Caragea's plague

Caragea's plague or Caradja's plague (Romanian: Ciuma lui Caragea) was a bubonic plague epidemic that occurred in Wallachia, mainly in Bucharest, in the years 1813 and 1814. It coincided with the rule of the Phanariote Prince John Caradja.

As Caradja came to Bucharest in 1812 after being appointed prince, the plague was already claiming victims in Istanbul, the Ottoman capital. A man in Caradja's retinue grew sick and died. It is alleged that this was the source of the plague in Wallachia, although the next reported death from plague in Wallachia occurred in June 1813.

The plague was expected and in January 1813, Caradja founded two quarantine hospitals, one in Teleorman and one in Giurgiu.

There were reports of people with the plague on the streets of Bucharest as early as in April, but the first death attributed to bubonic plague was on 11 June 1813 in Văcăreşti. Quarantine was established, the gates of the city of Bucharest were closed and all the roads from Văcăreşti to Dealul Spirii were guarded to prevent anyone from entering the city without permission.

Government clerks and priests had to check each house for plague-infected people, all the foreigners and non-residents were expelled from the city, and the beggars were sent to monasteries outside Bucharest. The money which came from the counties where the plague was spread (Ilfov, Vlaşca, Teleorman and Olt) had to be washed in vinegar and the number of gravediggers was increased to 60.

In spite of that, the plague continued to spread, mostly due to lack of qualified medical care. The July 1813 register books of the Wallachian government show that most of the decrees were related to the plague. Among the restrictions, meetings in pubs and coffee shops were forbidden, alcohol being only sold for home consumption. The people who died had a simple burial with no attendants. The people who hid sick people or the peddlers ("both Jewish and Christians") were expelled from the city and their belongings were burnt. In August, due to the spread of the plague, the request to allow people to flee the city was approved, Caradja asking the ispravnics to take care to avoid contact with the villagers. To avoid crowds, markets and schools were closed down, most judicial proceedings were stopped, and the people in the debtors' prison were freed.

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