PLACE PLAGUE. 



575 



that the movement, or the passage over which it is 

 written, is to be performed by the fingers instead of 

 the bow. 



PLACE, LA. See Laplace. 



PLAGIARISM. See Plagium. 



PLAGIUM, in the Roman law, is the crime of 

 wealing the slave of another, or of kidnapping a 

 free person, in order to make him a slave. Accord- 

 ing to German law, it is the getting forcible posses- 

 sion of a man's person, so as to restrain him of his 

 liberty. Metaphorically, it is used for the act of 

 stealing the thoughts and words of another, by pub- 

 lishing them as one's own. Plagiarism, though 

 often practised, is not unfrequently charged where a 

 second invention has taken place, since the most 

 striking figures, for instance, are those which are 

 most likely to suggest themselves to a variety of 

 persons. The idea of raising all the roofs of a city, 

 and looking into the interior of the houses, used by 

 Qnevedo and Le Sage, might easily occur to a per- 

 son unacquainted with their works, as the writer has 

 had occasion to know. Such repetitions of course 

 become more and more likely in proportion as the 

 number of books and educated men increase. 



PLAGUE; a disease characterized by a contagious 

 typhus, and entire prostration of the strength, and 

 certain local symptoms, as buboes, carbuncles, and 

 livid spots (petechiee). The latter are in this con- 

 nexion the peculiar characteristics of the plague, 

 since the former also appear in other malignant dis- 

 eases. In the beginning, the patient generally expe- 

 riences great mental dejection and debility of body, 

 slight chills alternating with heats, which are after- 

 wards succeeded by a burning heat within, and a 

 heaviness about the head ; then follows stupor ; the 

 eyes are glaring, glazed, or wild and sparkling; the 

 face appears whitish and livid, and the patient is 

 melancholy, morose or anxious, faint and delirious. 

 In many cases, nausea and vomiting occur. The 

 thirst is unquenchable, the tongue reddish or yellow- 

 ish, the speech indistinct. In the progress of the 

 disease, the face often becomes red, the respiration 

 quick and uneasy, and bilious, green, or bloody and 

 black matter, is vomited. The delirium often be- 

 comes fierce ; the urine is sometimes turbid, black, 

 whitish, or bloody ; and hemorrhages take place, 

 when death does not immediately ensue; buboes ap- 

 pear in the groins, the arm-pits, the parotids, and 

 other places, with carbuncles, small, white, yellow- 

 ish, black spots, over the whole body. The fear, 

 anxiety, and despair, which seize the patient with 

 the first appearance of the plague, increase the dan- 

 ger of the disease. Death, in many cases, takes 

 place on the first day, and frequently in a few hours 

 sifter the appearance, but sometimes not till the 

 second or third day. It is considered favourable if 

 the buboes and carbuncles appear at the same time, 

 are very numerous, and terminate in suppuration. 

 They either terminate in suppuration, or become 

 indurated, are healed, or cut out. 



In regard to the origin of the plague, and the 

 manner in which it is communicated, very different 

 opinions have been entertained, according to the state 

 of medical science. In early times, when calamitous 

 events, the causes of which were not understood, 

 were attributed to spirits and demons, the plague 

 was also ascribed to their influence. At a later 

 period, it was accounted for by changes in the air, 

 poisonous vapours which descended from the atmo- 

 sphere, or to clouds of insects which were received 

 into the boJy by inspiration, or in the food, or by 

 absorption through the skin, and thus corrupted the 

 blood. Physicians, according to the tendency of 

 their theories, found the cause in the excess of sul- 

 phureous matter in the blood, or in its coagulation 



or resolution, &c. Many have considered it as not 

 contagious: at present, most have been convinced 

 by experience of its contagious character.* 



The plague is a specific disease, and can originate 

 of itself only in certain countries. Hot weather, bad 

 air and food, and filthiness, favour its production and 

 propagation.! The nature of the disease seems to 

 consist in a diminution of the vital energy, which 

 may be so rapid and universal, that the component 

 parts of the system, particularly the blood, lose their 

 natural properties, and become corrupted, and life is 

 destroyed before the nervous system is able to coun- 

 teract the effects. When the progress of the disease 

 is not so rapid, the vital energy which remains is 

 exhausted by febrile excitements and local inflamma- 

 tion. Dissections have shown collections of coagu- 

 lated or decomposed fluid, black blood, inflammations 

 of large portions of the skin, and carbuncles in great 

 numbers. The buboes discharge an offensive mat- 

 ter, and extend far inward. The carbuncles which 

 precede the approach of death, and contain dead 

 parts, also generally reach deep inwards. When 

 nature possesses sufficient vigour, the inflammations 

 are on the skin rather than in the interior. The 

 buboes soon terminate in suppuration, and the car- 

 buncles, when cut, discharge a less corrupt matter, 

 and fall off. The fever is carried off by a violent 

 sweat: the recovery is slow. When the disease is 

 completely developed, it is contagious : to this are 

 owing the terrible devastations which it causes. 



There is little doubt that the plague appeared in 

 the most ancient times, particularly where a numer- 

 ous population was crowded together in the warm 

 climates ; but we must not consider every disease as 

 the plague which has been so called by historians, as 

 they often mean by the term nothing more than a 

 malignant disorder prevailing over a considerable 

 extent of country. Among the most famous in- 

 stances is the plague described in so masterly a man- 

 ner by Thucydides, which, in the third year of the 

 Peloponnesian war (430 B. C.), ravaged Athens, then 

 besieged by the Spartans. A large number of the 

 inhabitants of Attica had fled into the city: fear, 

 anxiety, want, or badness of provision, and the cor- 

 ruption of the air, caused by the crowded state of 

 the population, produced and propagated the plague 

 in the city. Death generally ensued on the seventh 

 or ninth day. The plague in Jerusalem (A. D. 72,) 

 when it was besieged by the Romans, is described 

 by Josephus. In Rome, the plague existed (A. D. 

 77) in the reign of Vespasian ; of Marcus Aurelius 

 (170,) when it raged over almost all Europe and 

 Asia; of Commodus (in 189), and particularly of 

 Gallieiius (in 262), when 5000 persons are said to 

 have died daily in Rome. From that time, the 

 plague has always continued to exist in Italy, Greece, 

 Asia, and Africa, and raged particularly in the po- 



* Doctor Madden, who paid much attention to this subject, 

 says, " I am thoroughly persuaded that plague is both conta- 

 gious and infectio'is ; at one period epidemical, at another 

 endemical; in plain English, that the miasma may be commu- 

 nicated by the touch or by the breath ; that in one period it is 

 confined to a particular district, and at another is disse initiated 

 among the people. . But if plague have one form more decided 

 than another, it is the endemic." He considers, however, that 

 the contagion generally derives its violence and virulence from 

 want of ventilation, the plague chambers in the East being 

 generally closed and crowded with patients, by which means 

 the ;iir in them is rendered extremely foul. See Let. XVIII., 

 in his Travels in Turkey, Egypt, &c. 



f " Both plague and malaria," says Doctor Madden, "have 

 their origin in putrefaction, exhaling an Invisible vapour, which 

 can only be estimated by its consequences. Malaria originates 

 in the decomposition of vegetable matter. Plague, according 

 to my opinion, originates in the putrefaction of animal matter. 

 The production of both, of course, depends on certain states 

 of moisture and heat, which, in other places, of even a damper 

 climate and higher temperature, are wanting to the generatioa 

 of these diseases.'.' Mad. ub. sup. 



