♦ KNOW^LEDGE ♦ 



[November 1, 1888. 



twenty-three centuries ago, suggests a scene of fearful 

 horror. The origin of the phigue is noteworthy in tlie 

 li"ht of modern theories and discoveries respecting disBiise 

 "erms. The Spartans, having overcome the Athenians in 

 the field, ravaged Attica while nearly all its inhabitants 

 were closely shut up within the walls of Athens. Whether 

 the germs of the disease had already been conveyed to 

 Athens, or whether spreading in the air they found in the 

 overcrowded sorrow-stricken city a ftivourable field for their 

 development, cannot be learned. It was said that the 

 plague had had its origin in Ethiopia, the region now 

 including Abyssinia, Nubia, and the Soudan, and- had 

 travelled thence by Egypt and Asia Minor to Athens. But 

 its rapid development in Athens would certainly seem to 

 suggest that this plague (and probably therefore others) 

 depended on surrounding conditions for its development. 



This pestilential fever began with heat in the head and 

 inflammation in the eyes. The tongue and throat became 

 bloody and the breath fetid. Sneezing and heavy coughing, 

 hiccoughs and .spasms, marked the progress of the disease. 

 Colic and intense pain supervened. The skin became red, 

 ulcers formed here and there ; and although the internal 

 fever was intense, the skin was cold. Thirst was unquench- 

 able, and intense pain rendered sleep impossible. The fate 

 of the patient was usually decided by or before the 

 seventh day, death generally closing his sufferings between 

 the seventh and the ninth day. Few survived, and 

 for a large proportion of those who did life was worse than 

 death, since either they were wholly cripjiled or the disease 

 left them with mind impaired and memory gone. No 

 remedy was found for the disease, and the helplessness of 

 the physicians caused a despondency among those who were 

 attacked which rendered the mortality largely greater than 

 otherwise it would probably have been. But most of those 

 attacked were left untended ; for it was found that few 

 among the attendants on the sick escaped, so that only 

 those of bravest and most generous minds dared the risk of 

 nursing even those dearest to them. It was impossible, 

 crowded as the beleaguered city was, to keep the healthy 

 apart from the sick. Hundreds flocked around each of the 

 public fountains to allay their raging thirst. The temples 

 were filled with corpses, for it was impossible to get the dead 

 conveyed to suitable places of interment. 



Whereas the assurance of death should produce in healthy 

 minds the very reverse of the idea, " Let us eat and drink, 

 for to-morrow we die " — whether the to-morrow be figura- 

 tive or literal, in times of plague and pestilence, when all 

 men feel the probable nearness of death, and, even where 

 most confident, are reminded of its certainty at no very 

 distant date, the majority invariably turn to i-iotous living. 

 They seek to till what remains to them of life with all the 

 sensual pleasures they can crowd into it. Thus as in 

 Athens during the time of horror so graphically described 

 by Thucydides, riot and debauchery prevailed unceasingly. 

 Gross dissipation and tumultuous revelry went on in such 

 sort that but for the signs of deiith and disease everywhere 

 prevalent, a stranger entering the city might have imagined 

 that it was a time of wild rejoicing over some great national 

 triumph. Men committed crimes from which at other 

 times the fear of the law would have deterred them ; for 

 the law had no terrors where nature threatened an earlier 

 punishment than any legal process could inflict. As they 

 saw the good and the bad, the openly profane and the pro- 

 fessedly pious, stiicken down impartially, they lost all 

 belief in the control of the gods, and therefore saw no 

 reason to deny themselves whatever pleasures they could 

 obtain. 



Thucydides says that during the plague, there died within 

 the limits of the city of Athens, then as now but a small 



city, no fewer than five thousand of the soldiers, and of the 

 other inhabitants a number too great to be reckoned. 



Very striking is the contrast between the plague of 

 Athens, afi^ecting chiefly a single city and lasting but a short 

 time, and the plague which extended with varying degrees 

 of intensity from Persia to Gaul in the reign of Justinian, 

 lasting no less than thirty years, and destroying (according 

 to an estimate which the historian Gibbon did not consider 

 extravagant) no fewer than a hundred millions of human 

 beings — a number not much less than the entire population 

 of Great Britain and the United States. 



In this long-lasting and most terrible plague the featuras 

 of the disease were quite unlike what had been noticed 

 dui'ing the plague of Athens. Procopius studied it both as 

 historian and physician. In most cases the mind was fir.st 

 attacked, anxious fears and saddening visions seeming to 

 overpower the reasoning faculties. But usually a mild 

 fever was the first sign of mischief, nothing in its earlier pro- 

 gi-ess suggesting any serious danger. Before long, however, 

 the glands beneath the ears, under the arm-pits, and 

 in the groin swelled alarmingly, especially as these swellings 

 were soon recognised as signs that the dreaded plague fever 

 had indeed seized its victim. The swellings became tumours, 

 within which a hard dark substance as large as a bean was 

 formed. If these tumours remained hard and diy, blood 

 poisoning follosved, and on or about the fifth day from the 

 setting in of the disease the patient died. But if the 

 tumours softened and suppurated, the venom of the plague 

 seemed to be discharged, and the ])atient was saved. Some- 

 times the fever accompanying the development of these 

 tumours brought a profound lethargy on the patient, who 

 suffered little, begging only to be let alone that he might die 

 untortured by medicine, surgery, or even nursing. More 

 frequently the fever brought on raging and delirium. In 

 all cases the bodies of those who died of the plague were 

 covered with black boils or carbuncles. All hope was 

 given up when these appeared. Among those who recovered 

 a considerable portion lost sight and hearing, while others 

 remained ever afterwards speechless. 



Strictly speaking the peculiarities above described are to 

 be regarded as characteristic of the true plague — so that the 

 so-ailled plague of Athens, as well as the plague which 

 afiiicted the whole Roman Empire in the reign of Aurelius, 

 and that again of the third century, were not really plagues 

 in the full sense of the term. It would almost seem, indeed, 

 as though the plague of Athens was but an exceptionally 

 malignant form of remittent fever. 



The true plague is defined as a specific contagious fever 

 accompanied by the formation of tumours, and sometimes 

 of carbuncles. Dark spots on the skin are regarded as in- 

 fallible signs of death. They are due to the eli'usion of 

 blood under the skin, and precede dejith by only a few 

 hours. The skin is sometimes so covered with these spots 

 as to assume a dark livid hue after death — whence the name 

 Black Death given to the worst form of plague. 



During Justinian's plague, the idea prevailed that the 

 disease was not contagious — an idea which if it saved the 

 afflicted nations from a portion of the troubles accompany- 

 ing the appearance of pestilence, brought in others more 

 terrible. Doubtless the quiet disregard of danger at such 

 seasons is desirable, so only that it does not cause the neglect 

 of necessary precautions. But disregard of danger is a 

 dangerous quality when it has its origin merely in ignor- 

 ance. It so proved in this case. The friends and 

 relatives of the deceased were more careful in their atten- 

 tions than during most plagues, but the absence of all 

 restraints on the communication of the disease from house 

 to house, from city to city, and from country to country led 

 to results the most disastrous. Procopius tells us that the 



