l\ I ftODI t i ION 



has been called a disease of the misjpi on 

 valence among all rlissrs of people. 

 n.di.-d- ..f years as the most feared, 

 alas! also as the roost fatal of all diseases. 



HipjMM Tatrs, the most celebrated physician of antiquity (460 



and the father f srieniifie n. 



puhn .-in the disease which 



lie most dithnil- h proves fatal to the 



<t num- : in the middle agca (1550) the celebrated 

 physician Montano declared consun > be one of the 



most dangerously contagious and most easily Mracted of 

 diseases. An equally strong Advocate of the theory of 

 tagion was t -il anatomist Morgagni (1682-1771 



i an autopsy on an individual who had 



iU reulosis. Toward the end of the eighteenth 



rentury the sanitary authorities of some cities of Italy and 



.1 highly infectious and con- 

 tagious disease, and a F -dical author of the name of 

 Le Langrois reports that th-- muni. ipal authorities of 

 v had caused the furnit i woman, who 

 had died from < to be destroyed by fire. The 

 ^ion in this <.<!>< had apparently been demonstrated, in- 

 juirirs n-v.-alin^ deceased woman had slept frequently 

 with a coiuw 1 until she finally succumbed to 



-, dated Sep JO, 1782, ordered 



'latii'ii i'l" eonsillii; tiOQ of their 



apartments, personal furniture, books, etc., by means 



<.f vinepir. 1 sea-water, or fumigation. 



law was punished, if the individual was 



Mth thrvr years in the galleys, and if he 



hap|x .Ionian he was sent for the same time to 



xs and had to pay 300 ducats. Hie physician who 



s of the existence of a tubercu- 



\vas fined 300 ducats for the tirst offence, and a 



would banish him from the rountry 



n \v;i! dim: to IWtal 17 u iv;;j . there 



11 



