
Since the best growth season for marmot fur is around September every year, the Russians who are short of manpower hire a large number of Chinese workers to capture marmots together. They found that if they were lucky, they would encounter a kind of "stupid" marmot: This kind of marmot staggers and can neither run nor bark when it encounters a hunter. Instead, it stays in place stupidly and only needs a moment. Just beat him to death with a stick.
Hunters discovered that this type of marmot has milky white cloud-like objects in its eyes, and is abandoned by its own kind and is not allowed to live in the same den with other marmots. Whenever they encounter this kind of marmot, hunters will be thankful that they are lucky. They also knew that this was a sick marmot and they could capture it with little effort. Like other marmots, they peeled off their skins with their bare hands and knives, and cooked the meat into a meal that improved their diet.
As for what disease this marmot got, no one cares.
In fact, with the cognitive level of most people at that time, it was impossible to know what disease the marmot had.
Marmots suffer from a severe infectious disease caused by a bacterium in the genus Yersinia. This infectious disease killed nearly 30 million Europeans in just six years in the mid-14th century. It was once called " Black Death ", but is more officially known as Plague .
Of course, at the time, many people may not have known that the infection was plague - in fact, the deadly bacteria was still lurking in the hunters who first came into contact with the marmots, but it was cross-infection through that broke out in the carpenters. .
In the autumn of the early 20th century, the vast northeastern land provided an ideal environment for the spread of plague:
The weather was getting colder, and more than a dozen or even dozens of people often lay on the big kang in a hotel. Everyone hugged each other to keep warm. The room was airtight and the air was extremely cold. Not in circulation. Taking a bath and washing your hair in cold weather was a luxury for Northeastern people at that time. Poor hygiene accelerated the spread of bacteria.
At that time, both the government and the people had almost zero awareness of "epidemic prevention". There were no necessary epidemic prevention facilities and institutions in various places, and they had no understanding of the concept of modern medicine. When people fell ill, they would even resort to feudal superstitions such as "Dance to the Great God". Cure.
What is especially critical is that Northeast China had the most complete railway system in China at the time. The railway systems under the control of Russia and Japan did not have sufficient understanding of the epidemic at the beginning. A large number of passengers who had been infected by bacteria spread the plague in all directions through the railways that extended in all directions.
The damage caused by this epidemic to the Northeast region at that time is also obvious: from October 25, 1910 to April 18, 1911, the plague claimed nearly 60,000 lives in the three northeastern provinces alone Among them, Fujiadian, Harbin, where the situation is the most severe, 5,693 people died, accounting for 1/3 of the entire population - that is, one out of every three people died of the epidemic.
But looking at it from another perspective, it only took about 5 months from the outbreak to the end of the epidemic. Based on the capabilities of the Qing government at that time, the health conditions in the Northeast and people's understanding of the epidemic, the epidemic could be resolved in a timely manner. It is a miracle that it was controlled without causing further spread.
