November 1, 1888.] 



♦ KNOW^LEDGE ♦ 



plague spread from Persia to Gaul, from the seacoast to the 

 interior. No island or mountain district was so sequestered 

 but that the plague spread to it, either at its first passage 

 across a region, or later (sometimes with even moie terrible 

 eflect) in places which were supposed to have escaped. The 

 succession of the seasons seemed to have no influence on this 

 long-lasting pestilence. (I have named thirty years, but, 

 according to some historians, its etfects continued for more 

 than half a century.) 



The plague of Florence in the middle of the fouiteenth 

 century was remarkable, like that of Athens, for the limited 

 area which it affected, or rather in which it wrought its 

 most deadly effects and rose to true plague pitch. If 

 Florence when the plague reached her had given way to 

 despair, and taken no measures to resist the enemy, one 

 might more readily vinderstand the terrible intensity of the 

 sufferings of the people. But all remedies known in those 

 days weie tried. The streets were cleaned ; suspected per- 

 sons were removed or prevented from entering ; every 

 measure was adopted which the wisest and most prudent 

 of the inhabitants could suggest. Yet the plague raged in 

 Florence as it raged nowhere else. 



^- Tumours such as those which appeared diu-ing Justinian's 

 plague appeared during the plague of Florence, and as in the 

 sixth century so in tlie fourteenth, purple spots on the body 

 of the diseased were regarded as sure tokens of approaching 

 dissolution. Death came earlier, however, the sufferers 

 usually dying on the third day. Animals as well as men 

 wei'e infected. Boccaccio tells us tliat he saw two hogs 

 rooting among the clothes of a man who had died of the 

 plague — " in less than an hour," he adds, " they turned 

 round and died on the spot." 



As in formei- plagues, the restraints of religion seemed to 

 lose their influence. Every one, says one writer, did as he 

 pleased. This doubtless is an exaggeration, since we have 

 evidence tliat the monks and friars stood bravely to the 

 work of religious consolation and physical help. The idea con- 

 veyed in the introductory matter of Boccaccio's " Decameron," 

 that the occjision seemed one when men and women 

 seemed to turn naturally from the gloom around to festivity 

 and dissipation, even to debauchery and riot, is undoubtedly 

 correct. What could it matter ? all save a few devotees 

 seemed to think. " If we are to die by the plague, we may 

 as well enjoy what little of life remains to us ; if we are to 

 survive, we need not trouble ourselves with unnecessary 

 anxieties." 



When the plague was at its highest towards its close, it 

 became the custom for the dead to bo put out of doors at 

 night that the oiKcers appointed for the purpose might 

 remove them in the morning. It is comjjuted that between 

 sevent}' thousand and one hundred thous.ind died of the 

 plague in Tuscany alone, between March and August 1.348. 

 " Such," says Boccaccio, " was the severity of heaven." 



The plague in England, described by Defoe as an eye- 

 witness, though ho was but an infant in IGG."} and 166G 

 when it raged, though terrible was not fo be compared for 

 severity with the plague of 1310. As m;uiy died, indeed, 

 perhaps more ; but in a much larger po()nlation. It began 

 in the autumn of 1665 ; but the cold winter of 1665-1666 

 greatly checked its ravages, and many hoped that it would 

 altogether disappear. But with the early spring of 1666 

 deaths from the pestilence began to be announced, until 

 presently it began to b(> recognised that the real attack had 

 begun. The symptoms were akin to those observed during 

 the plague of Florence, but sometimes death came even 

 more rapidly. In J uly 2,000 died weekly, but by September 

 the weekly number of deaths from the plague had risen to 

 8,000. The dead were buried together in certain fields, 

 then subvirban, now within London proper. There is one 



triangular space (not built on) between Brompton and 

 Kensington, where large numbers were buried. Many of 

 the dead were buried in the fields at present occupied by 

 the houses in Golden Square; and it was noticed that 

 during the visitation of cholera in 1849 the di.sease seemed 

 more malignant in that region ; but whether this was due, 

 as some surmised, to the opening of drains communicating 

 with the trenches in which the plague- stricken were buried 

 in 1665 and 1666 seems open to considerable question. 



In the East the plague still appears from time to time, but 

 whatever may te tlie reason, it seems unable to pass thence 

 into Europe. During the plague of 1835 in Alexandria (in 

 which 9,000 inhabitants of that city perished), twenty-five 

 ships, eight of which were certainly infected with plague, 

 carried 31,000 bales of cotton to England. Yet no case of 

 plague occurred among those employed in unloading and 

 disinfecting the cargoes. Equally large cargoes were 

 unloaded at Marseilles and Trieste, with the same result. 

 Thus the disease, however communicated, is apparently 

 never conveyed by merchandise. It would seem, in fact, to 

 require special infection, since in 1878, the plague was for 

 two months confined to a single village in Russia. In 1834 

 plague existed for eight months in Alexandria before being 

 communicated to Damietta and Mansoorah, though no 

 measures were taken to interrupt traffic. On the other 

 hand, where several plague-stricken persons are together in 

 a house or ship, a certain atmosphere of infection seems to 

 be formed by which the disease may be ti-ansmitted. 



Richard A. Proctor. 



MR. PROCTOR'S DEATH. 



(Reprinted from the Ocala Banner.) 



MEETING of physicians, representing the 

 Boards of Health of several of the interior 

 counties, was held in Ocala last Sunday, 

 and among the matters discussed was that of 

 the death of Mr. Richard A. Proctor. Every 

 phy.sician present ridiculed the idea of his 

 having died of yellow fever as reported by 

 his attending physicians and the health 

 authorities of New York city. 



The opinion was unanimous that the symptoms given by 

 the physicians attending him, as reported in the Workl, 

 Herald, and other newspapers, from the time he left his 

 home at Oaklawn until he was sent mercilessly forth in a 

 drenching rain to his death, plainly and unmistakably 

 pointed to the one conclusion that the disease of which the 

 unfortunate a.stronomer died was malarial hcemorrhagic, and 

 not yellow fever. 



Dr. Thomas P. Gary, the President of the combined 

 Boards of Health of the counties pre.sent, wiis appointed a 

 committee to prepare for publication in the New York news- 

 papers the opinions as stated above, and the facts upon 

 which they were based, which Dr. Gary did in a brief space 

 of time, and the same was forwarded at once to the New 

 York newspa))ers for publication. 



The facts in IMr Proctor's case are mysterious. There 

 has never been a case of fever in this county but one, 

 and that was a stiige-driver from Gainesville during the 

 epidemic in 1871, and in that case the fever did not spread, 

 the man himself recovered, and there w:is no alarm. People 

 were not as panic-stricken in those days as they are now, 

 Mr. Proctor's home, at the time of his leaving it, was fully 

 a hundred miles from any infected district. For weeks pre- 

 viously he had been at home busily engaged in the prep.'ira- 



