582 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



was said to be communicated by means of clothing and by the look. 

 It spread from Ethiopia to Egypt and thence through the known world. 



Although the above early epidemics cannot be identified with the 

 bubonic plague, there is nevertheless excellent evidence of the existence 

 of this disease in remote antiquity. The first undoubted testimony 

 on this point is that furnished by Rufus of Ephesus, who lived in 

 the first century of the Christian era. The writings of this author 

 are no longer extant, but they are quoted by Oribasius, the physician 

 and friend of Julian the Apostate, who lived in the fourth century. 

 The writings of Oribasius were discovered in the Vatican Library and 

 were published early in this century by Cardinal Mai. In the forty- 

 fourth "Book of Oribasius" occurs the extract taken from Rufus of 

 Ephesus, from which it appears that "the so-called pestilential buboes 

 are all fatal and have a very acute course, especially when observed in 

 Libya, Egypt and in Syria. Dionysius mentions it. Dioscorides and 

 Posidonius have described it at length in their treatise upon the plague 

 which prevailed during their time in Libya." The description which 

 then follows of the buboes and of the disease is an exact counterpart 

 of the present plague. The writings of the authors quoted by Rufus 

 are no longer extant, but one thing is certain, and that is that the 

 Dionysius referred to lived not later than 300 years before Christ. 

 The other two physicians lived in Alexandria contemporaneous with 

 the birth of Christ. It may, therefore, be considered as an established 

 fact that the plague existed in Egypt, Libya and Syria as early as 

 300 years before Christ. This is of especial interest in view of the re- 

 cent discovery by Koch of an endemic plague focus in British Uganda 

 and German Kisiba, at the headwaters of the Nile. Whether it ever 

 invaded European territory prior to the sixth century is unknown. 



The great plague of Justinian which broke out in 542, Anno Do- 

 mini, appeared first in Egypt, and from thence it spread east and west 

 throughout the known world and persisted for more than a half cen- 

 tury. So unknown was the plague in Europe at that time that the 

 physicians of Constantinople considered it a new disease. Procopius, 

 who was an eye-witness of the plague at Constantinople, states that the 

 daily mortality in that city was at times over 10,000. 



The pandemic of Justinian resulted in the distribution of the plague 

 for the first time throughout the length and breadth of known Europe. 

 From that time on the early chroniclers make repeated mention of 

 devastating plagues consequent upon the miseries of war and famine. 

 The descriptions of these pestilences are, as a rule, insufficient to iden- 

 tify them with the bubonic plague. Typhus, scurvy, smallpox and 

 other diseases undoubtedly alternated in the work of destruction. Of 

 the scores of epidemics thus recorded during the eight centuries follow- 

 ing this first visitation few, indeed, can be identified to a certainty with 



