182 Epidemics. 



the Indies, and penetrated to the west, along the coast of 

 Africa, and over the continent of Europe. In the spring 

 of the second year, Constantinople, during three or four 

 months, was visited by the pestilence ; and Procopius, who 

 observed its progress and symptoms with the eyes of a 

 physician,* has emulated the skill and diligence of Thucy- 

 dides in the description of the plague of Athens. The 

 infection was sometimes announced by the visions of a 

 distempered fancy, and the victim despaired as soon as he 

 had heard the menace and felt the stroke of an invisible 

 spectre. But the greater number, in their beds, in the 

 streets, in their usual occupation, were surprised by a slight 

 fever ; so slight, indeed, that neither the pulse nor the colour 

 of the patient gave any signs of the approaching danger. 

 The same, the next, or the succeeding day, it was declared 

 by the swelling of the glands, particularly those of the groin, 

 of the arm-pits, and under the ear ; and when these buboes 

 or tumours were opened, they were found to contain a coal,. 

 or black substance, of the size of a lentil. If they came to 

 a just swelling and suppuration, the patient was saved by 

 this kind and natural discharge of the morbid humour. But 

 if they continued hard and dry, a mortification quickly 

 ensued, and the fifth day was commonly the term of his life. 

 The fever was often accompanied with lethargy or delirium ; 

 the bodies of the sick were covered with black pustules or 

 carbuncles, the symptoms of immediate death ; and in the 

 constitutions too feeble to produce an eruption, the vomiting 

 of blood was followed by a mortification of the bowels. To 

 pregnant women the plague was generally mortal ; yet one 

 infant was drawn alive from its dead mother, and three 

 mothers survived the loss of their infected foetus. Youth 

 was the most perilous season, and the female sex was less 

 susceptible than the male ; but every rank and profession 

 was attacked with indiscriminate rage, and many of those 

 who escaped were deprived of the use of their speech, with- 

 out being secure from a return of the disorder.! The 

 physicians of Constantinople were zealous and skilful, but 

 their art was baffled by the various symptoms and per- 



* Dr. Freind (Hist. Medicin. in Opp., p. 416 420, Lond., 1733) is 

 satisfied that Procopius must have studied physic, from his knowledge 

 and use of the technical words. Yet many words that are now scien- 

 tific were common and popular in the Greek idiom. 



f Thucydides (c. 51) affirms that the infection could only be once 

 taken; but Evagrius, born 536 A. D., who had family experience of the 

 plague, observes, that some persons who had escaped the first, sank, 

 under the second attack ; and this repetition is confirmed by Fabius. 



