Page:EB1911 - Volume 28.djvu/937

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YECLA—YELLOW FEVER

literature, contributing poems and articles to the Dublin University Review and other Irish periodicals. In 1888 he was encouraged by Oscar Wilde to try his fortune in London, where he published in 1889 his first volume of verse, The Wanderings of Oisin; its original and romantic touch impressed discerning critics, and started a new interest in the "Celtic" movement. The same year and the next he contributed to Mr Walter Scott's "Camelot Series," edited by Ernest Rhys, Fairy and Folk Tales, a collection of Irish folklore, and Tales from Carleton, with original introductions. In 1891 he wrote anonymously two Irish stories, John Sherman and Dhoya, for Mr Fisher Unwin's "Pseudonym Library." In 1892 he published another volume of verse, including The Countess Kathleen (a romantic drama), which gave the book its title, and in 1893 The Celtic Twilight, a volume of essays and sketches in prose. He now submitted his earlier poetical work to careful revision, and it was in the revised versions of The Wanderings of Usheen and The Countess Kathleen, and the lyrics given in his collected Poems of 1895 that his authentic poetical note found adequate expression and was recognized as marking the rise of a new Irish school. In the meantime he had followed The Countess Kathleen with another poetical drama, The Land of Heart's Desire, acted at the Avenue Theatre for six weeks in the spring of 1894, published in May of that year. He contributed to various periodicals, notably to the National Observer and the Bookman, and also to the Book of the Rhymers' Club—the English Parnasse Contemporain of the early 'nineties. With Edwin J. Ellis he edited the Works of William Blake (1893), and also edited A Book of Irish Verse (1895). In 1897 appeared The Secret Rose, a collection of Irish legends and tales in prose, with poetry interspersed, containing the stories of Hanrahan the Red. The same year he printed privately The Tables of the Law and the Adoration of the Magi, afterwards published in a volume of Mr Elkin Mathews's "Vigo Street Cabinet" in 1904. In 1889 he published The Wind among the Reeds, containing some of his best lyrics, and in 1900 another poetical drama, The Shadowy Waters. He now became specially interested in the establishment of an Irish literary theatre; and he founded and conducted an occasional periodical (appearing fitfully at irregular intervals), called first Beltain and later Samhain, to expound its aims and preach his own views, the first number appearing in May 1899. In the autumn of 1901 Mr F. R. Benson's company produced in London the play Diarmuid and Grania, written in collaboration by him and George Moore. In 1902 he published his own first original play in prose, Cathleen ni Houlihan, which was printed in Samhain in October that year. In 1903 be collected and published a volume of literary and critical essays, to which he gave the title, Ideas of Good and Evil. In the same and the following years he published a collected edition of his Plays for an Irish Theatre, comprising Where There is Nothing, The Hour-Glass, Cathleen ni Houlihan, The Pol of Broth, The King's Threshold and On Baile's Strand. In 1904 he also edited two volumes of Irish Representative Tales. Whether or not "Celtic" is the right word for it, Mr Yeats's art was quickly identified by enthusiasts with the literary side of the new Irish national movement. His inspiration may be traced in some measure to the Pre-Raphaelites and also to Blake, Shelley and Maeterlinck; but he found in his native Irish legend and life matter apt for his romantic and often elfin music, with its artful simplicities and unhackneyed cadences, and its elusive, inconclusive charm.

See the section on W. B. Yeats in Poets of the Younger Generation by William Archer (1902), and for bibliography up to June 1903, English Illustrated Magazine, vol. xxix. (N.S.) p. 288. A library edition of his collected works in prose and verse was issued by Mr Bullen from the Shakespeare Head Works, Stratford-on-Avon, in 8 vols., 1908.


YECLA, a town of E. Spain, in the extreme N. of the province of Murcia, on the Yeda-Villena railway; it is situated on the W. slope of Monte Castillo, which rises above the left bank of the Arroyo del Jua. Pop. (1900) 18,743. The chief buildings are a half-ruined citadel, a modern parish church with a pillared Corinthian facade, and a town hall standing in a fine arcaded square. Yecla has a thriving trade in the grain, wine, oil, fruit and esparto grass produced in the surrounding country.


YEISK, a town of Russia, in the province of Kuban (Caucasus), founded in 1848 on a sandbank which separates the shallow Bay of Yeisk from the Sea of Azov, 76 m. S.W. of Rostov-on-the-Don. Pop; 35,446. Notwithstanding its shallow road stead, Yeisk has grown with great rapidity, and exports corn, linseed and wool. There are wool-cleansing factories, oil-works and tanneries.


YELLOW FEVER, a specific infective tropical fever, the germ of which is transmitted by the Stegomyia fasciata or domestic mosquito, occurring endemically in certain limited areas. The area of distribution includes the West Indies, Mexico, part of Central America, the W. coast of Africa and Brazil. The first authentic account of yellow fever comes from Bridgetown, Barbados, in 1647, where it was recognized as a "nova pestis" that was unaccountable in its origin, except that Ligon, the historian of the colony, who was then on the spot, connected it with the arrival of ships. It was the same new pestilence that Dutertre, writing in 1667, described as having occurred in the French colony of Guadeloupe in 1635 and 1640; it recurred at Guadeloupe in 1648, and broke out in a peculiarly disastrous form at St Kitts the same year, and again in 1652; in 1655 it was at Port Royal, Jamaica; and from those years onwards it became familiar at many harbours in the West Indies and Spanish Main. It appeared at the Brazilian ports in 1849. In 1853 it appeared in Peru and in 1820 on the W. coast of Africa. In Georgetown (British Guiana) 69% of the garrison died in 1840.

During the great period of yellow fever (1793–1805), and for some years afterwards, the disease found its way time after time to various ports of Spain. Cadiz suffered five epidemics in the 18th century, Malaga one and Lisbon one; but from 1800 down to 1821 the disease assumed much more alarming proportions, Cadiz being still its chief seat, while Seville, Malaga, Cartagena, Barcelona, Palma, Gibraltar and other shipping places suffered severely, as well as some of the country districts nearest to the ports. In the severe epidemic at Barcelona in the summer of 1821, 5000 persons died. At Lisbon in 1857 upwards of 6000 died in a few weeks. In New Orleans 7970 people died in 1853, 3093 in 1867, and 4056 in 1878. In Rio 4160 died in 1850, 1943 in 1852, and 1397 in 1886.

Certain distinct conditions have seemed to be necessary for an outbreak. Foremost we may notice a high atmospheric temperature, one of 75° F. or over. As the thermometer sinks, the disease ceases to spread. Moisture favours the spread of yellow fever, and epidemics in the tropics have usually occurred about the rainy season. Seaport towns are most affected. In many instances the elevated airy and hygienic quarters of a town may escape, while the shore districts are decimated. Usually the disease does not spread to villages or sparsely populated districts. Certain houses become hotbeds of the disease, case after case occurring in them; and it is usually in houses that the disease is contracted. A house may be said to be infected when it contains infected mosquitoes, whether there be a yellow-fever patient there or not. Ships become infected in the same way, the old wooden trading ships affording an ideal hiding-place to the Stegomyia in a way that the modern and airy steamship does not.

The incubation period of yellow fever is generally four or five days, but it may be as short as twenty-four hours. There are usually three marked stages: (1) the febrile period, (2) the period of remission or lull, (3) in severe cases, the period of reaction. The illness usually starts with languor, chilliness, headache, and muscular pains, which might be the precursors of any febrile attack. These are followed by a peculiar look of the eyes and face, which is characteristic: the face is flushed, and the eyes suffused at first and then congested or ferrety, the nostrils and lips red, and the tongue scarlet—these being the most obvious signs of