On True Plague
Creator: Johann Gottfried Berger | Date: April 1710 | Notes: Original title: De pestilentia vera A Latin Wittenberg medical disputation that defines "true plague" as a distinct acute disease marked by buboes, carbuncles, and eruptions, and argues that its sole cause is contagion. The work explains transmission through a contagious "seed" and a carrier or "tinder" (*seminarium* and *fomes*), rejects atmospheric, astrological, dietary, and putrefactive explanations, and draws practical conclusions about segregation, quarantine, and prompt treatment. 👉 <a href="https://tryleo.ai/collections/exlatinis/fracastoros-missing-footnote-how-a-wittenberg-physician-argued-plague-in-a-vocabulary-he-never-cited">Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here</a> 📜 <a href="https://archive.org/details/b3037599x">View the original file on Internet Archive</a> This text was transcribed and translated as part of the ExLatinis project—an effort by Leo to make English translations of every published text in Latin in early modern Europe (between 1450 and 1750) available to the public for free online.
- Title
- On True Plague
- Creator
- Johann Gottfried Berger
- Date
- April 1710
- Notes
- Original title: De pestilentia vera A Latin Wittenberg medical disputation that defines "true plague" as a distinct acute disease marked by buboes, carbuncles, and eruptions, and argues that its sole cause is contagion. The work explains transmission through a contagious "seed" and a carrier or "tinder" (*seminarium* and *fomes*), rejects atmospheric, astrological, dietary, and putrefactive explanations, and draws practical conclusions about segregation, quarantine, and prompt treatment. 👉 <a href="https://tryleo.ai/collections/exlatinis/fracastoros-missing-footnote-how-a-wittenberg-physician-argued-plague-in-a-vocabulary-he-never-cited">Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here</a> 📜 <a href="https://archive.org/details/b3037599x">View the original file on Internet Archive</a> This text was transcribed and translated as part of the ExLatinis project—an effort by Leo to make English translations of every published text in Latin in early modern Europe (between 1450 and 1750) available to the public for free online.
Document notes
Original title: De pestilentia vera A Latin Wittenberg medical disputation that defines "true plague" as a distinct acute disease marked by buboes, carbuncles, and eruptions, and argues that its sole cause is contagion. The work explains transmission through a contagious "seed" and a carrier or "tinder" (*seminarium* and *fomes*), rejects atmospheric, astrological, dietary, and putrefactive explanations, and draws practical conclusions about segregation, quarantine, and prompt treatment. 👉 Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here 📜 View the original file on Internet Archive This text was transcribed and translated as part of the ExLatinis project—an effort by Leo to make English translations of every published text in Latin in early modern Europe (between 1450 and 1750) available to the public for free online.
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G. VII. Vol 52492/P 2. B. V. RECTORE MAGNIFICENTISSIMO SERENISSIMO PRINCIPE REGIO AC DOMINO DN. FRIDERICO AVGVSTO ELECT. SAXON. HEREDE DISERTATIONEM SOLENNEM DE PESTILENTIA VERA PRAESIDE PRORECTORE MAGNIFICO D. IO. GOTHOFREDO BERGERO ARCHIATRO REGIO, COLLEG. MED. SENIORE ET PROF. PRIM. PRO LICENTIA IMPETRANDI SVMMOS IN ARTE SALVTARI HONORES P. P. M. ABRAHAMVS VATER VITEMBERG. A. D. APRIL. cl[.] I5 cc X. IN AVDITORIO MAIORI HORIS ANTE ET POST MERIDIEM CONSVETIS. VITEMBERGAE, PRELO GERDESIANO.
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G. VII. Vol 52492/P 2. B. V. Under the most magnificent Rector, the most serene royal prince and lord Lord Frederick Augustus, Hereditary Elector of Saxony, a solemn dissertation on true Pestilence, under the presidency of the magnificent Pro-Rector Dr. Johann Gottfried Berger, royal physician-in-chief, senior of the medical faculty, and first professor, for the purpose of obtaining the highest honors in the healing art, presented by M. Abrahamus Vater of Wittenberg. On April. cl[.] I5 cc X. in the Great Auditorium at the customary hours before and after midday. Wittenberg, printed by Gerdes.
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DE PESTILENTIA VERA DISSERTATIO SOLENNIS I. D Vo sunt horrenda morborum genera, quæ, ex ceteris terrarum orbis partibus delata in Europam contagione, et propagata, vitæ mortalium ac valetudini, tot alioqui casibus opportunæ, insidiantur. Ex his alterum, superioribus ignotum seculis, a Græcis certe, et Latinis, Arabibusque nusquam notatum, sed anno demum a nato Servatore c[uius] cccccxiii, cum A 2
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ON PESTILENCE A TRUE SOLEMN TREATISE I. There are two dreadful kinds of diseases, which, brought by contagion from the other parts of the world into Europe and spread abroad, lie in wait for the lives and health of mortals, so otherwise exposed to so many accidents. Of these, the one, unknown to the earlier centuries, certainly never noted by the Greeks, the Latins, or the Arabs, but only at length in the year 513 after the birth of the Savior, when A 2
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DE PESTILENTIA cum redeunte ex Indiis Occidentalibus, infecto Christophori Columbi exercitu advectum, Barcinonem primum in Hispaniis, mox deinceps, expeditionis Gallicæ occasione, Neapolim et Italianiam reliquam invasit, indeque in Galliam, et Germaniam, ac ceteras orbis partes, pervenit. Hoc malum virus suum crassum lentumque non nisi impuri contactu corporis per magis hiantes atque meabiles partes infundit, et quia blanditiis et complexibus potissimum venereis sese insinuat, merito venereum vocatur, atque, ob miras commiscendorum corporum libidines, nusquam locorum cessat, et nunc palam se prodit, atque gravissimis dolorum cruciatibus, et exanthematis ac tumoribus variis excruciat hominem et conficit, nunc vero clanculum et aliorum specie morborum, quibus se implicat, infirmat eundem ac perdit. Alterum ex Oriente, et vicinis ei locis, ubi est perpetuum ac veluti domesticum, cum infectis hominibus atque exili sæpe fomite in alias immigrat regiones, et obscurissimi contactus, halitusque contagione ab uno susceptum, facile subitoque manat latius, magnaque celeritate plures adoritur, ac veluti ab irato Numine missum, in populum, nil tale metuentem, et in- cau-
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OF THE PLAGUE which, returning from the West Indies with the infected army of Christopher Columbus, first reached Barcelona in Spain, then, on the occasion of the French expedition, invaded Naples and the rest of Italy, and from there spread into France and Germany, and the other parts of the world. This evil injects its thick, viscous poison only through impure contact of the body, and that chiefly through the more open and penetrable parts; and because it insinuates itself especially by caresses and embraces of a venereal kind, it is rightly called venereal. Moreover, because of the wondrous lust for mingling bodies, it never ceases in any place, and now openly reveals itself, and tortures and destroys a man with the most grievous torments of pain, and with various eruptions and swellings; now, however, it works secretly and, under the guise of other diseases with which it entangles itself, weakens and ruins the same man. The other, from the East and the regions adjacent to it, where it is perpetual and as it were domestic, often migrates with infected men and a slight seed to other regions; and, taken up from one person through contagion by the most hidden contact and by breath, it easily and suddenly spreads farther, attacks many with great speed, and, as though sent by an angry deity, falls upon a people fearing nothing of the sort, and un-
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VERA 5 cautum, grassatur, et, quod tabum venereum mora et tardius, hoc celerrime efficit, eoque maximam ægrorum partem et populosissimas civitates brevi funeribus tantisper exhaurit, dum serpendo elangvescat tandem, et sæpe tam subito finem affligendi faciat, ac si fato quodam divino diutius sævire prohibeatur. II. S Aevum hoc et immane ac perniciosissimum genus mali vulgo Pestis, rectius Pestilentia, dicitur, et quia contactu occultiore polluit et suscipitur, atque contagii et nocendi vi ac sævitia morbis contagiosis omnibus aliis longissime antecellit, etiam contagionis nomen sibi vindicavit. Nos vero Pestilentiam diximus veram, ut omnem evitaremus vocum ambiguitatem, et luem hanc contagiosam, de qua agere nobis est animus, ab epidemia, quæ varia esse potest, distingveremus. Quod cum vulgo minus animadvertatur, hic mox in limine dissertationis monendum est, apud veteres pestem proprie omne noxium, pestilentiam vero, quam Græci λοιμὸν vocant, non unum aliquod certum morbi genus, sed generatim morbum quemcunque perniciosum, qui B 3
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TRUE 5 it spreads stealthily, and, what the venereal contagion accomplishes more slowly and more tardily, this brings about with the greatest speed; and thus it in a short time drains off a very large part of the sick and the most populous cities by funerals, while it at length wastes away by creeping, and often brings its afflicting work to an end so suddenly as if by some divine decree it were forbidden to rage any longer. II. This age and monstrous and most pernicious kind of evil is commonly called the Plague, more correctly Pestilence, and because it defiles and is contracted by a more secret contact, and in the force and ferocity of contagion and harm far surpasses all other contagious diseases, it has even claimed the name of contagion for itself. But we have said Pestilence in the true sense, so that we might avoid all ambiguity of words, and distinguish this contagious disease, which it is our intention to discuss, from epidemic disease, which may be of various kinds. And since this is less commonly noticed, it must at once be remarked here at the outset of the dissertation that, among the ancients, pestis properly meant every harmful thing, but pestilentia, which the Greeks call λοιμὸν, not one certain kind of disease, but in general any disease whatsoever that is pernicious, which B 3
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DE PESTILENTIA qui ob causam aliquam communem, eamque non patriam, sed externam et adventitiam, ac præsertim ob pravam anni constitutionem, in populum grassatur, appellatum fuisse. Qua ratione omnes prope morbi, qui a Græcis ἐπιδημιοι dicuntur, in hunc censum veniunt: uti ex pluribus Hippocratis in Epidemiis historiis, et Celso de Med. lib. I, cap. 2 et 10, multisque aliis patet. Et hos quidem cum Galeno complures hodie in morbos epidemios puros, sive simpliciter dictos, et λοικωδεις, sive pestilentes dividunt, ita tamen, ut hos æque ac illos a communis vitio aeris, tum et publici victus labe deducendos putent. Sed rectius faciunt, qui ab illis pestilentiæ generibus morbum hunc maxime acutum, qui carbunculis efferatus et bubonibus, atque exanthematis variis, cum immani symptomatum syndrome, vi contagionis oritur, et serpit, distingvunt, eumque demum veræ pestilentiæ nomen mereri arbitrantur. Hæc enim est pestilentia illa calamitosa, quæ, ut habet Propheta Regius Psal. XCI, v. 3 et 6, occultis contagii insidiis nil tale metuentes implicat, sicuti aves laqueo aucupis irretiuntur, et celeri volatu, volantis instar sagittæ, domus urbesque peragrat, ac metam tangit, nec
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OF PESTILENCE which, for some common cause, and that not native, but foreign and adventitious, and especially on account of the corrupt constitution of the year, attacks the people, is said to have been so called. In this way almost all diseases that among the Greeks are called ἐπιδημιοι come under this category: as is clear from several histories in Hippocrates’ Epidemics, and from Celsus, De Med. lib. I, ch. 2 and 10, and many others. And some today, together with Galen, divide these into many pure epidemic diseases, or simply so called, and λοικωδεις, or pestilential ones, yet in such a way that they think these, no less than those, are to be derived from a common corruption of the air, and also from the taint of public sustenance. But those act more rightly who distinguish from those kinds of pestilence this disease, which is most acute, fierce with carbuncles and buboes, and with various exanthemata, which arises and spreads by the force of contagion, with an enormous syndrome of symptoms, and which they judge at last deserves the name of true pestilence. For this is the calamitous pestilence which, as the Royal Prophet has in Psalm XCI, vv. 3 and 6, by hidden snares of contagion entangles those who fear no such thing, just as birds are ensnared by the fowler’s net, and with swift flight, like a flying arrow, passes through houses and cities, and reaches its goal, nor
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VERA 7 nec minus in tenebris grassatur, quam in meridie vastat. III. QVæ cum mecum considero, in eam venio opinionem, pestilentiam hanc contagiosam vix latis perspectam veteribus fuisse, quod minus vim contagii attenderint, sed pestilentiam omnem communi aeris, quem spiritu ducimus, iniuriæ atqve intemperaturæ, et cibi potionisque improbitati, tribuendam putarint. Neque enim ad veræ pestilentiæ naturam pertinere, ut morbus sit epidemius, præclare Eustachius Rudius Pract. lib. I, c. 30, monuit. Quem sequutus Sennertus noster, de Febr. lib. IV, cap. 1, si vel unus in urbe pestilentia corriperetur, propterea, quod solus ille laboret, eundem pestilentia laborare, non negandum esse, recte censuit. Nam satis quidem crebra animadversione compertum est, invecta aliquo undecunque per contagium pestilentiæ causa, quæ saltem pluribus communicari apta sit, eam tamen non ilico epidemiam fieri, sed in paucis sæpe subiectis aliquandiu hærere, nec raro extingui ante, quam epidemia vel communis evadat. Quod vero CL. Conringius Dissert. de
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VERA 7 it also prowls no less in darkness than it ravages at midday. III. When I consider these things with myself, I come to this opinion: that this contagious pestilence was scarcely clearly understood by the ancients, because they paid less attention to the force of contagion, but thought that every pestilence was to be attributed to an injury and intemperance of the common air which we breathe, and to the excesses of food and drink. Nor indeed does it pertain to the nature of a true pestilence, that the disease be epidemic, as Eustachius Rudius admirably noted, Pract. lib. I, c. 30. Following him, our Sennertus, de Febr. lib. IV, cap. 1, rightly judged that if even one man in a city were seized by pestilence, then because only he is ill, it must not be denied that he suffers from pestilence. For it has indeed been clearly established by frequent observation that, when a cause of pestilence is brought in by contagion from somewhere or other, a cause at least capable of being communicated to many, it does not immediately become epidemic, but often clings for some time to a few subjects, and not rarely is extinguished before it becomes epidemic or common. But what the distinguished Conringius, Dissert. de
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DE PESTILENTIA de peste, thes. 6, hic distingvendum esse putavit inter pestem, et morbum pestilentem aut pestiferum, illaque morbum semper communem significari voluit, pestilentem vero etiam illum esse, qui nondum actu est communis, modo ea sit natura, ut facile communis reddi possit, perinde scilicet, quo simili cum Scherbio rem illustrat, atque in republica cives interdum seditiosi reperiantur, seditionem tamen aut non, aut nondum molientes; id quidem hoc minus ad rem facere videtur, quo notius est, morbi pestilentis aut pestiferi notionem non unum certum morbi genus denotare, sed morbos quosvis malignos et exitiales complecti. Satis est, propria pestilentiæ symptomata adesse, et vim se per contagium propagandi, etiamsi non ita exeratur, ut actu commune pluribus malum fiat. Quod profecto sciri plurimum interest reipublicae, quo contagii propagatio sine mora matureque declinari possit, quæ alioqui, serius paulo adhibita cura, non unis ædibus, sed universis civitatibus periculum creat. Sicut enim ignis natura quidem sua urit, nec tamen naturæ suæ vim amittit, si non urat subtractam materiam: ita nec contagiosa pestilentia nomen amittit, quæ ex una domo, aut
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ON PLAGUE On the plague, thesis 6, he thought it should here be distinguished between the plague and a pestilential or pestiferous disease; and he wished the former always to signify a common disease, but the latter also to be that disease which is not yet actually common, provided that its nature be such that it can easily be made common, just as, in the comparison with Scherbius, he illustrates the matter, in the state there are sometimes found citizens inclined to sedition, though they are either not plotting sedition, or not yet plotting it; yet this seems all the less relevant to the point, since it is well known that the notion of a pestilential or pestiferous disease does not denote one fixed kind of illness, but includes all diseases that are malignant and deadly. It is enough that the proper symptoms of plague be present, and that it have the power to spread by contagion, even if it is not so exercised that it actually becomes a common evil among many. Certainly it is of the greatest importance for the state to know this, so that the spread of contagion may be promptly and without delay averted, which otherwise, if care be applied a little later, creates danger not for one house only, but for entire cities. For just as fire, by its very nature, burns, yet does not lose the force of its nature if it does not burn the material removed from it: so too a contagious pestilence does not lose its name, which from one house, or
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VERA 9 aut platea, aut vico, prohibito infectorum commercio, non effertur, eoque multos non sustulit. Illud certe ex Prospero Alpino, de Med. Aegypt. lib. I, cap. 15, et Petro Della Valle, in Itiner. or. tom. I, p. 10, et seqq. atque aliis huius generis scriptoribus iam satis constat, pestem in Valachia, nec non Bizantii, itemque in Græcia, Syria, et Aegypto, ac præsertim in Barbaria, quod nulla illis gentibus, quæ fati necessitate pestilentiam immitti, credunt, sit devitationis cura, nunquam non clanculum obrepere, et tam propiore consortio, infectorum nempe hominum contactu afflatuque, propagari, quam cum vestimentis, et rebus variis laneis, lineisque, ac bombycinis, tradito quasi per manus contagio, ex ædibus et urbibus aliis in alias deportari, subinde autem, invalescente contagio, citissime sævissimeque per populum ita diffundi ac disseminari, ut paucorum spatio dierum multa sæpe millia hominum depascatur. Pari modo Hieron. Mercurialis tradit, pestem, quæ anno MD LXXV, mense Iulio, per contagium Venetias delata fuit, ab eo tempore usque ad totum Decembrem, sparsis paulatim per urbem inquinamentis, modo unum saltem, vel alterum, modo plures invalisse, ac B ineun-
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VERA 9 whether in the street or in the lane, with intercourse among the infected prohibited, it is not carried out, and so has not carried off many. This at least is already sufficiently established from Prosper Alpinus, De Med. Aegypt. lib. I, cap. 15, and Pietro Della Valle, in Itiner. or. tom. I, p. 10, et seqq., and other writers of this kind: that the plague in Wallachia, as well as in Byzantium, likewise in Greece, Syria, and Egypt, and especially in Barbary, because among those peoples there is no care to avoid it, since they believe pestilence is sent by fate, never fails to creep in secretly, and to spread both by closer association, namely by the contact and breath of infected men, and also by garments and various woolen, linen, and silk items, as it were by a hand-to-hand contagion, being carried from one house and city to another; then, as the contagion gains strength, to spread and disseminate itself through the populace most swiftly and most violently, so that in the space of a few days it often devours many thousands of people. In the same way Hieron. Mercurialis reports that the plague which in the year MD LXXV, in the month of July, was brought by contagion to Venice, from that time until the whole of December, as the defilements slowly spread through the city, sometimes seized only one, or at most another, sometimes several, and B ineun-
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DE PESTILENTIA incunte anno sequenti omnia semina visa fuisse penitus extincta. Circa Martii vero initium malum recruduisse ex occasione contaminatæ suppellectilis, quæ per aliquot menses latuerat occlusa; ab eoque tempore ad mensem usque Iulium semina modo maiorem, modo minorem vim exercuisse, ita ut interdum plures dies sine cuiusquam morte transferint, interdum unus vel alter obierit, quandoque plures, quandoque pauciores. Circa medium Iulium mala omnia acerbiora facta esse, complures visos ægros, frequentiores mortes, atque hæc omnia incrementum sumisse per totum mensem Augustum, Septembrem, atque etiam initium Octobris, ita ut his mensibus morbis in suo vigore fuerit. Postea omnia coepisse declinare. Et quidni pestis vocanda erit, quæ, ut habet Anton. Deusingius, tr. de peste c.2, anno 1656 Groningam per contagium vestibus allata, sparsimque in urbe amplissima oberrans, paucas tantum ædes inquinavit, quosque infecit, plerosque omnes extinxit: aut quæ, ut refert Mart. Listerus, Comm. in Med. Stat. Sanctor. Sect. I, aphor. 137, cum vestimentis, ad ducenta millaria Londino tempore pestilentia missis, totam familiam infecit, in eaque substitit. Taceo, quod
Transcription: Translated (English)
OF THE PESTILENCE at the beginning of the following year all the seeds seemed to have been utterly extinguished. But around the beginning of March the evil was seen to flare up again, on account of contaminated household goods, which had lain shut up for several months; and from that time until the month of July the seeds exercised now greater, now lesser force, so that at times several days passed without anyone’s death, at times one or two died, sometimes more, sometimes fewer. Around the middle of July all the evils became more severe, many sick persons were seen, deaths became more frequent, and all these things increased throughout the whole month of August, September, and even the beginning of October, so that in those months the disease was at its height. Afterwards everything began to decline. And why should that not be called pestilence, which, as Anton. Deusingius has it, tr. de peste c.2, was brought to Groningen in the year 1656 by contagion in clothing, and roaming scattered through that very large city infected only a few houses, yet of those whom it infected it killed nearly all; or that which, as Mart. Lister relates, Comm. in Med. Stat. Sanctor. Sect. I, aphor. 137, with garments sent from London at the time of the plague to a distance of two hundred miles, infected the whole family and there stopped? I say nothing of that which
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VERA 11 quod Matth. Untzerus lib. I. de Peste memorat, sibi oculato testi constare, quod tum Halis Saxo- num, tum alibi interdum, una aut altera dunta- xat domus pestifera contagione, peregrinis locis illata, fucrit contaminata, ceteris in tota urbe ni- hil ab eadem passis. Ita enim usus docuit, hanc pestilentiam non nisi contagio ex aliis in alias, re- motas æque ac vicinas, regiones inferri, et in eodem coeli, quamvis salubri, tractu, in uno oppi- do grassari, ab aliis vero arceri, et importatam in ea, ac nascentem, ipso in somite ac veluti in in- cunabulis extingvi, et unius ædis, vel plateæ, aut urbanæ cuiusdam regionis limitibus ac terminis coerceri ita posse, ne erumpat ac evagetur in urbem reliquam, admissam vero interius plures in ædes & plateas, virus suum maiore vi in po- pulum evomere, et miseras hominum strages in- ferre. Quæ cum ita crebro admodum evenire prudentiores perspicerent, orta demum est sa- pientissimo consilio, quæ, quantum ex silentio autorum liquet, antiquis temporibus minus qui- dem in usu fuisse videtur, cautio illa ac provisio, quam pestilentiæ tempore magno cum fructu servari diligenter videmus, ut nemo, qui ex lo- cis suspectis, nedum ex infectis accesserit, reci- pia-
Transcription: Translated (English)
what Matth. Untzerus mentions in book I, On the Plague, namely that he knew from eyewitness testimony that both in Halle in Saxony and elsewhere, at times only one or two houses were contaminated by pestilential contagion brought in from foreign places, while the rest of the city suffered nothing from it. Experience has thus taught that this plague is brought in only by contagion from other regions into others, both distant and nearby, and that in the same tract of sky, though healthy, it rages in one town, while being kept away from others; and that when imported there and arising, it can be extinguished in the very seed and, as it were, in the cradle, and restrained within the limits and boundaries of a single house, or street, or certain district of a city, so that it does not break out and spread into the rest of the city; but once admitted farther into several houses and streets, it pours out its poison with greater force upon the people and brings about miserable slaughter of human beings. Since the more prudent observed that this very often happened, there finally arose, by the wisest counsel, that precaution and provision, which, so far as is clear from the silence of authors, seems indeed to have been less in use in ancient times, namely that protection which, in time of plague, we see diligently observed with great benefit, that no one who has come from suspicious places, much less from infected ones, be received-
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DE PESTILENTIA piatur, nec quicquam, quod ex talibus locis ad- vectum sit, admittatur, quamdiu id malum gras- setur. IV. H Oc pestis genus ante annos hos xxx recorda- mur, ex Asia Bizantium, indeque per Hungari- am, Austriam et Bohemiam, Misniam et Saxoniam invasisse, et oppida alia eadem gravissime laborasse, alia, etsi non longe dissita, exclusa cum illis locis omni commerciorum necessitudine, nihil vitii traxisse. In his memoranda est Vitemberga no- stra, quæ cum vulgo minus salubris præter ra- tionem dicatur, hoc demum fatali tempore sin- gulari Dei beneficio inter urbes hac lue afflictas omnis periculi expersfuit. Eiusdem generis pesti- lentiam hucusque in Polonia, Borussia, Moldavia, et quibusdam Transylvaniæ locis sæviisse, non minus ex modo propagandi, quam omni sympto- matum concursione, dilucide apparet. Quos enim lues hæc incessit, in his repente magna fit totius corporis mutatio, qua non solum plerique omnes intereunt, sed suo etiam halitu alios pol- luunt, vel relictio fomite idem genus mali prose- minant. Ac primo quidem insultu lastitudo quæ-
Transcription: Translated (English)
ON PESTILENCE let it be purified, and let nothing that has been brought from such places be admitted, so long as that evil is spreading. IV. We remember that this kind of plague thirty years ago came from Asia to Byzantium, and from there through Hungary, Austria, and Bohemia, Misnia, and Saxony, and that certain towns suffered most grievously, while others, though not far distant, having been cut off from all intercourse of trade with those places, took on no taint. Among these our Wittenberg deserves mention, which, though commonly said to be less healthy than is reasonable, at this fatal time, by a singular blessing of God, among the cities afflicted by this plague was free from all danger. That a pestilence of the same kind has so far raged in Poland, Prussia, Moldavia, and certain parts of Transylvania is clearly evident no less from the manner of its spread than from the concurrence of all the symptoms. For those whom this plague attacks are suddenly subjected to a great change throughout the whole body, by which not only do very many perish, but they also infect others with their breath, or, when left behind, sow the same kind of evil as a contagion. And at the first attack, weariness which—
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VERA. 13 quædam subita atque improvisa, et gravitas ac dolor capitis, per spinam et lumbos protensus, ingruit, accedit etiam nausea quædam, horroreque corpus vario plerumque perfunditur. Mox opinione citius vehemens assiduaque fit vomitio, cum cardialgia, et insigni præcordiorum angustia, magnaque inquietudine, et gravibus anxii pressique cordis successibus. Sæpe illuvies serosa biliosaque aluo deturbatur, et diarrhæa oritur, sangvisque eodem loco, nec raro ore, naribus, utero erumpit tam floridus ac tenuis, ut, quod Isbrand. Diemerbrockius notavit, tr. de Peste, lib. 1, cap. 14, hæmorrhagia plerumque sisti non possit. Dolores nunc in ventre tantum, colicam mentientes, nunc toto corpore sæviunt mobiles et vagabundi, membraque punctim feriunt. Vigiliæ alios perpetuæ excruciant, quas subitum sequitur delirium, alios sopor tenet. Pulsus frequens est, et debilis, inæqualis ut plurimum: aliquando etiam, si obiter tangatur, moderato non absimilis videtur. Lotium alias aquosum redditur et limpidum, ac sanorum simile, alias varium, rubrum, turbidum et confusum, sicut iumentorum. Vires, quas alioqui non nisi progressu morbi atteri consentaneum est, hic statim principio mali omnes B 3
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VERA. 13 Certain things suddenly and unexpectedly arise, and a heaviness and pain of the head, extending through the spine and loins, set in; there is also some nausea, and the body is usually overspread with various chills. Soon, sooner than one would think, violent and repeated vomiting begins, with cardialgia, and marked oppression of the præcordia, great restlessness, and severe anxious constriction of the heart. Often a serous and bilious discharge is driven from the bowels, and diarrhœa arises, and blood erupts from the same place, and not rarely from the mouth, nostrils, and womb, so florid and thin that, as Isbrand. Diemerbrockius noted, tr. de Peste, lib. 1, cap. 14, the hæmorrhage can generally not be stopped. Pain now rages only in the belly, mimicking colic, now throughout the whole body, moving and wandering, and striking the limbs with stabbing pains. Sleeplessness tortures some unceasingly, which is followed by sudden delirium; others are held by sleep. The pulse is frequent and weak, and for the most part unequal: sometimes also, if touched only lightly, it seems not unlike a moderate one. The urine is at times passed watery and clear, and like that of healthy persons; at times various, red, turbid, and confused, like that of beasts of burden. The strength, which otherwise it is proper to think is worn away only by the progress of the disease, here at once, at the very beginning of the illness, all B 3
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DE PESTILENTIA omnes concidunt, tam eæ, quæ motionum, quam quæ sensuum, ipsiusque adeo mentis operationibus sunt necessariæ. Vultus vividi caloris gratia caret, sibique plane sit dissimilis, ac crebræ existunt animi defectiones. Calor nunc foris mitior, reapse autem intus vigens et urens, ut satis ex lingva scabra et nigra, anhelosa, et quæ ore obitur patulo, respiratione, sitique aliquando inextingvibili patet, nunc acrior, cum siti nulla, vel parva, variorum symptomatum febrilium agmine stipatur. Inter hæc die tertio quartove, ocyus tamen interdum, aliquando serius, bubones extumescunt subito, magnitudine, colore doloreque varii, frequentius ad ingvina, vel sub alis, nonnunquam sub genibus, mento, et pone aures, et modo in hac, modo in illa corporis parte comites erumpunt anthraces, quibus, tanquam accensis facibus, pestilentia intus fulgurat, donec tandem sideret. In aliquibus etiam variegantes cutem maculæ, paucæ, copiosæve, et vel culicum morsibus similes, aut minores, quas vocant petechias, variorum colorum, purpureæ, violaceæ, virides, lividæ, nigræ, et piperis ideam referentes, vel maiores, vibicum instar, eæque aliquando a bubone, sæpius ab anthrace,
Transcription: Translated (English)
OF PESTILENCE all fall down, both those things that are necessary for the operations of motion, and of the senses, and indeed of the mind itself. The countenance, devoid of the warmth of life, is utterly unlike itself, and frequent faintings occur. The heat is now milder outside, but in truth raging and burning within, as is sufficiently shown by the tongue, rough and black, the labored breathing, and the open mouth, by the thirst sometimes unquenchable; now more acute, with no thirst, or only slight, accompanied by a train of various febrile symptoms. Among these, on the third or fourth day, though sometimes sooner, sometimes later, buboes suddenly swell up, varying in size, color, and pain, more commonly in the groin or under the armpits, sometimes under the knees, on the chin, and behind the ears; and now in this, now in that part of the body, carbuncles break out as companions, by which, as by kindled torches, the pestilence glows within, until at last it sinks. In some there are also spots of different hues on the skin, few or many, and either like the bites of gnats, or smaller, which they call petechiae, of various colors, purple, violet, green, livid, black, and resembling the appearance of pepper, or larger, like bruises, and these sometimes from the bubo, more often from the carbuncle,
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VERA 15 thrace, caudæ instar a cometa protensæ, vel etiam amplissimæ, et suffusionis more aut erysipelatis, integras corporis partes complexæ, ac sæpe punctis notatæ livescentibus nigrisve, efflorescunt, nec raro inter hæc omnia bullæ, sive vesiculæ serosæ, variæ magnitudinis, ac sæpe miliariæ servent. Videas tamen interdum ante, quam vel intumuerint bubones, vel efferbuerint carbunculi, vomitione assidua, vel fluxu alvi, crebraque animi defectione ita hominem repente prosterni affligique, ut non solum vires, sed etiam anima deficiat, apparentibus in cute, si non ante mortem, statim ab eadem, ex atro livescentibus maculis. Sed rarius id ita evenire, nec fere nisi in pestilentiæ admodum funestæ exordio, bene Th. Sydenhamius advertit, sect. III, obs. med. circa morb. crisin et curat. cap. 2. E contrario fieri etiam animadvertas, ut ex improviso alicubi bubo aut carbunculus emergat, nullo antegresso, aliquando etiam nullo succedente graviore symptomate, ita ut et in publicum prodire quis, et sua obire munia possit. Id de se ipso testatur Diemerbrockius l.c. lib. IV, cap. 120, quod cum centurionem prima vice invisisset, statim ab ipso contagium contraxerit, aborto in sinistra manu cum dolore ingen-
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there, extended like the tail of a comet, or even very large, and in the manner of a suffusion or erysipelas, embracing whole parts of the body, and often marked with blackish or livid spots, they break out, and not infrequently, among all these, blisters, or serous vesicles, of various size, and often millet-like, remain. Yet you may sometimes observe that, before either the buboes have swelled or the carbuncles have grown hot, a man is so suddenly struck down and afflicted by continual vomiting, or by diarrhea, and frequent faintness, that not only his strength, but even his life fails, with livid dark spots appearing on the skin, if not before death, then immediately at death itself. But that this happens more rarely, and scarcely except at the beginning of a very deadly pestilence, Th. Sydenham rightly observed, sect. III, obs. med. circa morb. crisin et curat. cap. 2. On the other hand, you may also observe that a bubo or carbuncle suddenly appears in some place, without any preceding, and sometimes even without any subsequent more serious symptom, so that a person may both go out in public and perform his duties. Diemerbrockius testifies this of himself in the passage cited, book IV, chap. 120, where he says that when he had visited the centurion for the first time, he immediately contracted the contagion from him, after an abortion in the left hand, with pain in the
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DE PESTILENTIA ingenti carbunculo, quem sola quidem toxicorum applicatione curaverit, cetera incolumis et sanus. Idem ille tradit evenisse militi, centurionis servo. Haud aliter refert Platerus, Prax. tr. II, cap. 2, et 17, sibi ipsi in manibus, et servo chirurgo in pedibus, pustulam pestilentialem citra febrim, vel aliquam noxam obortam fuisse. Sed quoquo modo ea lues afficiat, nunquam tamen non coniunctum habet seminarium contagii, quo manare longius et propagari possit. Ac solet quidem pestilentia, pro vario contagionis vigore, et habitudine partium, quas hæc invadit, itemque ipsorummet natura ægrotantium varia, varia excitare symptomata, adeo ut sæpe Prothei ostendat faciem, et in magna infectorum multitudine raro unus alterve eodem prorsus modo affligatur: eam tamen, facta eorum, quæ commemoravimus, symptomatum inter se et cum contento ac præcipiti totius morbi cursu, qui tam brevi tempore, et paucarum spatio die- rum, aliquando etiam unius flexu conficitur, collatione et comparatione, non difficile erit cognoscere intelligenti et perito, ei præsertim, qui in hæc tempora inciderit, et versatus cum aliis peste correptis fuerit. Quodsi iam latius malum serpat,
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OF THE PLAGUE with a large carbuncle, which he cured by the application of poisons alone, the rest remaining unharmed and healthy. The same author relates that this also happened to a soldier, the servant of a centurion. Plater likewise reports, Prax. tr. II, cap. 2, and 17, that in his own case, on his hands, and in the case of a servant surgeon, on his feet, a pestilential pustule arose without fever or any other injury. But however this pestilence may affect someone, it nevertheless always has joined to it a seedbed of contagion, by which it may spread farther and propagate itself. And plague is accustomed, according to the varying force of the contagion, and the condition of the parts which it attacks, as well as the varying nature of the sick themselves, to excite various symptoms, so that it often shows the face of Proteus, and in a great multitude of the infected scarcely one or two are afflicted in exactly the same way. Yet by comparing and contrasting the symptoms mentioned above with one another and with the whole course of the disease, which is severe and rapid, and is sometimes finished in the span of only a few days, and at times even in the turning of a single day, it will not be difficult for one who is intelligent and experienced to recognize it, especially one who has fallen into these times and has been involved among others seized by the plague. But if the evil should now spread more widely,
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VERA 17 serpat, tunc luculentam suæ præsentiæ significationem exhibet. V. ATque hæc quidem facies exterior est illo- rum, qui pestilentia conflictantur, ex quo non difficulter de interiori constitutione existimes. Nam, uti Ambr. Paræus, lib. de peste, Laur. Gieselerus, obs. de peste 18, Io. Fernelius, lib. de febr. c. 18, Gall. Etschenreuterus in epist. ad Gesner. Th. Cornelius Consent. epist. Marc. Aur. Severini ad Tim. Locrens. aliique fidem faciunt, sectione cadaverum, pestilentia extinctorum, com- pertum est, non solum foris cutem, sed quoque intus viscera maculis undique obsideri, easque per musculos etiam, et membranas, vasaque ipsa, ita diffundi, ut, sumto ab interioribus initio, partes omnes ad cutem usque pervadere videantur. Ita Diemerbrockius l.c. lib. IV, hist. 32, maculas illas vidit in femore ab ipso periostio originem ducere, et latiore basi, pyramidis instar, per medios musculos recta sursum ad cutem usque ascendere, atque ibi in conum terminari. Idem in brachio deprehendit, basin duorum exanthematum a duro tendine cuiusdam musculi origi- nem C
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VERA 17 when it spreads, then it displays a clear sign of its presence. V. And this indeed is the outward appearance of those who are afflicted by pestilence, from which you may not unfittingly judge their inward condition. For, as Amb. Paræus, lib. de peste, Laur. Gieselerus, obs. de peste 18, Io. Fernelius, lib. de febr. c. 18, Gall. Etschenreuterus in epist. ad Gesner. Th. Cornelius Consent. epist. Marc. Aur. Severini ad Tim. Locrens. and others testify, by the dissection of bodies destroyed by pestilence it has been found that not only the skin outside, but also the viscera within, are everywhere beset with spots, and that these are spread through the muscles as well, and the membranes, and even the vessels themselves, so that, taking their beginning from within, all parts seem to extend all the way to the skin. Thus Diemerbrockius l.c. lib. IV, hist. 32, saw those spots taking their origin in the thigh from the periosteum itself, and with a broader base, like a pyramid, through the middle of the muscles rising straight upward to the skin, and there ending in a cone. He likewise observed in the arm the base of two exanthemata from the hard tendon of a certain muscle arising origin C
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DE PESTILENTIA nem ducere. Neque vero minus anthraces sive carbunculi non modo in partibus externis, sed etiam in interioribus, ventriculo, intestinis, renibus, liene, hepate, pulmonibus, atque visceribus aliis, observati fuerunt. Sangvis præterea fluidus et compage sua solutus a nonnullis repertus fuit, qui medicinæ publicæ in quibusdam Poloniæ oppidis præfuerunt. Quibuscum convenit, quod notavit Diemerbrockius l. c. lib. I, cap. 14, et lib. IV, hist. 17, sangvinem in peste correptis, vel secta vena missum, vel naribus aut utero manantem, non raro tam tenuem fuisse, ut sisti fluxio haud potuerit. Additque is contra V Villisium, in peste extinctis sangvinem nunquam in corde, aut vasis, coagulatum inveniri. Thomas autem Cornelius Consent. l. c. se vidisse, scribit, sangvinem, in dextro præsertim cordis ventriculo concretum, atque in duriusculam massam coactum, quo quidem fortean polypum cordis intellexerit, quem etiam Marcell. Malpighius, diff. de polypo cord. ait, in pestilentia extinctis aliquando reperiri. VI. Nunc, cum de causis pestilentiæ, de qua agimus, dicendum sit, consulto quidem præteri-
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DE PESTILENTIA nem ducere. Nor indeed were anthraces or carbuncles observed not only in external parts, but also in internal ones, in the stomach, intestines, kidneys, spleen, liver, lungs, and other viscera. Furthermore, the blood was found by some who were in charge of public medicine in certain towns of Poland to be fluid and dissolved in its structure. This agrees with what Diemerbrock, l. c. lib. I, cap. 14, and lib. IV, hist. 17, noted: that in those afflicted by the plague, the blood, whether drawn from a cut vein or flowing from the nostrils or womb, was often so thin that the bleeding could not be stopped. He adds, moreover, against V. Villisus, that in those who died of the plague blood is never found coagulated in the heart or vessels. Thomas Cornelius, however, in Consent. l. c., writes that he had seen blood congealed especially in the right ventricle of the heart and formed into a rather hard mass, by which he may perhaps have meant a cardiac polypus, which even Marcell. Malpighius, diff. de polypo cord., says is sometimes found in those who die of pestilence. VI. Now, since we must speak of the causes of the pestilence of which we are treating, it is indeed deliberate to omit...
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VERA 19 terimus, quæ vulgo de vi aeris pestifera, ex qua- litatum exuperantia, vel variis anomaliis, et magnis temporum tempestatumque conversionibus, aut etiam ex adspirationibus virosis paludum, stagno- rum, barathrorumque, vel commotæ intus concus- sæque et hiantis terræ, ac variorum fossilium, vel cadaverum insepultorum, corruptorum et com- putrescentium, afferri solent. His enim causis morbos quidem varios malignos et populares, ac pestilentiam aliquam nataxensinæs vocatam, nequaquam vero veram pestilentiam nasci, qui- vis facile intelligit, quicunque expertus est, hanc luem sæpius in regiones, magna coeli temperie gaudentes, sine ullo aeris vitio deferri, nec simul omnes in iis pagos et civitates, sed primo locum unum saltem, vel alterum, in coque non omnes eodem tempore ædes invadere, inde vero loca alia post alia, ac sæpe, intactis vicinis, aut minus salubribus, dissita, et omnium confessione saluberrima, infestare, ac præterea sine ea multas magnas- que aeris vicissitudines, et aquarum terrarumque expirationes graves tetrasque, fieri. Quare, si quas plerique prædictis aeris vitiis pestilentias tri- buunt, recte intueamur, eas vel a vera pestilen- tia longissime abesse deprehendemus, vel ori- ginem C 2
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VERA 19 we perceive that those things which are commonly said to arise from the harmful force of the air, from an excess of qualities, or from various irregularities and great changes of seasons and weather, or even from noxious exhalations of marshes, ponds, and bogs, or from the earth stirred within, shaken, and gaping open, and from various fossils, or from bodies unburied, corrupted, and rotting, are brought forward. For by these causes, indeed, various malignant and popular diseases, and some pestilence called nataxensinæs , do arise; but by no means does true pestilence arise, as anyone can easily understand who has experienced that this plague is more often carried into regions enjoying great moderation of climate, without any corruption of the air, and does not attack at once all the villages and cities in them, but first one place at least, or another, and there not all houses at the same time; then from there places one after another, and often, nearby settlements remaining untouched or less healthy, attacks those more remote which, by general consent, are most healthful; and besides this, without it many great changes of the air, and grievous and dark exhalations of waters and lands, occur. Wherefore, if we carefully examine those pestilences which most people attribute to the aforesaid defects of the air, we shall find them either to be very far removed from true pestilence, or to have their origin C 2
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20 DE PESTILENTIA ginem suam istis aeris mutationibus haudquaquam debere, comperiemus. Quæ perspiciens Fernelius, lib. II. de abdit. rer. caus. cap. 12, pestilentiæ causam non tam a labe quadam aeris manifesta, quam a superiorum corporum ac siderum, multifariam coeuntium, maligna quadam vi in hæc inferiora occulto influxu, deducendam putavit. Ac nescio, annon ad illas mutationes aeris vel manifestas, vel abditas et confictas, aut etiam μιάσμα sive inquinamenta eius, de quibus deinceps dicetur, referendum sit τὸ Θεῖον Hippocratis, quod hic morbis eiusmodi inesse voluit, quum notum sit, superstitiosam vetustatem statuisse αποθέωσιν elementorum, atque Hippocratem aerem fecisse divinitatis participem, et hunc Deum Iovemque ab aliis vocatum fuisse. Sed quoquo id modo se habeat, uti nullo idoneo argumento demonstrari potest, virus pestiferum ab aere gigni: sic illas Astrologorum ineptias tot contrariæ observationes, ut alia taceam, iam pridem exploserunt. Neque adeo operæ pretium est, huc referre vaticinationes illorum, qui ex aspectibus planetarum, et coniunctionibus eorum ac oppositionibus, ex ecclipsibus, cometis, stellis, quas vo- cant,
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20. ON PESTILENCE we shall find that its origin by no means ought to be attributed to those changes in the air. Fernelius, noticing these things, in book II, chapter 12, de abdit. rer. caus. , thought that the cause of pestilence should be derived not so much from some manifest corruption of the air, as from a certain malignant power of the higher bodies and stars, variously conjoined, acting by a hidden influx upon these lower regions. And I know not whether to those changes of the air, whether manifest or hidden and imagined, or even to μιάσμα, or its impurities, of which mention will be made later, the τὸ Θεῖον of Hippocrates should be referred, which he wished to inhere in diseases of this kind, since it is well known that antiquity in its superstition established an apotheosis of the elements, and that Hippocrates made the air a participant in divinity, and that this God was called Jupiter by others. But however this may be, since it cannot be demonstrated by any suitable argument that pestilential poison is generated from the air, so too have those follies of the astrologers, as I shall say nothing of other contradictory observations, long since been exploded. Nor is it therefore worthwhile to relate here the predictions of those who, from the aspects of the planets and their conjunctions and oppositions, from eclipses, comets, the stars, as they call them,
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VERA 21 cant, candentibus, et aliis in coelo evenientibus phænomenis, pestilentiam prædicere volunt, cum idem mereantur iudicium, quod prædictiones ex rosarum, violarum, aliorumque florum, sub autumni tempore nova germinatione, ex fungorum porro, aut boletorum, ut et vermi- um, ac insectorum, reptiliumve, proventu copio- so, ex frequentibus gravidarum abortibus, et re- bus similibus, quibus nimium indulgent plerique. VII. Nec vero attinet hic victum accusare, quasi a communis cibi potionisque labe pestilen- tia oriatur, idemque observetur in castris, et obsidionibus urbium, atque temporibus, ma- gna annonæ caritate afflictis, quibus situ putrilagineve obsita atque inquinata, corru- pta herbacea, atque insalubria inidoneaque o- mnia, nullo discrimine, vitæ tuendæ causa, in- geruntur, adeo ut iam olim apud Græcos na- tum sit proverbium: μετὰ λημὸς ο λομίδος, post famem pestis. Hos enim morbos, quos hæ causæ pariunt, cuivis intelligenti clarum est cum pestilentia vera confundi, cum nullis testimoniis, fide dignis, convincamur, id mali causis his or- tum C 3
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VERA 21 by charms, by bright objects, and by other phenomena occurring in the sky, they wish to predict pestilence, when they deserve the same judgment, as do predictions from roses, violets, and other flowers, from new growth in the autumn season, from mushrooms moreover, or boletuses, as well as from worms, and insects, or reptiles, in excessive abundance, from frequent miscarriages among pregnant women, and similar matters, to which most people indulge too much. VII. Nor indeed is there any need here to accuse diet, as though pestilence arose from the corruption of common food and drink, and the same is observed in camps, and in the sieges of cities, and in times when the great scarcity of grain afflicts people, in which, with things covered over and stained with decay or putrefaction, corrupted vegetables, and all unhealthy and unsuitable things are thrown in without distinction, for the sake of preserving life, so much so that long ago a proverb arose among the Greeks: μετὰ λημὸς ο λοιμός, after hunger, plague. For these diseases, which these causes produce, it is clear to anyone who understands that they are confused with true pestilence, since we are not convinced by any testimony worthy of credence that this evil has arisen from these causes C 3
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DE PESTILENTIA tum fuisse, uti prolixe Diemerbrockius ostendit, l. c. lib. I, c. 8, probl. 4. Sicubi autem extitit, potius exi- stimandum est, id aliunde per contagium adventum fuisse, cum constet, multis in locis, gliscentibus fa- me et annonæ difficultate, ex insolentium, et eo- rum, a quibus natura plane abhorret, usu esuque, ex sideratis frugibus, quæque seu rubiginem, seu æruginem contraxere, febres quidem malignas, diarrhæas, dysenterias, aliosve similes morbos, non tamen pestilentiam veram, emersisse. Quæ cum sæpe occultæ tectæque vi contagionis accedat, ea- que, nunc aliquandiu quiescente, nunc iterum exci- tata, varie propagetur, minus mirandum est, si de- inde de causa eius, ubi sævit, non raro tam variæ falsæque opiniones exoriantur. IX. Cum autem de aere hic aliter, atque alii, sentia- mus, eum quidem non ita omnis vitii absolvi- mus, quin fateamur, licet ex aere non nascatur malum hoc, tamen aerem, variis mutationibus suis varie maleque afficientem corpora, hæc ita disponere, ut aptiora fiant ad pestilentiæ semina suscipienda et alenda. Præsertim cum ipse quo- que, vitiis expirantium inquinatus, licet virus pe- stife-
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of the plague, indeed existed, as Diemerbrock has shown at length, l. c. lib. I, c. 8, probl. 4. But wherever it did exist, it should rather be thought to have come from elsewhere through contagion, since it is clear that, in many places, when famine and scarcity of provisions were increasing, from the unusual use and eating of things from which nature clearly shrinks, from blighted grains, which had contracted either rust or verdigris, there certainly arose malignant fevers, diarrheas, dysenteries, and other similar diseases, but not true pestilence. Since this often comes about by the hidden and concealed force of contagion, and since this, now resting for a time, now again aroused, spreads in various ways, it is less surprising if afterward, concerning its cause, wherever it rages, very different and false opinions often arise. IX. But since in this matter we think differently about the air than others do, we do not, to be sure, exempt it from every fault, but we admit that, although this evil does not arise from the air, still the air, by its various changes, affecting bodies in various harmful ways, so disposes them that they become more fit to receive and nourish the seeds of pestilence. Especially since it itself also, polluted by the exhalations of the sick, although the poison of the pesti-
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VERA 23 stiferum non pariat, tamen receptum collectumve provehat, et cum spiritu immittat. Multa, neque id diffitemur, speciosa in hac causa dici possunt, neque id nobis sumimus, ut alios omnes errores arguamus. Si tamen id, quod, re diligentius agitata, sentimus, dicamus libere, omnem huius mali culpam non aliunde, quam a contagio, repetendam ducimus. Quod enim de lue venerea supra diximus, id cum præsenti malo comparatum eiusmodi esse reperimus, ut utriusque rei causam vere effectricem contagium esse credamus. Id superioribus temporibus præ aliis agnovit Io. Crato, cum Assertione lib. de pestil. febr. in eo totus est, ut confirmet, febres pestilentes & contagiosas, quibus pestilentiam intelligit veram, aliam causam non habere, quam contagium, a seminario seu morbida expiratione corporum infectorum ortum, de causis autem aliis eos disputare sinit, qui contentionibus delectantur. Post hunc Th. V. Willi[us], de febr. c. 12, in eorum propendit sententiam, qui pestilentiam veram contagione volunt perpetuo inter mortales superesse, neque de novo oriri, sed a fomite conservari, atque ab una regione subinde in aliam deferri. Atque eam demum opinionem suam fecit Sydenhamius, quum l. c. sect. II, cap.
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VERA 23 though it does not produce stiferum , nevertheless it promotes what has been received and collected, and sends it forth with the spirit. Many things, and we do not deny this, can be said in this cause with plausibility, nor do we take it upon ourselves to charge all others with error. If, however, we should speak freely of what we think after the matter has been examined more carefully, we hold that the whole blame for this evil is to be traced to no other source than contagion. For what we said above concerning venereal disease, when compared with the present malady, we find to be such that we believe contagion to be the true effective cause of both matters. This, above others in earlier times, was recognized by Io. Crato, who in the Assertiones, lib. de pestil. febr., is wholly occupied in confirming that pestilential and contagious fevers, by which he means true pestilence, have no other cause than contagion, arising from the seedbed, or morbid exhalation, of infected bodies; but he allows those who delight in disputes to argue about other causes. After him Th. V. Willi[us], de febr. c. 12, inclines toward the opinion of those who hold that true pestilence always survives among mortals by contagion, and does not arise anew, but is preserved by the fomites, and from one region is from time to time carried into another. And at last Sydenham made that opinion his own, when in l. c. sect. II, cap.
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DE PESTILENTIA cap. 2, aeris dispositionem, quantumvis λοιμώδη, pesti suscitandæ per se imparem esse, statuit, et pestilentiæ morbum, alicubi semper superstitem, aut per fomitem, aut per pestiferi alicuius appulsum, e locis infectis in alios deportari, ibidemque, non nisi accedente simul idonea aeris diathesi, popularem fieri; quod alias non appareat, qua ratione in eodem coeli tractu, dum unum aliquod oppidum pestilentia gravissime affligitur, aliud non longe dissitum, omnem commercii necessitudinem cum loco contagioso caute inhibendo, prorsus immune se præstiterit. Quod ut doceat, pestilentiæ, commemorat, puta novissimæ, per universam fere Italiam immaniter grassanti, Magni Ducis cura atque prudentia aditum in Hetruriæ fines interclusum penitus fuisse. IX. ID quidem, opinor, res ipsa ostendit, et observatione diuturna, ac illarum cautionum, quibus grassantem alicubi contagionem declinare atque avertere usus docuit, utilitate clare constat, eam apud nos luem communis culpa vel aeris, vel victus, nunquam nasci, sed ex oriente, et vicinis ei locis, contagio ad nos commigrare. Illud etiam
Transcription: Translated (English)
ON PESTILENCE chapter 2, he lays down that the condition of the air, however plague-ridden, is in itself unequal to the production of plague; and that the disease of pestilence, always surviving somewhere, is carried from infected places into others either by fomites or by the arrival of some pestiferous influence, and there becomes epidemic only when there is also a suitable disposition of the air. Otherwise, it does not appear why, in the same region of the heavens, while one city is most grievously afflicted by pestilence, another not far distant should have shown itself wholly immune, by carefully preventing every form of intercourse with the contagious place. To demonstrate this, he mentions that in the recent pestilence, which was raging with great fury through almost all Italy, the care and prudence of the Grand Duke had completely closed the entrance into the borders of Etruria. IX. This, indeed, I think the thing itself shows, and it is clearly confirmed by long observation and by the usefulness of those precautions which experience has taught us to employ in order to avoid and turn aside contagion raging in some place; namely, that the plague among us never arises from a common fault either of the air or of the food, but migrates to us from the East and from places adjacent to it through contagion. That also
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VERA 25 etiam fateri habeo, vim contagionis aeris vi- ctusque vitiis et improbitate, quod per se vehe- menter valetudinem et vires corrumpant ac de- bilitent, perquam augeri, et, quod bene Fer- nelius advertit l. c. graviorem esse pestilenti- am, quæ epidemiis, aut endemiis constitu- tionibus permiscetur, quam quæ pura sola- que consistit, et hanc causam esse præcipuam, quamobrem una pestilentia non omnes regiones peræque afficiat et lædat. Quanquam cum vi- tiato aere non ita coniungenda est contagio, ut hanc sine isto nunquam grassari posse, existime- mus. Nam satis quidem experientia docuit, fæ- pius sine inæqualitate vel anomalia quadam aeris, nec raro sine æstu, omnique alia illius inclemen- tia, eam luem sæviisse, ac media etiam hyeme, qua minui alias extinguique solet, aliquando coeptam, æstivis caloribus desiisse: uti Platerus l. c. cap. 2, Fernelius l. c. cap. 12, Morellus de febr. purp. cap. 3, et alii testantur. Ex his Sydenhamius l. c. scri- ptum reliquit, illum ipsum annum, Londino vi postremæ pestilentiæ tot millium strage fune- stum, alioqui mitissimum ac saluberrimum exti- tisse, ita quidem, ut prope omnes, qui a peste immunes perstiterint, nunquam meliori valetu- D dine
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VERA 25 I must also admit that the contagion of the air and of food is greatly increased by vices and wickedness, which by themselves very much corrupt and weaken health and strength; and, as Fernelius rightly notes in the cited passage, that a pestilence is graver when it is mixed with epidemic or endemic constitutions than when it exists pure and alone; and that this is the principal reason why one pestilence does not affect and injure all regions equally. Although contagion should not be so joined with corrupted air that we should think it can never spread without it. For experience has indeed sufficiently taught that more often, without any irregularity or anomaly of the air, and not seldom without heat or any other inclemency of it, that plague has raged, and that even in midwinter, when it is otherwise wont to diminish and die out, it sometimes began, and then ceased in the summer heat: as Platerus, l. c. cap. 2, Fernelius, l. c. cap. 12, Morellus de febr. purp. cap. 3, and others testify. From these things Sydenham, l. c., left it written that that very year, which was made infamous in London by the destruction of many thousands from the last plague, had otherwise been the mildest and healthiest; so much so that nearly all who remained untouched by the plague
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26 DE PESTILENTIA dine visi fuerint usi. Similem diversorum anno- rum constitutionem meminimus, cum Dresda, Lipsia, et Halæ Saxonum ultimam pestem expe- rirentur. Antiquiora exempla non requiro, cum ex his ostendi possit, solius vi contagionis, sine aeris labe, pestilentiam serpere, nec quic- quam coeli temperiem proficere, ubi ea lues in- crebuit et exarsit. X. QVibus vero temporibus et initiis illa conta- gio in oriente extiterit, non magis adhuc constat, quam quando, et unde, in novo orbe contagium venereum ortum sit. Namque incerta sunt omnia, quæ de huius origine ab anthropophagia, vel a morsu victuque venenato, aut esu serpentum quadrupedum, quas vocant inguanas, adduci a quibusdam solent. Neque certior est opinio, quæ ab eximia atque extrema putredine ortum pestilentiæ in oriente deducit. Ita quidem multi eam luem cum Prosp. Alpino et Hier. Mercuriali l. c. nil esse aliud existimant, quam summo putredinis gradu diffluens corpus, et consimilem excretionem, tanquam seminarium pestilens, ex succo et sangvine spi-
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26 On Pestilence dine they may have appeared to have been used. We remember a similar constitution in different years, when Dresden, Leipzig, and Halle of Saxony experienced the last plague. I do not seek older examples, since from these it can be shown that pestilence spreads by the force of contagion alone, without corruption of the air, and that nothing whatever is gained from the tempering of the climate where that plague has increased and raged. X. But as to the times and beginnings in which that contagion first appeared in the East, it is no more yet established than when, and from where, venereal contagion arose in the New World. For uncertain are all the things which some are accustomed to bring forward concerning its origin from anthropophagy, or from the bite and poisoned food, or the eating of serpents and quadrupeds, which they call iguanas. Nor is the opinion more certain, which derives the origin of pestilence in the East from an extraordinary and extreme putrefaction. Thus indeed many, together with Prosp. Alpino and Hier. Mercurialis l. c., think it is nothing else than a body dissolving in the highest degree of putrefaction, and a similar excretion, as it were a pestilential seed-bed, from the juice and blood spi-
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VERA 27 spirans undique et exhalans. Quod vero illis doctissimis viris, quos vitalis sangvinis circulus latuit, facile condonamus. Sed postea- quam hic sangvinis motus innotuit, neminem nunc, autumemus, affirmaturum, in pestilentia correpto succum hunc vitalem, qui cordis pul- su per arterias venasque corpus circuit, non mo- do putrescere, sed etiam in eminentissimo putre- dinis gradu constitui, cum id quidem nec san- gvis, quoquo modo corpore manans, ostendat, neque sanguinis in corpore motus et circuitus, sine quo vita consistere nequit, neque eorum, qui pestilentia gravissime laborarunt, aliosque in- fecerunt, restitutio, neque vis haustæ contagio- nis agendi necandique celerrima, nullo apparen- te putredinis indicio, quod certe cum summo il- lius gradu stare haud potest, admittat. Neque enim, ut illi volunt, contagium vel oriri, vel propagari potest, nisi putredo ad illum gradum iam pervenerit, ut consimilem excretionem exhalet. Quod, si ita est, mireris merito, in pestilentia summum putredinis gradum sine si- gno putredinis adesse, et vel manifestam pu- tredinem in homine vivo, ubi fermentum can- cri putrefactivum, et foetore abominandum, par- tes D 2
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VERA 27 spirating on every side and exhaling. This, however, we readily pardon those most learned men, from whom the circulation of vital blood was hidden. But after this motion of the blood became known, we suppose no one would now affirm that in a person afflicted by pestilence this vital juice, which, driven by the pulse of the heart through the arteries and veins, circulates through the body, does not only putrefy, but is even placed in the highest degree of putrefaction; for neither does blood, flowing out of the body in whatever way, show this, nor does the motion and circulation of the blood in the body—without which life cannot exist—nor the recovery of those who have suffered most severely from pestilence and infected others, nor the extremely swift power of the contagion, once drawn in, to act and to kill, with no evident sign of putrefaction, which certainly cannot stand with its highest degree, admit it. Nor indeed, as they maintain, can contagion either arise or spread unless putrefaction has already advanced to such a degree that it exhales a like excretion. If this is so, you may rightly wonder that in pestilence the highest degree of putrefaction is present without a sign of putrefaction, and that even manifest putrefaction in a living man, where the ferment of cancer, putrefactive and abominable in stench, the parts D 2
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DE PESTILENTIA tes populatur, atque correptum sphacelo mem- brum, et succis, et carnibus, vasisque ac ossibus, totum putre, cadaverosam spirat mephitim, vel ipsa cadavera, fluentia tabo, et horridam foetoris diffundentia nubem, pestifera contagia non difflare. Hæc, ut omittam alia, in quibus multus est Diemerbrockius l. c. lib. 1. cap. 8. probl. 4. & 6, si recte considerentur, fatendum omnino erit, in pestilentia corruptionem sangvinis, quæ multo patet latius, quam putredo, antecedere, et con- sectariam esse putredinem, illaque corruptione et seminarium pestilens spargi, et afferri mortem etiam ante, quam corpus putredine diffluat, utpote quæ corruptionem sangvinis, non illius, qui in orbem adhuc agitur, sed alicubi derelicti et hærentis, ac demum post mortem etiam in omni cruore, totoque cadavere, consequitur, in sangvine autem, corpus hominis vivi, nec raro convalescentis, circumeunte, neque fieri profecto, neque concipi potest. Vnde multi quidem, etiam ante cognitum sangvinis circulum, vel contagionem in putredine consistere, ab eaque oriri, negarunt, vel cum Paræo l. c. lib. XXI, cap. 3, putredinem pestiferam longe aliam esse voluerunt, et diversi generis a communi, atque occultæ cu- iusdam
Transcription: Translated (English)
DE PESTILENTIA the body ravages, and the limb struck with sphacelus, together with its juices and flesh, vessels and bones, being altogether rotten, breathes out a cadaverous stench; or even dead bodies themselves, flowing with corruption and diffusing a horrible cloud of foul odor, do not exhale pestilential contagion. These things, to omit others in which Diemerbrockius is copious, loc. cit., book 1, chap. 8, probl. 4 and 6, if rightly considered, it must altogether be confessed that in pestilence the corruption of the blood, which extends much more widely than putrefaction, precedes, and that putrefaction follows as its consequence; and that by that corruption the pestilential seed is spread, and death is brought even before the body is dissolved by putrefaction, since it follows the corruption of the blood, not of that blood which is still in circulation, but of that which has been left somewhere and is sticking fast, and finally after death also in all the gore and in the whole corpse; but in the blood circulating through the body of a living man, and not rarely of one recovering, such a thing can neither in fact occur nor be conceived. Hence many, even before the circulation of the blood was known, either denied that contagion consists in putrefaction and arises from it, or, with Pareus loc. cit., book XXI, chap. 3, wished putrefaction to be far otherwise pestilential, and different in kind from the common one, and from a certain hidden
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VERA 29 iusdam malignitatis, et toto genere vitæ nostræ infensæ, participem, cuius ratio plane atque aper- te exponi haud possit. Ex quibus etiam, quan- tum putredini vivæ sive verminosæ, propter quam pestilentiam animatam vocavit Athan. Kircherus, lib. de peste sect. 2, cap. 4. tribuendum sit, cuivis intelligenti patere potest. XI. Illud autem iam notius esse arbitramur, quam ut exponi debeat, contagione generatim excre- tionem notari morbidam, sive effluvium et , quo, tanquam fermento quodam, aut ve- luti traduce ac seminario, labes et corruptio unius corporis in alia eiusdem speciei transfertur et pro- pagatur: sive id contrectatione ipsius corporis morbosi, sive medio aere, tanquam vectore, aut alio quodam obvio corpore, cui, ceu fomiti, efflu- vium vel morbosum adhæret, fiat. Quo- rum quidem cum magna sit varietas, tum vero omnium perniciosissimum esse pestife- rum, satis effectus declarat, et tristium exemplo- rum adeo ferax est orbis, ut hæc recensere sit supervacaneum. Verum, quale, et cuius sit na- turæ illud , non deerunt fortasse sagaci- ores, D 3
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VERA 29 some malignant influence, and a partner in the whole kind of our life’s enmity, whose rationale cannot be clearly and plainly explained. From these things it can also be made clear to anyone capable of understanding how much is to be attributed to living, or putrid, worm-eaten decay, on account of which Athan. Kircherus called pestilence an animated thing, lib. de peste sect. 2, cap. 4. XI. Moreover, we judge that it is now more familiar than needs to be explained that contagion generally denotes a morbid excretion, or effluvium, by which, as though by some ferment, or as by a kind of stock and seed-bed, the taint and corruption of one body is transferred to and propagated in another of the same species: whether this be done by contact with the diseased body itself, or through the air as a vehicle, or by some other object encountered, to which, as to tinder, the effluvium or disease adheres. Of these things, though there is great variety, yet that which is most destructive of all is the pestilential, as experience sufficiently shows; and the world is so fruitful in sad examples that it is superfluous to recount them. Yet what it is, and of what nature, perhaps the more discerning will not be lacking, D 3
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DE PESTILENTIA ores, qui, uti solent naturas rerum investigare, ex principiis physicis inquirant. Nos, eam, scimus, adhuc dum latere et ignorari, et illud Oe[st]ov, uti multis in morbis aliis, quorum profecto causæ non ita exploratæ sunt, quemadmodum multis in mentem venit, qui in cancellos Asclepiadeos redigere artem conantur, ita hic etiam cum prudentioribus libenter agnoscimus, et miramur merito cum laudato ante Cornelio Consent. l.c. tot, et tanta quotidie volumina de peste exarari, quum nemo non fateatur, impervestigatam esse illius naturam, et omnino ab humana intelligentia remotam. Scilicet insitum esse nonnullis, quanto minus sciunt, quæ scribunt, tanto plura conscribere. Non duplicet tamen nobis, quod Io. Alprugnus Vindobonæ in Austria, refert, ex pure et materia virulenta bubonis pestilentialis destillatione chymica primum aquam non nihil limpidam, deinde liquorem crassum et oleosum, ac salem volatilem, collo vitri adhærentem, prodiisse, et fracto vitro, vaporem prorupisse tam abominandum, tamque acutum, ut, quoquo modo præmunitus, tota mente atque omnibus artubus contremuerit, quasi fulmine ictus, et degustatam salis illius latilis
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Others, who are accustomed to investigating the natures of things, may inquire from physical principles. We, however, know that it is still hidden and unknown, and that this Oe[st]ov , as in many other diseases whose causes are certainly not so well explored as many imagine, when they try to reduce the art to Asclepiadean rules, so here also, with the more prudent, we freely acknowledge it, and we rightly wonder, as with the praised Cornelius Consent. l.c., that so many and such great volumes are daily written about the plague, when no one does not admit that its nature is uninvestigated and altogether removed from human understanding. Indeed, it seems innate in some people that the less they know what they write, the more they compose. Yet it should not surprise us that Io. Alprugnus of Vienna in Austria reports that from the pure and virulent matter of a pestilential bubo, by chymical distillation, there first came forth not a little clear water, then a thick and oily liquid, and a volatile salt adhering to the neck of the glass; and that when the glass was broken, there burst forth a vapor so abominable and so sharp that, however protected, he trembled in his whole mind and in all his limbs, as if struck by lightning, and the tasting of that salt latilis
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VERA latilis particulam, saporem linguæ acerrimum impressisse. Neque observationem illam Paræi reiicimus, cum l. c. lib. XXI, cap. 12, memorat, ex commoto ægri lecto, ruptoque abscessu pestilenti, tanquam e fimo agitato, actutum vaporem nares subiisse densum, tam tetrum et putridum, ut præceps in terram deciderit, cum repetita pluries vehementi sternutatione, et hanc consequente hæmorrhagia. Sed enim ex his omnibus nil aliud colligitur, quam aliquam hic acrimoniam adesse, de qua tamen in ea rerum acrium varietate et latitudine nil certi definiri potest. XII. ETsi vero naturam contagionis sensu minus cernere et assequi possumus: tamen, si cuncta phænomena, quæ et pestilentia laborantibus eveniunt, in eaque defunctis deprehenduntur, recte æstimemus, et cum iis conferamus, quæ incuratione eius mali præ aliis profuisse visa sunt, id demum ratione et intelligentia comprehendimus, contagium seu ulaqua pestilens veneni cuiusdam tenuium valde partium, acrisve, et septici, particeps, ac eius esse naturæ, ut per os naresque cum spiritu, vel cibo, potioneque, vel per alios
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...has impressed a very sharp taste upon the tongue. Nor do we reject that observation of Paré, when he records, in l. c. lib. XXI, cap. 12, that from the agitation of the sick bed, and the bursting of a pestilential abscess, as if from stirred filth, a dense vapor at once entered the nostrils, so foul and putrid that he fell headlong to the ground, with repeated violent sneezing and the hemorrhage that followed it. But from all these things nothing else is gathered except that some acrimony is present here, concerning which, however, amid such variety and extent of sharp substances, nothing certain can be determined. XII. Although indeed we cannot perceive and grasp the nature of contagion by sense alone, yet if we rightly consider all the phenomena that occur to those suffering from pestilence, and are found in those who die from it, and compare them with those things which have seemed to benefit, more than others, in the treatment of that disease, we finally comprehend by reason and understanding that contagion, or pestilential poison, is partaker of some substance consisting of very subtle, sharp, and septic particles, and that it is of such a nature that through the mouth and nostrils, with the breath, or with food and drink, or through alios
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DE PESTILENTIA alios etiam poros et meatus penetrans, introque penitus subiens in sanguinem, hunc, quoad eius constitutio patitur, pervadendo fermentare, et consistentes vel gelatinosas eius partes, in quibus cohæsio et crasis partium sanguinis fundatur, dissolvere, ac in sui motus leges flectere, eoque se- se multiplicare, atque ex humore miti effe- rum et malignum, et sui similem toto corpo- re exspirationem reddere, et crasin sanguinis, pro vario sui et naturæ laborantis vigore, nunc serius, modo ocyus, ita pervertere possit, ut is circuitioni derivationique, ac rigando succis vi- talibus corpori, impar minusque idoneus evadat, et nunc quandam sui partem, veneno foetam, ex- trudat, et modo in pluribus unius partis arteriolis congestam, modo depositam in glandulis, unde anthraces et bubones varii emergunt, derelin- quat, nunc vero maximam partem fusus va- rie, ac disiectus per capillaria arteriarum va- la, in substantiam viscerum, membranarum, et musculorum, ad summam usque cutem, varias colore, magnitudine, et copia, maculas efficiat. Quo minus miremur, eius vi contagionis lassitu- dinem corporis improvisam, et sensum quendam quasi ponderis et gravitatis membrorum, et ma- gnum
Transcription: Translated (English)
OF THE PLAGUE penetrating also other pores and passages, and going deeply within into the blood, fermenting it by pervading it as far as its constitution allows, and dissolving its consistent or gelatinous parts, in which the cohesion and crasis of the parts of the blood are founded, and bending them to the laws of its own motion, and thereby multiplying itself, and from a gentle humor rendering a fierce and malignant exhalation like itself throughout the whole body, and so corrupting the crasis of the blood, according to the varying strength of itself and of nature laboring, now more slowly, now more quickly, that it may render it less fit and less apt for circulation and derivation, and for watering the vital juices of the body, and now may drive out some part of itself, infected with poison, and sometimes, being gathered in many of the small arteries of one part, sometimes deposited in the glands, whence various carbuncles and buboes arise, may leave behind, but now, being diffused in the greatest part variously and scattered through the capillary vessels of the arteries, into the substance of the viscera, membranes, and muscles, even to the outer skin, it may produce various spots in color, size, and number. Wherefore we need less to marvel that the contagion’s force causes a sudden lassitude of the body, and a certain sense as of weight and heaviness of the limbs, and a great
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VERA 33 gnum virium lapsum, mox initio mali exoriri, eumque, si vi contagii vegeta subita fiat solutio sanguinis, subinde tantum, ut cum crebra animi defectione, etiam sine sensu doloris, repente homo concidat, et extinguatur. Et cum contagio sine offensione eius partis, quam primum attigit, in sanguinem invadere, neque cum eo corpus, per cor, et vasa, fibrasque partium, sine molestia atque incommodo, circuire, neque in his, illisve, interioribus, externisque, partibus, illæsis iisdem, hærere, ac sævire possit, hinc ratio elucet anxietatum, inquietudinum, et iactationum corporis, vomitionum item, et fluxionum alvi, ac hæmorrhagiarum, dolorumque variorum, et aliorum, quæ supra commemoravimus, foeturæ symptomatum febrilium. Nam simul ac pestiferæ luis seminaria in venas irrepserint, sanguinemque inquinarint, a vertice usque ad calcem fere nihil inoffensum relinquunt in corpore. Quodsi minor vis contagii partem tantum corporis externam tetigerit, et in villis eius, ac vasculis consistens, in flumen sanguinis non perreptet, illam tantum partem, quousque serpsit, textum eius vi sua septica et caustica excedendo, prunæ instar urentis dolente anthrace E vel
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TRUE 33 a weakness of the powers, arising at the very beginning of the illness, and which, if by the force of contagion a sudden loosening of the blood takes place, then so much, that with frequent failure of the mind, even without any sense of pain, a person suddenly falls, and is extinguished. And since the contagion, without offending that part which it first touched, cannot invade the blood, nor, together with it, through the heart and vessels and fibers of the parts, without trouble or inconvenience, circulate, nor in these or those internal and external parts, with the same unharmed, dwell and rage, from this the reason becomes clear for anxieties, restlessness, and tossing about of the body, likewise for vomitings and fluxes of the bowels, and hemorrhages, and various pains, and the other febrile symptoms of corruption which we mentioned above. For as soon as the seeds of the pestilential disease have crept into the veins and have defiled the blood, they leave scarcely nothing unhurt in the body, from head to heel. But if a lesser force of contagion has touched only the external part of the body, and, remaining in the hairs and vessels of it, does not run through the stream of blood, it exceeds that part only as far as it has crept, by its septic and caustic force, burning the tissue, like a glowing ember, painfully, anthrax E or
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DE PESTILENTIA vel carbunculo mulctat, nec quicquam damni in reliquum corpus transfert. Sin quacunque via interius permanet in sanguinem, sed prius, quam vires suas satis exercere possit, lympha implicatum, vivido cordis, et sanguinis motu exhalatione corporis dissipetur partim, partim in glandulas, et vascula, ac villos huius, illiusve membri exterioris exterminetur, opinione citius, et aliquando sine magnis incommodis, bubones erumpunt et anthraces, ex quibus, emissa veneficalabe, natura allevatur, retrocedente vero eadem in sanguinem, succumbere cogitur. Haud aliter, ac cum sanguis, dominantis contagii copia, et impetu subactus, atque per membra fusus, corpus ubique maculis aspergit, et quadam sui parte glandulas, atque arteriolas variarum partium infarciens, bubones et carbunculos, serius, et cum insigni malorum comitatu, emergentes, tanquam victæ naturæ perniciosa indicia, efficit. XIII. QVo rerum statu, cum sanguis, tanta veneni vi et copia inquinatus, et subactus, hic, illic, non modo in externo corporis habitu, sed etiam in
Transcription: Translated (English)
ON THE PLAGUE or if it strikes with a carbuncle, it inflicts no damage on the remaining body. But if by whatever route it remains within the blood, yet before it can sufficiently exert its power, being entangled in the lymph, and while the living motion of the heart and blood, by the exhalation of the body, is partly dissipated, partly driven into the glands, and vessels, and hairs of this or that outer member, pustules and carbuncles break out sooner than expected, and sometimes without great inconvenience; from which, when the poisonous infection has been released, nature is relieved; but if the same returns into the blood, it is forced to yield. Not unlike this is what happens when the blood, overwhelmed by the force and impetuosity of the prevailing contagion, and spread through the limbs, besprinkles the body everywhere with spots, and by clogging in part the glands, and small arteries of various parts, produces pustules and carbuncles, emerging later, and with a notable train of evils, as pernicious signs of nature overcome. XIII. In which state of affairs, since the blood, so greatly defiled and driven on by the force and abundance of the poison, here and there, not only in the external appearance of the body, but also in
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VERA 35 in interioribus partibus, atque visceribus, insi- deat, et inflammationes abscessusque varios pa- riat, fieri haud aliter potest, quin, ubicunque lo- corum iter sanguini est interceptum, is ad pu- tredinem vergat, membraque ipsa, eodem in- farta, in virus putre dilabantur ac colliquescant, et cadaverosum spirent odorem, illorum more, qui cancro atque sphacelo pereunt. Ex his ve- ro corporis corruptelis orientibus exspiratio- nibus, et præcipue afflatu atque halitibus mori- bundorum crassis, et magis cohærentibus, ac nebulosis, aucta et cumulata copia, necesse est, gliscat vis contagionis, ut ignis oleo, quod illa et circumfusum aera magis inquinent, afflatuque huius non modo vicinos inficere, sed etiam latius propagari, et corporibus obviis faci- lius adhærere, atque in fomitem abire queant. Ac recipiendis quidem illis ac semini- bus pestiferis aptissima sunt: plumæ, et pelles animalium pilosorum, lana, linum, xyllon seu gossypium, et quæ ex his conficiuntur, linteami- na, stragula, vestes, integumenta, et eiusmodi alia, quæ et ob mollitiem, et pororum copiam, excipere seminaria contagii possunt, et retinere. In huiusmodi vero rebus, tanquam in fomite, latis E 2
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VERA 35 in the internal parts and viscera it lurks, and causes various inflammations and abscesses; it can hardly be otherwise than that, wherever the passage of the blood is obstructed in any place, it inclines to putrefaction, and the limbs themselves, swollen therewith, break down and melt away into a putrid poison, and breathe out a cadaverous odor, after the manner of those who perish by cancer and gangrene. From these corruptions of the body, moreover, the exhalations arising, and especially the thick, more coherent, and mist-like breath and vapors of the dying, when increased and accumulated in greater quantity, the force of contagion must necessarily grow strong, like fire with oil; and these, as they more and more pollute the surrounding air, can by their breath not only infect those nearby, but also spread farther, and more easily cling to bodies that come in their way, and pass into fuel for infection. And indeed most suitable for receiving those pestiferous seeds are feathers, and the skins of hairy animals, wool, linen, xyllon or cotton, and things made from these, such as linen cloths, coverings, garments, wrappings, and other similar things, which, both because of their softness and because of the abundance of pores, can take in the seminaria of contagion and retain them. In things of this kind, indeed, as in tinder, widely E 2
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DE PESTILENTIA satis sæpe diu hærere ea solent, et ex longinquis regionibus in alias cum illis transportata, tandem, ventilatis rebus iis, exsiliunt: cum interea nullum plane putredinis indicium in fomite reperiatur, ut bene Crato advertit l. c. XIV. QVousque autem μιάσματα sive semina illa pestifera aere ventisque vehi, et circumferri possint, certo definiri nequit. Nam quod quidam velint, sævam illam pestem Atheniensem aere delatam ex Æthiopia in Græciam fuisse, id quidem ex eo colligi minus potest, quod scripserit Thucydides, forte per continuum ex Æthiopia quædam fluxisse putredinis contagia. Quin potius existimandum est, pestilentiam illam per fomitem ex Æthiopia in Ægyptum, indeque in Græciam, et Athenas transisse, quod solum in urbe contagio hæserit, salvis oppugnatoribus. Quod minus accidisset, si cum aere diffusum contagium in tam longinquum spatium fuisse. Illud vero certum est, levibus alicubi orta initiis pestilentia, et aliquandiu clanculum per urbem oberrante, dum alii alios infecerint, atque ad plures malum dimanarit, eius loci aerem ea
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OF PESTILENCE they are often apt to linger for a fairly long time, and, transported with them from distant regions into others, at last, when those matters have been dispersed, they break out: while in the meantime no clear sign of corruption is found in the source material, as Crato rightly observes, l.c. XIV. How far, however, those μιάσματα, or those pestiferous seeds, can be borne and carried about by the air and winds, cannot be determined with certainty. For what some would have it, namely that that savage plague of Athens was brought by the air from Ethiopia into Greece, this indeed can be gathered less from that fact, since Thucydides wrote that perhaps some contagions of putrefaction had flowed continuously out of Ethiopia. Rather it must be thought that that pestilence passed by means of the source of contagion from Ethiopia into Egypt, and thence into Greece and Athens, since only in the city did the contagion linger, the assailants being spared. This would have been less likely to happen if the contagion had been spread with the air over so great a distance. But this is certain, that a pestilence arising at times from slight beginnings in some place, and for a while wandering secretly through the city, while men infected one another, and the evil spread to more people, the air of that place then
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VERA 37 ea copia cumulari, ut non solum in iisdem ædibus, sed et vicinis, ii, quibus nul- lum est cum ægrotantibus commercium, infi- cientur, et cum vis morbi initio in multitudi- nem atque colluviem hominum, congressum non vitantium, sævierit, postmodum in ædes et- iam nobilium irrepat, atque opinione citius fa- cta lues epidemia, universam sæpe civitatem exhauriat. Quam sparsi volatilis spermatis vim in fomite, atque aere, cum minus cognitam ve- teres haberent, quod nullo se sensu prodat, et tam improvisum sit illius telum, ut, priusquam sentiatur, feriat, eius luis causam non in con- tagione corporum, primo ægrotantium, sed vel in anomaliis, atque immoderatis affectionibus aeris, vel in permixtis ei terræ et aquarum ad- spirationibus, vel in occulta quadam, eaque ma- ligna, e sublimi atque ab astris nata, eius qua- litate, quærebant, eamque adeo luem cum morbis aliis epidemiis confundeant. XV. EX his iam clarum est, id quod initio dixi- mus, pestilentiam malum esse sævum, et im- mane ac perniciosissimum, quod paucorum flu- E 3 xu
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VERA 37 so that the supply accumulates, with the result that not only in the same houses but also in neighboring ones, those who have no contact at all with the sick are infected; and when the force of the disease, at the beginning, rages among a multitude and throng of people who do not avoid meeting, it later also creeps into the houses of the nobility, and, more swiftly than one would think, the plague, having become epidemic, often drains an entire city. Since the force of this scattered volatile seed in the tinder and in the air was less known to the ancients, because it reveals itself by no sense and its dart is so unexpected that, before it is perceived, it strikes, they sought the cause of this plague not in the contagion of bodies first falling ill, but either in anomalies and excessive conditions of the air, or in the mingled exhalations of earth and waters, or in some hidden quality, and indeed a malignant one, born from above and from the stars, and thus they even confused this plague with other epidemic diseases. XV. From these things it is now clear that, as we said at the beginning, pestilence is a savage evil, immense and most destructive, which by the flow of a few
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DE PESTILENTIA xu dierum, nec raro secundo, vel tertio die occidit, et quod vix quisquam effugere potest, nisi robusta et valens natura, suisque usa viribus, naviter per abscessus expurget. Qui proinde quo citius, et maiore cum ægrotantis allevatione, ac locis, periculo vacuis, erumpunt, hoc maio- rem spem salutis faciunt. Quo vero difficilius et serius emergunt, non mitescentibus symptomatis, hoc maius subesse periculum, significant. Æque vero periculosum esse patet, et mortem plerumque inopinatam sequi, si dispareant iterum, et evanescant, qui, sive serius, sive ocyus, et apparentibus quoque bonis signis, prodierunt, abscessus. Liquet etiam, maculas, quo magis a rubedine secedunt, eo peiores, nigrasque omnes, sive parvæ fuerint, sive magnæ latæque, pestis, intimo corporis recessu conditæ, et subacti veneno, et fusi disiectique per omnes partes sanguinis, ac imminentis adeo mortis, prænuncios esse, et hoc in certiori ægrotum periculo versari, quo maior est virium lapsus, et frequentiores foedæ vomitiones, atque graveolentes deiectiones, et graviora eum alia symptomata affligunt. Præterea nihil hic, apparet, vel urinæ, vel pulsui fidendum esse, et, se ostentendibus inter-
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Of the pestilence within a few days, and not rarely on the second or third day, it kills; and this is scarcely avoidable by anyone except a robust and strong constitution, using its own strength to expel the poison vigorously by abscesses. Therefore, the more quickly they break out, and with greater alleviation for the patient, and in places free from danger, the greater the hope of recovery they give. But the more difficult and the later they appear, when the symptoms do not abate, the greater the danger that lies beneath, they indicate. It is likewise evident that it is equally dangerous, and that death commonly follows unexpectedly, if the abscesses disappear again and vanish, after having appeared, whether later or sooner, and even with good signs present. It is also clear that spots, the more they depart from redness, the worse they are; and all black spots, whether small or large and broad, are signs of the plague hidden in the innermost recesses of the body, of the subdued poison, and of blood spread and dispersed through all its parts, and thus of death at hand; and that the patient is in greater peril in proportion as there is a greater collapse of strength, and as he is afflicted by more frequent foul vomiting, foul-smelling evacuations, and more severe other symptoms. Furthermore, here nothing, it appears, can be trusted either from the urine or from the pulse, and, when the signs show themselves, inter-
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VERA 39 interdum optimis signis, contraria tamen omnia fieri, et evenire, id quod Celsus annotavit, spem eius interdum frustrari, et mori aliquem, de quo medicus securus primo fuit. XVI. CVm igitur ea sit pestilentiæ ratio, ut peregrinando a locis infectis ad alia accedat, et vel in exili fomite, aut halitus et atmosphæræ ambitu comprehensa, facile et cum tristissima strage per populum spargi, et disseminari possit, id quidem nemo non intelligit, omnem hic diligentiam adhibendam esse, ne admittatur tantum malum, utpote difficilime, nec nisi summo periculo, eiiciendum. Quo, secundum Deum, magistratus cura, et autoritas plurimum conferre potest, ne ob liberum hominum, rerumque aditum contagium inferatur. Neque enim cum rebus tantum, sed hominibus quoque infectis, malum hoc illatum esse, crebra experientia compertum est, et testatur inter alios Evagrius, Hist. Eccles. lib. IV, c. 28, contigisse in maxima peste, ut sæpe sani homines, ex infectis regionibus discedentes, et in liberas abeuntes, inficerent sanos illos, et regiones illas,
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VERA 39 Sometimes, even with the best signs, the opposite nevertheless happens, and it comes to pass, as Celsus noted, that hope is sometimes frustrated, and that someone dies about whom the physician had at first been confident. XVI. Since, then, such is the nature of pestilence, that by traveling from infected places it passes to others, and, even if contained in the smallest germ, or by the surrounding air and atmosphere, it can easily and with most grievous slaughter be spread and disseminated among the people, this indeed everyone understands: that every possible care must here be taken lest so great an evil be admitted, since it is exceedingly difficult, and not to be driven out except with the utmost danger. To this, under God, the care and authority of the magistrate can contribute greatly, so that contagion may not be brought in through the free access of men and goods. For it has been learned by frequent experience that this evil has been brought in not only by infected things, but also by infected persons; and, among others, Evagrius, Hist. Eccles. lib. IV, c. 28, testifies that it happened in a great plague that often healthy men, departing from infected regions and going into healthy ones, infected those healthy people and those regions,
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DE PESTILENTIA 40 illas, eo, quod in se ipsis conservantes, veluti in fomitibus, venenum pestiferum, idem commu- nicarent aliis, atque ita aerem insipientes, pestem inducerent. Imo vero, ubi a pestilentia metuen- dum est, inter cetera magni refert, ut magi- stratus publici vigilantia inops turba, et collu- vies hominum, quæ arcte cohabitans, invicem sibi officit, ac sordibus, quibus maximæ quæ- que urbes scatere solent, plerumque squalet, ex urbe dimittatur in loca liberiora, in quibus ad vitam tolerandam plus libertatis et adiumenti sit. Quo consilio recte usos fuisse Venetos, ex Antonio Coccio Sabellico observat Mercurialis l.c. Gallo etiam et Mediolanenses eandem cautio- nem ætate sua feliciter adhibuisse, idem testa- tur, quod, ut ipse causam reddit, verus ac præ- cipuus pestis fomes sit populus ipse, plebs, pau- peres, qui et propter domos angustas, et præ- vam victus rationem, maxime omnium conta- minentur, maximeque omnium pestem disse- minent. XVII. QVod si pestilentia locum aliquem corripiat, in id incumbendum est, quo impetus eius vires-
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ON PESTILENCE 40 those things, because, by preserving within themselves, as it were in tinder, the pestilential poison, they communicated the same to others, and thus, by corrupting the air, brought on the plague. Indeed, where pestilence is to be feared, among other things it is of great importance that by the vigilance of the magistrates the needy crowd and the mass of men, who, living closely together, hinder one another, and who, because of the filth with which the greatest cities are wont for the most part to abound, are squalid, be sent out of the city into more open places, in which there may be more freedom and help for sustaining life. Mercurialis notes, in the place cited, that the Venetians made proper use of this policy, from Antonio Coccio Sabellico. He likewise testifies that the Gallo and the Milanese successfully applied the same precaution in his own time, because, as he himself gives the reason, the true and chief source of plague is the people themselves, the common folk, the poor, who, both because of their cramped houses and their bad way of living, are most of all contaminated and most of all spread the plague. XVII. But if pestilence seize some place, one must apply oneself to that whereby its force may be checked
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VERA 41 viresque quam celerrime frangantur, et magna cura providendum, ne semina contagionis la- tius diffundantur: ex levi enim scintilla maxima arsisse incendia, constat. Itaque, quod primum omnium est, et lege Mosaica sancitum, curandum est, ut statim infecti ab integris segregentur, ita quidem, ut nihil ipsis desit, quod ad salutem, vel animæ, vel corporis, pertineat. Cavendum etiam, ne quicquam suppellectilis, et quicquid contagione vitiatum videtur, ad alios perveniat, sed ut extra urbem cum averso ab ea vento citissime cremetur. Aedes quoque, quibus correptus quis pestilentia fuit, apto suffitu, igneque purgandæ. Quod si plures malum adoriatur, arctiores congressus omnes, et quivis contagionis suspecti, ipsique adeo medici, qui ægrotantium huiusmodi curam gerunt, vitandi sunt, quod pestifero halitu polluti, ipsos non raro sanos inficiant. Neque enim præstantius ullum adversus hanc luem præsidium hucusque inventum est, quam cavere omnia, quæ lethali halitu fuerint inquinata. Præclare in hanc rem Crato l.c. Magna quidem pars præcautionis in aeris perpurgatione sita est: Sed si medicamentis idoneis vis miasmatum infringatur, atque imminuatur, priusquam e corporibus exhalent, præcipuum ex eo præsidium iis locis, in quibus F est
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Vera 41 and their strength should be broken as quickly as possible, and great care must be taken that the seeds of contagion do not spread more widely: for it is certain that great conflagrations have sprung from a small spark. Therefore, what is first of all required, and established by the Mosaic law, is that those infected should at once be separated from the healthy, in such a way, however, that nothing should be lacking to them that pertains to the health of either soul or body. Care must also be taken that no article of household stuff, and whatever seems to have been tainted by contagion, should reach others, but that it should be burned as quickly as possible outside the city, with the wind blowing away from it. The houses too in which someone has been struck by the plague must be cleansed with suitable fumigation and fire. But if the disease attacks many, all close contact, and anyone suspected of contagion, and even the physicians themselves who are in charge of the care of such patients, must be avoided, because, polluted by pestilential breath, they not infrequently infect even the healthy. For no better protection against this plague has yet been discovered than to avoid everything that has been tainted by deadly breath. Crato says this excellently on this subject. A large part of precaution indeed lies in thoroughly purifying the air; but if by suitable remedies the force of the miasmas is broken and lessened before they exhale from the bodies, the chief protection from this in those places in which it is
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DE PESTILENTIA est pestilentia, hominibus sperandum. Franguntur autem et imminuuntur, cum vel minus multa corpora ægrotant, plurima recte sanantur, et non aliis coniunguntur, priusquam mia[m]mata ex corporibus et vestibus plane dissipentur. Hoc fit idoneis et tutis remediis in curatione morbi adhibitis. Sæpe enim evenit, ut mia[m]matum malitia importunis remediis gravius augeatur, atque inde pestis gravior fiat, ac ea incremen- ta sumat, ut nulla remissio sit speranda, nisi mi- asmata hebetentur, vel lethalis eorum vis inhi- beatur. XIX. M Vlta quidem, scimus, vulgo præcipi, cum ad obfirmandum corpus adversus veneni impe- tum, tum ad causarum noxiarum emendationem. Nec improbamus illorum consilium, qui ad fu- giendam pestilentiam corpus volunt ab omni sua improbitate humorum, et abundantia, vindicari: quod, qui viribus sint integris, et corporis mun- dici præditi, habeantque succos neque victu in- salubri, neque intemperantia inquinatos, facilius contagio resistere, idemque superare posse vide- antur. Sed cavendum hic sedulo, ne robur et virtus corporis remediis quibusque evacuantibus, vel exagitantibus, minuatur. Et fugiendum, quoad fieri
Transcription: Translated (English)
ON PESTILENCE when there is pestilence, men may hope. But [the contagion] is broken and diminished when either fewer bodies fall ill, the greater part are duly healed, and they are not joined to others before the miasmas have been wholly dispersed from the bodies and clothes. This is done when suitable and safe remedies are employed in the treatment of the disease. For it often happens that the malignity of the miasmas is more gravely increased by ill-suited remedies, and from this the plague becomes more severe, and takes on such increase that no remission is to be hoped for unless the miasmas are dulled, or their deadly force is checked. XIX. Many things, indeed, we know are commonly prescribed, both for strengthening the body against the onset of poison, and for correcting harmful causes. Nor do we disapprove the counsel of those who, in order to avoid pestilence, wish the body to be freed from all corruption of the humors and from their abundance; for those who are in full strength, and endowed with bodily cleanliness, and whose juices are not tainted either by unhealthy diet or by intemperance, seem to be able more easily to resist contagion and likewise to overcome it. But here care must be taken, lest the strength and vigor of the body be diminished by any evacuating or exciting remedies. And it should be avoided, as far as may be
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VERA 43 fieri potest, cautissime, quicquid vires exolvere et labefactare solet. Vires enim firmæ et integræ, si in ullo alio morbo, hic quam maxime desiderantur. Libenter etiam iis assentimur, qui animo opus esse præsenti, metuque, et expectatione mali vacuo, iubent, non ideo quidem, ut delirat Helmontius in libello, cui titulus Tumulus pestis, ne metu in Archeo, nescio quo, pestilentiæ imago procreetur, eaque inficiatur corpus, sed quoniam metu contagium facilius recipi, et receptum confirmari, graviusque lædere fractam, et debilitatam metu et pavore, naturam potest. Sed videas tamen, tam pravum pestilentiæ genium esse, ut nullum moretur sexum, ætatem nullam, nihil temperamenta curet, nec minus corpora pura, quam cacochymica, atque omne robur, floremque inventutis, et tam fortes, ac magnanimos, quam meticulosos, depascatur. XIX. ET qui præservantia, quæ vocant, remedia polliceri possumus, cum nulla sint cognita, quibus a pestilentia tutus evadas, eiusque telum avertas, vel depellas. Nam quæ vulgo hic interius commendantur bezoardica, et alexipharmacaca, ex terra, marique, et omni animantium, herbarum, et fossilium familia, conquisita, tam simplicia, quam composita, non ita se habent, ut certo iuvent, nihilque no- cere F 2
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VERA 43 it is possible, with the utmost caution, to remove and weaken whatever is wont to sap and undermine strength. For strong and sound strength, if in any other disease, is here especially desired. We also willingly agree with those who say that the mind must be present, free from fear and from expectation of evil, not indeed for the reason that Helmontius raves in the little book entitled Tumulus pestis , namely, lest by fear in the Archeus some image of pestilence, I know not what, be produced, and by it the body infected, but because through fear contagion may be more easily received, and when received be confirmed, and may more grievously harm nature, broken and weakened by fear and dread. Yet one may see how depraved the nature of pestilence is, since it spares no sex, no age, cares nothing for constitutions, and devours no less bodies that are pure than those that are cacochymic, and every vigor and flower of youth, and as well the strong and magnanimous as the fearful. XIX. AND as for the remedies they call preservative, we can promise none, since none are known by which you may escape safely from pestilence and turn aside or repel its weapon. For those commonly recommended here as bezoardics and alexipharmacacs, gathered from earth, sea, and every family of animals, herbs, and fossils, whether simple or compound, are not such as certainly help, nor yet do no harm F 2
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cere possint. Quod ne soli dixisse videamur, au- diamus Sydenhamium, cum l. c. scribit: Prophylaxin, ut verbo attingam, non sum nescius, etiam ad illam antidotalium calidorum usum passim deprædicari, at quo emolumento, adhuc probandum restat. Imo vinum liberius ingurgitatum, aliaque fortiora præservativa, statis horis dietim assumta, complures, qui alias salvi intactique verisimiliter permanissent, in hunc effectum coniecerunt. In tanto autem antidotorum, ut appellant, numero Crato l. c. unum laudat electuarium e nucibus, cuius meminit Galenus, lib. de bon. et vit. succ. estque illud ex facile parabilibus, et innoxiis. Habetur compositio ex sicubus, nucibus iugland. ruta, et sale, quam Pompeius in scriniis Mithridatis reperisse dicitur. XX. NEque fere aliter se res habet cum remediis externis, quæ præservationis gratia laudari, et adhiberi solent. Nam amuleta omnia, ex hydrargyro, arsenico, bufonibus, et rebus quibusque aliis, facta, plus inanis fiduciæ, quam auxilii, habent, et quosdam tam incautos sæpe reddunt, ut securitate perdantur. Vt taceam, multa superstitione non carere, quod de xenexeto Paracelsi Kircherus statuit l. c. Fonticuli merito laudarentur, si, quod vulgo dicitur, per illas portas venenum exiret, quod, qui
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could be done. And lest we seem to have said this by ourselves alone, let us hear Sydenham, when in the cited passage he writes: “As to prophylaxis, to mention it in passing, I am not unaware that the use of hot antidotal remedies is everywhere praised for that purpose; but what benefit it may bring remains still to be proved. Indeed, wine swallowed too freely, and other stronger preservatives, taken daily at stated hours, have brought into this condition many who otherwise would probably have remained safe and unharmed.” In so great a number of what are called antidotes, however, Crato in the cited passage praises one electuary made with nuts, of which Galen makes mention in his book De bonis et vitiis succorum; and it is among the things easily procurable and harmless. There is also a preparation made from figs, walnuts, rue, and salt, which Pompey is said to have found in Mithridates’ caskets. XX. Nor is the matter in general much different with external remedies, which are commonly praised and used for the sake of preservation. For all amulets made from mercury, arsenic, toads, and whatever other substances, possess more empty confidence than help, and often render some men so incautious that they perish through their very security. Not to mention that many are not free from superstition, as Kircher has determined in the case of Paracelsus’ xenexetus, cited above. Fountains would rightly be praised if, as the saying goes, the poison were to go out through those doors, which, who
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VERA 45 qui circulum sanguinis novit, haud crediderit. Sed nihil eos, novimus, profuisse, quamvis plures in corpore gestarentur. Crebro sputum edi, iis, qui inter ægrotantes versantur, vel contagium per os intrare, et cum saliva deglutiri, putant, si non prodesse, nil nocere potest. Propterea plurimum qui- dam, secuti Diemerbrockium, fumo tabaci tribu- unt. Tantique sputationem fecit Dobrenzensky- us, ut, eam, cum Vindobonam pestilentia exerceret, Augustissimo R. Imperatori Leopoldo commenda- ret, quamvis paulo post peste Pragensi ipse rapere- tur. Adeo certa sunt hæc remedia, ut, quo quis magis eis fidit, eo minus adiuvetur. Id non igno- rasse veteres, satis ex Celso constat, qui, l. c. hanc ob- servationem necessariam esse putat, qua quis in pe- stilentia utatur, adhuc integer, cum tamen securus esse non possit, ut nempe tunc naviget, et peregri- netur. Idem consilium, cum anno M D LXXV. pestilentia graviter Italiam affigeret, multos tan- dem meliori successu iniisse, quam qui medicorum antidotis confisi, in urbium angustiis, pestilentia inquinatis, hæserant, tradit Natalis Comes, hist. lib. 27. Ad ferinam hanc pestem avertendam, inquit, in loca tuta liberiora et apertiora recedentes, genio indulgere coeperunt, alii solam moderationem vi- ctus esse remedium horum malorum putabant: alii sobrietatem et temperantiam animi et corporis. Li- berius F 3
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VERA 45 who knew the circulation of the blood would not have believed it. But we know that they have profited nothing, although more of them were worn in the body. Frequent spitting, those who move among the sick think, or that the contagion enters through the mouth and is swallowed with the saliva, if it does no good, can do no harm. Therefore some have attributed very much to tobacco smoke, following Diemerbrockius. And so highly did Dobrenzenskys value spitting that, when pestilence was raging in Vienna, he recommended it to the Most August R. Emperor Leopold, although shortly afterward he himself was carried off by the plague of Prague. So certain are these remedies that the more one trusts them, the less one is helped by them. That the ancients did not ignore this is sufficiently clear from Celsus, who, in l. c., thinks that this observation is necessary, which one should use in pestilence while still uninfected, though he cannot yet be safe, namely, that one should then sail, and travel abroad. The same counsel, when in the year 1575 pestilence was severely afflicting Italy, many finally took with better success than those who, trusting in the physicians’ antidotes, had remained in the narrow quarters of the cities, tainted by pestilence, Natalis Comes relates, hist. lib. 27. To ward off this feral plague, he says, withdrawing to safe, more open and spacious places, they began to indulge their inclinations; others thought that only moderation in food was the remedy for these evils: others, sobriety and temperance of mind and body. More freely F 3
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46 DE PESTILENTIA berius his, quod sensit, dixit Sanctorius a Sanctorio, in Med. stat. sect. 1, aph. 138. Qui aliud remedium pro vitanda peste instituunt, quam fugam, vel sunt homines ignorantes, vel volunt æruscare. XXI. QVod si locum mutare minus liceat, hæc inprimis duo, quibus vitam custodimus, nimirum aer, et victus, ne forte noxia sint, observanda sunt. Ac quo quis quidem, gli- scente contagione, propius ædes infectas habitat, hoc magis aerem, ventis agitatum, ex loco infecto clausis fenestris vitare debet. Nec spernendum est illorum consilium, qui aerem domesticum purgari volunt suffimigiis, posthabi- tis pretiosis, solum ex aceto acerrimo cum sale cocto, et ignito lateri, aut candenti ferro asperso, vel accenso, ex- plosoque pulvere pyrio, vel igne luculento, ex incensis iuniperi et lignis durioribus aliis. Namque insignem vim esse ignis ad aerem purgandum, satis hinc discere poslu- mus, quod inter alia depellendæ contagionis, per aera diffusæ, remedia doctissimi medici omni ævo præcipiunt, crebras lignorum strues succendi. Quod etiam Hippo- crates in magna illa pestilentia, quam Thucydides descri- bit, non sine insigni utilitate, magnaque sua laude facti- tasse, proditur. Qui se odore munire cupiunt, his merito Crato l. c. rutam, cum aceto odorandam, suadet, quam ali- quid, quod cerebrum lædat, adhibendum. Idem de iis, quæ in ore gestantur, ut Zedoaria, flavedine citri, et ra- dicibus, quæ sunt odore suaves, præcipit. Acida vero omnia, tam sapore, quam odore, convenientia esse, ex- pertus, et sapienter monet. Neque aliter peritissimi qui- que medici testantur. Iis igitur ex herbis, aceto, malis aureis, citreis, punicis, sale, sulphure, vitriolo, nitro, ita uti conveniet, inprimis in victu, ne abusu noceant. Ac temperantia et moderatio sic uti in victu, ita in motibus ani- mi, et rebus omnibus salubribus, plurimum omnino pro- derit. XXII.
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46 ON PESTILENCE Berius, in what he observed, said, Sanctorius a Sanctorio, in Med. stat. sect. 1, aph. 138: “Those who set up any remedy for avoiding the plague other than flight are either ignorant men or wish to make money.” XXI. But if it is less possible to change one’s place, these two things above all, by which we preserve life, namely air and food, must be watched carefully, lest they should perhaps be harmful. And the more one lives, as contagion spreads, near infected houses, the more one must avoid the air, stirred by the winds, coming from the infected place through closed windows. Nor should the advice of those be despised who wish the air of the house to be purified by fumigations—setting aside costly ones—using only very sharp vinegar boiled with salt, and by sprinkling it on heated brick or hot iron, or by igniting and exploding gunpowder, or by a bright fire made from burning juniper and other harder woods. For that fire has remarkable power to purify the air may be sufficiently learned from this: among the remedies for driving away contagion spread through the air, the most learned physicians in every age prescribe that heaps of wood be frequently kindled. It is also reported that Hippocrates, in that great pestilence described by Thucydides, did this not without notable benefit and great credit to himself. Those who wish to protect themselves by scent are rightly advised by Crato, in the passage cited, to smell rue with vinegar, rather than to apply something that may injure the brain. The same writer also recommends those things that are carried in the mouth, such as zedoary, the yellow rind of citrus, and roots that are agreeable in smell. He further notes, from experience and wisely, that all sour things are suitable, both in taste and in smell. Nor do the most experienced physicians testify otherwise. Therefore, it will be proper to use herbs, vinegar, golden apples, citrons, pomegranates, salt, sulphur, vitriol, and nitre in this way, especially in diet, lest abuse do harm. And temperance and moderation, whether in diet or in the motions of the mind, and in all healthful things, will be of the greatest benefit. XXII.
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VERA 47 XXII. Quod demum ad curationem tam diræ luis attinet, id iam quidem cuivis est perspicuum, omnem illius cardinem in eo verti, ut natura contra concepti vim contagii confirmetur, idque et infringatur in corpore, et ex eodem per vias convenientes educatur. Quo loco vehementer explorata hic remedia optaverimus, quæ vel corrigere venenum pestilens, vel sine noxa educere possint, ut quidem virus venereum in siphylide tam confertim per vias salivæ, quam sensim, paulatimque per alias eiicere usus docuit, nec idem nobis hodieque fatendum esse, de quo cum multis doctis viris conquestus est Crato l, c. remedia multa ostendi a medicis, verum, quæ sine periculo iuvent, per pauca esse, ac verum alexipharmacum pestilentiæ penes Deum repositum, ab eoque precibus expetendum. Idem fateri habet Sydenhamius l. c. Mibi, inquit, verisimile est, peculiare pestis remedium, propriumque ipsius perniciei alexiterium adhuc in naturæ sinu abditum delitescere, nec eandem, nisiratione quadam mechanica tolli posse. Nec dissensuros credimus alios, qui unquam pestilentiæ interfuerunt. XXIII. Sed cum hucusque nondum cognitum sit, cui tuto fidas, luis huius remedium, cavendum tamen, si minus prodesse possis, saltem ne noceas, nec veram reddas observationem nominati modo Sanctorii l. c. apb. 139, nobilium neminem fere cum, remediis, plebeios vero sine iis plures sanari. Ac providendum adeo est, ut natura, quæ per abscessus contagium expurgare nititur, in suo opere non impediatur, sed adiuvetur, et fulta viribus suis, ac confirmata, id, quod molitur, exequi recte possit. Cui quidem fini, facile est intellectu, neque sangvinis missiones, neque emetica, neque cathartica, neque sudorifera fortiora, et quæcunque evacuando, exagitandoque vires debilitant, succosque nimia commotione perturbant, convenire, sed apta
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VERA 47 XXII. As to the treatment, then, of so dreadful a disease, it is now indeed clear to anyone that the whole point rests on this: that nature be strengthened against the force of the contagion contracted, and that it be both broken down in the body and drawn out of the same through suitable channels. In this place we would wish for thoroughly tested remedies, which might either correct the pestilential poison or draw it out without harm, just as experience has taught that the venereal virus in syphilis is expelled so abundantly through the passages of saliva, and then gradually and little by little through others; nor must we today fail to admit the same thing, concerning which Crato complained along with many learned men, that many remedies are shown by physicians, but few which help without danger, and that the true alexipharmic against pestilence is stored up with God and must be sought from Him by prayers. The same must Sydenham also admit, l. c. For me, he says, it seems probable that a peculiar remedy for the plague, and a special alexiterium for that very destruction, still lies hidden in the bosom of nature, and that it cannot be removed except by some mechanical method. Nor do we think others who have ever been present at a plague would disagree. XXIII. But since up to this point it is not yet known whom one can safely trust with the remedy for this disease, caution must nevertheless be taken so that, if you cannot do good, at least you do no harm, and do not make false the observation of the aforementioned Sanctorius, l. c. apb. 139, that scarcely any of the nobility are cured with remedies, whereas more of the common people are cured without them. And therefore care must be taken that nature, which strives to purge the contagion through abscesses, be not hindered in its work, but assisted, and, supported by its own powers and strengthened, be able to carry out properly what it is attempting. For this end, it is easy to understand that neither bloodlettings, nor emetics, nor purgatives, nor stronger sudorifics, nor anything that weakens the powers by evacuation and agitation and disturbs the humors by excessive commotion, are suitable, but rather apt
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DE PESTILENTIA VERA apta inprimis esse remedia diaphoretica, et alterantia, quæ cum aucta perspiratione corporis, blandoque sudore, sangvinem purgant, præterea et acrimoniam, æstumque humorum temperant, et debitam sangvinis consistentiam, et crasin tuentur, inter quæ aceta stillatitia, quæ vocant, bezoardica et alexipharmacaca, aquæve prophylacticæ, succus citri, et alia, supra laudata acida, et tot seculis cognita remedia ex bolis, et terris sigillatis, cornu cervi, ebore; lapillis cancrorum, crystallo montana, et eius generis aliis, ex quibus tot pulveres, et species in officinis prostant, ut novæ cudi formulæ non debeant, laudem merentur. His sæpe sales fixi, et, si æstus urgeat, nitrosi permisceri possunt, nisi vomitiones, fluxusque alui prohibeant. Camphoram et volatilia alia, antidotum Mithridaticam, theriacam, diascordium, et omnes huiusmodi compositiones, in quibus potissima vis ab opio pendet, ut ut vulgo magnifiant, non sine cautione, raroque sine acidis, ad movendum sudorem adhibenda esse, cautiores usus docuit, et inter alios Hier. Capivaccius submonuit Pract. lib. VI. cap. 38. Atque his quidem remediis in tempore uti conveniet, et ante, quam venenum intimius se in sangvinem inseruerit. Nam si in ullo morbo, in hac certe lue observandum est, quod in Ep. ad Cratevam Hippocrates scripsit: Ab omni arte aliena est procrastinatio, maxime vero a Medicina, in quadratio vitæ periculum affert: temporum autem opportunitates curationum sunt animæ, earumque observatio, finis. XXIV. Quousque autem cienda perspiratio corporis, movendusque sudor sit, considerata natura ægrotantis, prudens Medicus iudicabit, et, observato hoc primario scopo, mitigandis etiam symptomatis prospiciet, ac inprimis operam dabit, ne elatum in bubones, anthracesque virus importuno quovis remedio redeat in sangvinem, sed ut omne recte expurgetur. De quibus tamen plura non dicemus, cum his pleni sint libri, et nos temporis,
Transcription: Translated (English)
ON TRUE PESTILENCE diaphoretic remedies are especially suitable, and alterative ones, which together with increased perspiration of the body and gentle sweat, cleanse the blood; besides, they temper the acrimony and heat of the humors, and preserve the due consistency and complexion of the blood. Among these are distilled vinegars, the so-called bezoardic and alexipharmacic ones, prophylactic waters, juice of citrons, and other, above-praised acids, and remedies known for so many centuries from boles and sealed earths, hartshorn, ivory; crayfish stones, mountain crystal, and others of that sort, from which so many powders and preparations are offered in the shops that new-made formulas should not be devised. If fixed salts are added to these, and, if the heat press hard, nitrous salts, unless vomiting and fluxes of the bowels prevent it. Camphor and other volatile things, Mithridatic antidote, theriac, diascordium, and all such compositions, in which the chief force depends on opium, however much they are commonly exalted, are to be used, not without caution and rarely without acids, for provoking sweat, as more careful experience has taught, and among others Hier. Capivaccius warned, Pract. lib. VI. cap. 38. And indeed it will be proper to use these remedies in time, and before the poison has more deeply inserted itself into the blood. For if in any disease, certainly in this plague, that is to be observed which Hippocrates wrote in the Ep. ad Cratevam: Delay is foreign to all art, but most of all to Medicine; in the square of life it brings danger: but the opportunities of time are the soul of cures, and the observance of them is the end. XXIV. But how far the perspiration of the body should be stirred up, and the sweat moved, the prudent physician will judge, considering the nature of the sick person, and, with this primary aim observed, will also provide for mitigating the symptoms, and above all will take care that the aroused poison in buboes and carbuncles does not return into the blood through any ill-timed remedy, but that everything be rightly purged away. But concerning these matters we shall say no more, since books are full of them, and we of time,