272 Epidemics. 



field which has been so rapidly passed over is foreign to the 

 present purpose, and anything but desirable. The thought- 

 ful reader will, in this sketchy outline, supply the deficiencies 

 by his own ready and comprehensive memory, aided, no 

 doubt, by many painful and some pleasant reflections. But, 

 on the relation in which these remarks stand to epidemics, a 

 few words may be said. 



Taking as a sample the epidemic period of 1177 to 

 1817 ; we have the Levant plague running through 

 till about 1777, when it ended in Moscow, and then it settled 

 in its own centre between Egypt and Turkey, or Acre as a 

 centre. In 1348 the Black death, and 1517, its successor, 

 the Sweating sickness, gave a new form to disease, and 

 intensified mortality by adding to the existing form of 

 plague ; whilst about 1495 to 1497 syphilis created a new 

 order of disease, or was itself an amalgam of two previous 

 and old diseases (as plague and leprosy), which maintains 

 a vigorous dominion to this present day. 



If, then, we take into consideration, in epidemics, from an 

 anthropological point of view, peoples and forms of govern- 

 ment, their rise and spread from distinct geographical areas 

 (as the Levant plague, small-pox, and syphilis as analogues 

 in material disease), and observe their rise, spread, sudden 

 development of power, decline, and decay, we shall observe 

 a remarkable coincidence and analogy between them.* 



Take the Grecian kingdom. Its rise was about the 

 beginning of a new epidemic period, or near the year 750 

 B.C., and Rome was not far from the same period. 



* It must be borne in mind that in Epidemic, as well as Historic, 

 Eras the time for development, extension, and decline, is considered to 

 be about 640 years. But it is not to be understood as a sharply-defined 

 line in Chronology, since either eras may be a few years antedated or 

 postdated. In such cases, it may be well to view the slight variation in 

 date as the morning and evening stars announcing the advent or de- 

 parture of the respective epochs. 



