CHAPTER I 



BUBONIC PLAGUE 



T^HE history of bubonic plague extends back to 

 a remote antiquity. Greek physicians of the 

 second and third century before the Christian era 

 have left a record of a pestilential malady character- 

 ised by the formation of buboes, which prevailed in 

 Libya, in Egypt, and in Syria ; and two Alexandrian 

 physicians, Dioscorides and Poseidonios, who were 

 contemporaries of Christ, have given a description of 

 the disease which leaves no doubt as to its identity 

 with the plague of more recent times. It may be 

 well to explain at this point that the buboes charac- 

 teristic of the disease are enlarged and inflamed 

 glands in the groins, in the armpits, and elsewhere, 

 which in chronic cases may suppurate and discharge 

 a virulent pus by which the disease is propagated. 

 We now know that the germ of the disease is found 

 not only in these suppurating buboes but also in the 

 blood of an infected individual. 



