L’encyclopedie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Mis en ordre & publié par M. Diderot. A Paris: chez Briasson, David, Le Breton, 1751-1780. 35 vols. G135, pls. v.6

L’encyclopedie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Mis en ordre & publié par M. Diderot. A Paris: chez Briasson, David, Le Breton, 1751-1780. 35 vols. G135, pls. v.6

The Trotskys and Other Awful Diseases; or, Bring Out Your Dead... One advantage of living in a frosty clime is that when the temperatures dip, the vectors for plague disappear: rats die and fleas become inactive. For this reason, in part, Petersburg was spared the succeeding waves of bubonic plague that have stuck other parts of Russia during much of her history. Nevertheless, the THREAT to homeland security that Catherine the Great felt near the end of the 18th century when plague was raging in Moscow, was as large in her eyes as this flea (carrier of the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis) and caused what John T. Alexander of the Kansas University History Department and author of Bubonic Plague in Early Modern Russia: Public Health and Urban Disaster, calls "Trepidation in Petersburg." Money, luggage, goods of all sorts coming from outlying areas were fumigated, wrappings were burned, people coming through the checkpoints surrounding the city obeyed strict rules or were quarantined. On the other hand Catherine worried about disruptions to the economy, paralysis of her government, and stumbling blocks for her armies. Whether it was these preventive measures, or the frosts of winter or a combination of many things, old "Piter" came through virtually unscathed.

G135, pls. vol. 6