In the July 1867 issue of the Spiritist Review, we described the terrible disease that has ravaged Mauritius (former island of France) for two years. The last mail brings us letters from two of our brothers in belief in that country. The following is a passage extracted from one of them:
“Please forgive me for going such a long time without giving you any news from my side; it wasn’t certainly for a lack of desire, but possibility, since my time was divided in two parts, one for the work that sustains my life, the other for the disease that kills us, so that I have very few moments to use according to my own wishes. However, I am a little calmer since I haven't had a fever for a month; it is true that it is at this period that it seems to calm down a little; but unfortunately, it moves down to jump up again, because the next heat will undoubtedly bring back its original strength. Thus, well convinced of the certainty of this prospect, I live from day to day, detaching myself from human vanities as much as possible, to facilitate my passage to the world of the Spirits where, frankly, I would not be at all sorry to find myself, in good conditions of course." A skeptical once said, about a person who expressed a similar thought about death:
"One has to be a Spiritist to have these ideas!" He unwillingly spoke highly of Spiritism. Isn’t the calm with which it makes us consider the fatal end of life, that so many people see approaching with fear, a great benefit? How much anguish and torment are spared to those who see death as a transformation of their being, an instantaneous transition, without interruption of the spiritual life! They wait for the departure with serenity, because they know where they are going and what they will be; what adds to their tranquility is the certainty, not only of finding those who are dear to them, but of not being separated from those who remain after them; to see them and help them more easily and better than during life; they do not miss the joys of this world, because they know that they will have greater, sweeter ones, without mixture of tribulations. What causes fear of death is the unknown; now, for the Spiritist, death no longer has mysteries.
The second letter contains the following:
“It is with a feeling of deep gratitude that I come to thank you for the solid principles you instilled in my mind, and that only them have given me the strength and courage to accept, with calm and resignation, the harsh trials that I had to endure for a year, due to the terrible epidemic that is decimating our population. Sixty thousand souls have already departed!As you can imagine, most of the members that form our little group in Port-Louis, that started to operate so well, had to suffer in this general disaster, like me. By a spontaneous communication on July 25th, 1866, it was announced to us that we were going to be obliged to suspend our work; three months later, we were forced to discontinue them, owing to the illness of several of us, and to the death of our relatives and friends. Until this time we have not been able to start over again, although all our mediums are alive, as well as the main members of our group. We have tried to meet again several times, but we were unable to succeed. That is why each one of us was forced to learn separately about your letter, dated October 26th, 1867, to Mrs. G ... with the communication of Doctor Demeure who gives us great and very just teachings on all that is happening to us; each of us was able to appreciate its correctness as far as each one is concerned; for it is evident that the disease has taken so many forms that the doctors have never been able to agree; each followed a particular therapy.The young doctor Labonté, however, seems to be the one who best defined the disease; I must believe that he is right from the material point of view, because he endured all the sufferings he described.[1] From our spiritualist point of view, we could see in it an application of the preface of the Gospel according to Spiritism, because the harmful period that we are going through was marked, at the beginning, by an extraordinary rain of shooting stars, covering Mauritius on the night of November 13th to 14th , 1866. Although this phenomenon is known for been fairly frequent from September to November, at certain periodic times, it is not less remarkable that this time the shooting stars were so numerous that they impressed and made those who observed them shudder. This imposing spectacle will remain etched in our memory because it was precisely after this event that the disease took a distressing character. From that moment on, it became general and mortal, what may allow us to think, as Doctor Demeure tells us, that we have arrived at the period of transformation of the inhabitants of Earth, for their moral advancement.Regarding the sedatives recommended by Doctor Demeure, you spoke of horse chestnuts, whose use would be better than quinine, that affects the brains. We don't know that plant here; but after reading your letter in which it is mentioned, the name of another plant occurred to me by intuition; it is the croton tiglium, commonly called in Pion d'Inde in Mauritius; I used it as a sudorific, with great success; the leaves only, because the seed is a very poisonous. Please ask Doctor Demeure for his opinion about this plant, and if he approves the application I gave it, as a calming agent, for I completely share his opinion about the character of this bizarre disease that seems to me a variant of “ramannenzaa” or Madagascar fever, except for the external symptoms."If one could doubt for a single moment the universal popularization of the Spiritist Doctrine, the doubt would disappear when seeing the happiness that it brings, the consolations it provides, the strength and courage it gives in the most painful moments in life, because it is in man's nature to seek what can assure his happiness and his peace. This is the most powerful element of propagation of Spiritism, and one that no one will take away from it, unless one gives more than it gives. For us, it is a great satisfaction to see the benefits that it spreads; each afflicted person that is consoled, each dejected courage that is raised, each moral progress that is carried out, pays us a hundredfold for our sorrows and our fatigues; this is also a satisfaction that is not in anyone’s power to take away from us. Once these letters were read at the Parisian Society, it gave rise to the following communications that deal with the question from the double point of view of local and general, material, and moral.
Parisian Society, October 16
th, 1868
“The great physiological cataclysms have been preceded by clear signs of the wrath of the gods, in all times. Special phenomena anticipated the onset of the scourge, like a warning preparing for danger. These manifestations took place, in fact, not as a supernatural omen, but as symptoms of the imminent disturbance.As we had the opportunity to tell you, in the apparently most abnormal crises that gradually decimate different regions of the globe, nothing is left to chance; they are the consequences of the influences of the worlds and the elements, on one another (October 1868); they have been prepared since long ago, and therefore the cause is perfectly normal.Health is the result of the balance of natural forces; if an epidemic disease rages somewhere, it can only be the consequence of a disruption of that balance; hence, the state of the atmosphere and the singular phenomena that can be observed there.Meteors known as shooting stars are made up of material elements like anything that comes to mind; they only appear thanks to the phosphorescence of those elements in combustion, and whose special nature sometimes develops deleterious and morbific influences in the breathing air. The shooting stars were, not the omen, but the secondary cause of the plague in Mauritius. Why was their action exerted in this region in particular? First, because it is one of the means intended, as your correspondent said very well, to regenerate humanity and Earth itself, by causing the departure of the incarnate and the modification of the material elements; and also, because the causes that determine these kinds of epidemics in Madagascar, Senegal and wherever malaria and yellow fever exert their devastation, do not exist in Mauritius, the strength and persistence of the disease should determine serious research on its source, and draw attention to the role that psychological influences could play in it.Those who survived, after forced contact with the sick and the dying, witnessed scenes that they did not realize at first, but that will come back to them when calm is established, and that can only be explained by the Spiritist science. Facts of apparitions, communications with the dead, forecasts followed by realization, were very common there. Once the disaster has been appeased, the memory of all these facts will emerge and provoke reflections that will gradually lead to our beliefs being accepted. Mauritius will be reborn! The new year will see extinguished the scourge that swarmed over it, not by the effect of remedies, but because the cause will have produced its effect there; other climates will in turn undergo scourges of the same or any other nature, determining the same disasters and leading to the same results.A universal epidemic would have sown terror in the whole of humanity and stopped progress for a long time; a small epidemic, gradually attacking in multiple forms each center of civilization, will produce the same salutary and regenerative effects, but will leave intact the means of action available to science. Those who die are struck by the helplessness; but those who see death at their doorstep will seek new ways to fighting it. Peril makes inventive; and, when all material means are exhausted, everyone will be forced to ask for salvation through spiritual means.It is undoubtedly frightening to think of dangers of this kind, but since they are necessary and will only have happy consequences, instead of awaiting them shivering, it is preferable to prepare to face them without fear, whatever the results. To the materialist, it is a hideous death and nothingness following it; to the spiritualist, and particularly to the Spiritist, whatever happens, if he escapes peril, the trial will always find him unshakeable; if he dies, what he knows of the other life will make him consider the passage without becoming pale.Prepare yourselves therefore for anything, and whatever the time and the nature of the danger, be imbued with this truth: that death is but a vain word, and that there is no suffering that cannot be dominated by human forces. Those to whom the scourge will be unbearable will be the only ones who will have received it with laughter and carelessness in their hearts, that is, who will believe themselves to be strong in their skepticism.Clélie Duplantier.”
Parisian Society, October 23
rd, 1868
“Tiglium croton can certainly be used with success, especially in homeopathic doses to calm cramps and restore normal circulation of the nervous fluid; it can also be used locally, by rubbing the skin with a light infusion, but it would not be prudent to generalize its use. This is not a medicine applicable to all patients, nor to all phases of the disease. In case it is for public use, it should only be applied by indication of persons who can see its usefulness and assess its effects; otherwise, one who had already experienced its beneficial action could, on a given case, be completely insensitive or even experience its inconvenience. It is not one of those neutral drugs that do not do any harm when they do not do good. It should only be used in special cases and under the direction of persons with sufficient knowledge to direct its action.Besides, I hope that it will not be necessary to test its effectiveness, and that a calmer period is brewing for the unfortunate inhabitants of Mauritius. They are not released yet, far from it; but, with some exceptions, the break outs are generally not fatal, unless incidents of other kinds give them a particular character of seriousness. The disease itself is coming to an end. The island is entering the period of convalescence; there may be a few small upsurges, but I have every reason to believe that the epidemic will now diminish until the symptoms that characterize it have completely disappeared. But what will be its influence on those inhabitants of Mauritius who will have survived the disaster? What will they take away from the manifestations of all kinds that they have unwittingly witnessed? The apparitions, of which a great number have been the object, will they produce the effect one is entitled to expect? The resolutions taken with fear, remorse, and the reproaches of a troubled conscience, won’t they be reduced to nothing when tranquility is reestablished?It would be desirable that the memory of those gloomy scenes be engraved in an indelible way in their mind, and oblige them to modify their behavior, by reforming their beliefs; for they must be fully persuaded that the equilibrium will not be completely reestablished until the Spirits are so stripped of their iniquity, that the atmosphere will be purified of the noxious miasmas that have brought about the birth and development of the plague.Each day we are entering more and more the transitional period that must bring about the organic transformation of Earth and the regeneration of its inhabitants. The plagues are the instruments that the great surgeon of the universe uses to extirpate from the world, destined to march forward, the gangrenous elements that would cause disorders there, incompatible with the new state. Each organ, or to put it better, each region, will be hit in time by plagues of various kinds. Here, the epidemic in all its forms, elsewhere war, famine. Everyone must, therefore, prepare to endure the ordeal in the best possible conditions, by improving and educating themselves, so as not to be surprised unexpectedly. Some regions have already been tested, but their inhabitants would make a big mistake if they trusted the era of calm that will succeed the storm and fall back to their old ways. It is a time of respite granted to them to enter on a better path; if they do not take advantage of them, the instrument of death will test them to the point of bringing them to repentance. Blessed are those who were first struck by the trial, for they will have to learn not only the evils they have suffered, but the spectacle of those brothers in humanity who will in turn be struck. We hope that such an example will be beneficial to them, and that they will enter, without hesitation, on the new path that will allow them to walk in concert with progress.It would be desirable that the inhabitants of Mauritius were not the last to take advantage of the severe lesson they have received.Dr. Demeure.”
[1] Dr. Labonté described the Mauritius epidemic in a brochure that we read with interest, and in which a serious and judicious observer is revealed. He is a man devoted to his art, and as far as one can judge from a distance, by analogy, he seems to us to have well characterized this singular disease, from the physiological point of view; unfortunately, as far as therapeutics are concerned, it thwarts all the predictions of science. In an exceptional case, like this one, failure cannot not prejudge anything against the knowledge of the doctor. Spiritism opens entirely new horizons for medical science, by demonstrating the preponderant role of the spiritual element in life and in many diseases, where medicine fails, because it stubbornly persists in looking for the cause in the tangible matter only. Knowledge of the action of the perispirit on the organism will add a new branch to pathology and will profoundly modify the mode of treatment of certain diseases, whose real cause will no longer be a problem.
