CENTURY X. 127 



is deadly, with some smells that are sweet, which also 

 maketh it the sooner received. Plagues also have been 

 raised by anointings of the chinks of doors, and the 

 like ; l not so much by the touch, as for that it is com 

 mon for men, when they find any thing wet upon their 

 fingers, to put them to their nose ; which men there 

 fore should take heed how they do. The best is, that 

 these compositions of infectious airs cannot be made 

 without danger of death to them that make them. 

 But then again, they may have some antidotes to 

 save themselves ; so that men ought not to be secure 

 of it. 



917. There have been in divers countries great 

 plagues, by the putrefaction of great swarms of grass 

 hoppers and locusts, when they have been dead and 

 cast upon heaps. 



918. It happeneth oft in mines, that there are damps 

 which kill, either by suffocation, or by the poisonous 

 nature of the mineral : and those that deal much in 

 refining, or other works about metals and minerals, 

 have their brains hurt and stupefied by the metalline 

 vapours. Amongst which it is noted that the spirits 

 of quicksilver either fly to the skull, teeth, or bones ; 

 insomuch as gilders use to have a piece of gold in 

 their mouth, to draw the spirits of quicksilver ; which 

 gold afterwards they find to be whitened. There are 

 also certain lakes and pits, such as that of Avernus, 



1 See on this subject Manzoni s Storia delln Colonna wfame. In 1630 

 many persons at Milan were tortured and put to death in consequence of a 

 popular belief that the plague, which raged in that year, had been raised 

 in the manner mentioned in the text. For an earlier instance of the same 

 belief, see Wierus De Prtestiyiis Dceinonum. It seems to be of recent ori 

 gin, as, although the Jews were charged with producing the great plague 

 of the fourteenth century, I have not met with any mention of their having 

 been supposed to do so by poisonous anointings. 



