igo Epidemics. 



less endemic character, common in the extensive plains of 

 Tartary, with another infectious disease known as the Levant 

 or Justinian plague ; the specific poisons at some point of 

 junction blending their primitive blastema, or something 

 equally incomprehensible (beyond the notion of their having 

 opposite centres of attraction, which will be equal to 

 mutual coalescence), and when blended being sustained in 

 their integrity by an exact epidemic constitution of atmo- 

 sphere adapted for their growth and diffusion, till every nook 

 and corner is reached where man holds intercourse with his 

 brother man ? Let this be briefly considered. 



The Black death in all lasted about fifty years ; its greatest 

 destructive power was in the first few years of its advent 

 into Europe. About a hundred years after its disappearance, 

 the old plague took its usual course of visiting one city 

 for a year or two, another in a few years after, then diffusing 

 itself over a particular country. 



But we find a new disease showing itself about the year 

 1494, though Florence and France appear to have shown indi- 

 cations of this disease towards the end of the twelfth century ; 

 and one of the Medici has honoured posterity by having his 

 name enrolled among the noble patricians of Italy who fell 

 a victim to Syphilis before it was generally known as the 

 mal de France. 



Was this new disease a blending of plague and leprosy in 

 one new entity, or a disease retaining in itself some faint 

 outlines of both in a modified form ? 



There is no disease in which contagion or direct local 

 contact is more essential to be subject to its infectious pro- 

 perties than is syphilis. Ancient writers - upon leprosy 

 appear to have judged infection arose from the breath and 

 body exhalations of the sufferer, and so of plague. Doubts 

 appear to be entertained whether now either of these diseases 

 are infectious above all, leprosy. Plague is not hereditary, 



