3749

Plague

any other pope, having visited the U. S. and
South America. His association was long and
intimate with his predecessor, Pius XL

Pizarro, Francisco (1478-1541), Spanish
conqueror of Peru, was born in Trujillo, Es-
tremadura. He first saw military service in
Italy under Gonsalvo de Cordova. He then
sailed to America, and was with Bal-
boa when he discovered the Pacific. Pizarro
and Almagro set off for the conquest of Peru
in 1532. Atahualpa, the Inca king, instead of
attacking the Spaniards, sent an embassy with
gold and other gifts to appease them; and
Pizarrci in return sent his brother and Her-
nando de Soto to the Inca with a message
from the Pope and information about the
Emperor Charles v. The two Spaniards per-
suaded Atahualpa to visit Pizarro. At the
meeting Pizarro attacked the Indians, took
the Inca prisoner, and sacked his carnp. After
killing the Inca, Pizarro and Almagro took
and sacked Cuzco in 1533. The young Inca,
Manco, was given the nominal authority,
which Pizarro in reality kept in his own
hands. Civil war then broke out between the
Pizarrists and Almagrists, during which Al-
magro was defeated and executed in, 1538.
Three years later Pizarro was assassinated at
Lima by the Almagrists. Consult Prescott's
History of the Conquest of Peru.

Placenta, or Afterbirth, the organ by
which the fcetal mammal is intimately con-
nected with the mother until the moment of
birth. Physiologically the placenta may be
described as a highly vascular sponge, in
which the fcetal blood takes up oxygen and
food material from the maternal blood, so
that by the placenta the foetus both feeds
and breathes. When only the fcetal portion
of the placenta is shed at birth, the pla-
centation is described as indeciduate. When
the maternal part of the placenta is shed in
addition to the fcetal, leaving an open wound
on the wall of the uterus, the placentation
is deciduate.

Placid, Lake, a resort and lake, 1,800 ft.
above sea level, in the n.w. corner of Essex
co., New York, in the Adirondack Moun-
tains. Nearby are the farm and burial place
of John Brown.

Plagiarism is the wilful appropriation of
something originated by another in. literature
or art, especially literature, and passing it off
as one's own. Plagiarius was the Latin word
for kidnaper, but it came into popular use
among the Romans to signify a literary
thief.

Plagioclase, a triclinic feldspar constitut-
ing an important ingredient of igneous, meta-
morphic, and sometimes sedimentary rocks.

Plague, Bubonic, a specific communicable
disease, affecting various rodents and man,
appearing usually in epidemic form, of extra-
ordinary virulence and very rapid course,
with a tendency to linger and recur when
once it has attacked a community. It is
characterized by fever, severe headache, ex-
treme depression, and incoordination of the
muscles. The disease, in a large proportion of
cases, ends fatally in three to five days, The
first great pandemic took its origin at Pelu-
sium in 542, and spread over Europe. After
this wave of infection had spent its force,
Europe was comparatively free from the dis-
ease until the nth century, when the return-
ing Crusaders brought it back with them
from Asia. Severe epidemics occurred in
rapid succession, and finally culminated in
the greatest pandemic of any disease in his-
tory—the Black Death of the i4th century.
It is generally believed that from one-third
to one-half of a population of 5,000,000 died
during its year of visitation. One-fourth of
the whole population of Europe is thought
to have perished of the disease. After the
iyth century, however, Western Europe was
practically free from this plague. During the
ipth century the plague in Europe was con-
fined almost exclusively to Turkey and
Southern Russia.

An outbreak of the pneumonic form of
plague which broke out among marmot hunt-
ers in Manchuria in October, 1910, spread
rapidly along the railway lines, and caused
46,000 deaths.

The cause of the plague is the Bacillus
pestis, discovered by Kitasato at Hongkong
in 1894, and independently by Yersin in the
same year. This bacillus is short, thick,
rounded at the ends; it is a cocco-bacillus,
which has been found in nearly every organ
and secretion of the body.

The first important point in the etiology of
bubonic plague is the connection between
human epidemics and epizootics among ro-
dents. When the pandemic began in 1894,
the relationship between dead rats and cases
of plague was shown to be very close—the
maximum point for the rodent disease pre-
ceding that for human plague by a few
weeks. The definite proof that the rats did
suffer from infection with the plague bacillus
was furnished in 1902 by extensive bacterio-
logical investigations in Hong-kong. A* Dr.