GENERAL PATHOLOGY. 55 



hypothesis. !N"ay, those who labor to pervert his views to 

 any such end, must deny to him the right or ability to pre- 

 sent or maintain the conclusions he favored. His tractate, 

 far from being as voluminous as that of Lancisi, is clear, 

 though terse in its pathological summary, and bears the marks 

 of a scholarly and independent thinker. Eefusing to be 

 guided by the astrological lore, in which he had been in- 

 structed in his youth ; discarding all reference of that cycle 

 of malignant disease of which he wrote to any ill-starred con- 

 junction of Saturn and Mars ; he avowed himself as the advo- 

 cate of a rational system in medicine, and evidently seeks to 

 conform his style of reasoning to that of the inductive school. 

 True, he was misled by that which he gives as the most defi- 

 nite pathognomonic mark ; so often cited of late to prove the 

 theory of the variolous character or of continuous outbreaks 

 of the Pest, and its recrudescense at the present time : *' pus- 

 tula quinta vel sexta die per totum corpus erumpentes, ac 

 tubercula variolarum speciem referentia." He viewed the dis- 

 temper as mainly eruptive and pustular, and styled it " The 

 Oow-pox Plague." And it is to be urged on grounds of just 

 reasoning, that he was borne out by what he observed 

 in viewing it as an inflammatory and phlegmonous disease, 

 if not in the parallel he sought to draw with variola ; 

 and that with his clear i^erceptions and sturdy diagnosis he 

 could not have confounded it with any distemper such as the 

 Pest. His general description is '• that it was a malignant, 

 pestilential fever, accompanied by rigors, followed by a durn- 

 ing Heat, quick pulse, difficulty of hreatliing, &c." *But what 

 light is thrown upon the pestilence by his examinations of the 

 carcasses of those who fell victims to it ? 



" It was particularly observed that in the omasus or paunch, there 

 was found a hard, compact body, firmly adhering to the coats of the 

 ventricle, of a large bulk, and an intolerable smell ; in other parts, as 

 in the hrain^ lungs ^ Sc, were several hgdatides, and large bladders, 

 filled only with wind, which being opened gave a deadly stench ; 

 there were also ulcers at the root of the tongue and bladders filled 



* Rammazini Ed., 1716 ; Geneva, p. 787. 



