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Show PNEUMONIC PLAGUE APPEARSJ! CHINK Missionaries Fear Pestilence Pesti-lence Will Outstrip Famine, Fam-ine, Flood and War. BOSTON". Mas?., Feb. 23. Tile pneumonic pneu-monic platrue lias broken out m shausi province, China, and has assumed as-sumed such proportions that a!l north China is seriously threatened. Advices T, this effect were received today bv the American board of commissioners 'or foreign missions from members ol its staff iu north China. The reports of the missionary -express the fear that was felt in this country when the appearance of this most deadly pestilence was first reported iu dispatches to the Associated Press in December. Un-i Un-i booked in northern China, it would prove, in the opinion of the board, more devastating than famine, flood nud war combined. Today's mail advices ad-vices from missionary centers had been awaited anxiously. A statement issued by the beard says: 'This pneumonic yleasjr.e is particularly particu-larly virulent. Practically no one who 1'Ccoinos a victim of it recovers. It is the same disease that ravaced llon-ynlia llon-ynlia five years f.iu and carried o'.t thirty or forty thousand people before it v.-as checked. 'It seems to have started in Mongolia Mon-golia this year and iias been devastating devastat-ing the part of Sjausi province north or the Croat Wall, and now has broken throuch. There pre five passes throush 'lie wall. If all but one were closed to travel, and lhar one carefully u'uar.ied. with a medical station with proper inspection aid quarantine, the 1 rob'em of keeping the plague out of shunsi and the rest of China might be solved. Mich preventive measures were urjed. but there is as yet no guarantee guaran-tee that such protective measures will be employed. 'The American board's nearest station sta-tion to the infected region is at Fen-chow. Fen-chow. Its medical missionary there. Dr. Percy T. Watson, at the head of a unit made up of Chinese Assistants, left immediately upon receipt of a tele-ijTSm tele-ijTSm from the capital of the province. Taiyuanfu. asking for aid.- with the expectation of going north to help fight the plague at Taiehn. fifteeu i-.iies from one of the main passes through the great wall. : 'Signs of the plague near the capital capi-tal had held him there, as that city had been stripped of doctors, who had gone to the north. There are even rumors ru-mors of cases of the pieague near Fen-e'Low, Fen-e'Low, and the mission there was busy preparing to attack it. "Plague suits and mask? were being made, and directions were being given for the proper disposal of bodies of t'.e dead in case need arose. The Chinese Chi-nese customarily disregard such epidemics epi-demics as diphtheria and scarlet fever, but they are afraid of this most deadly dead-ly plague, which may help in the en- j forcement of measures for stamping it out. "If it should gain unchecked opportunity oppor-tunity in northern China it will be more devastating than famine, flood and war combined. Here again the missionaries mis-sionaries are able to do much through the confidence of the people in them. '' I |