xxvi Introduction. 



disastrous effects as public calamities j or they were priests, usually 

 ouly anxious to speak of the marvellous virtues of their prayers and 

 mummeries in driving them from their localities. The natural events 

 of a striking character which have either preceded or accompanied 

 animal plagues, — and which might have led the inquiring mind to a 

 more correct appreciation of the connection between them, and the 

 appearance or disappearance of these maladies, — are, when noticed, 

 generally too briefly described to afford any satisfactory guidance in 

 this respect. It was generally considered sufficient to ascribe their 

 advent to whatever might appear unusual in the celestial or terrestrial 

 worlds J or, if these afforded nothing marvellous, to the wrath of a 

 resentful deity. There was usually no attempt to chronicle those 

 symptoms which would have rendered their descriptions of the 

 greatest value to future historians 5 and it was, as a rule, only necessary 

 to designate them by such general, though vague terms, as conveyed a 

 striking idea of their deadly character, without preserving their distinct- 

 ive features. 



Thus it is that the word -i^'^ deher, signifying plague, was 

 employed in Hebrew speech to denote every kind of epidemic or 

 epizootic disease ; while the Greeks gave the collective denomination of 

 Xot/xocj a plague, pestilence, or koifiiK^ voaoc, a pestilential disease, alike 

 to the general affections of men or animals, no matter what form they 

 assumed or from what cause they arose. The Roman writers were no 

 more explicit, but ambiguously styled them pestis, pestilentia, or strages 

 pecorum ; and the ignis sacer of Lucretius is scarcely more intelligible 

 than any of the other terms employed. 



The chroniclers of the Middle Ages, in transferring these designations 

 to their own times, have added the equally indefinite appellatives of 

 mortalitas, clades, lues, &c. Undoubtedly these vague expressions 

 arose from ignorance and want of observation 5 for the bodies of the 

 affected, while alive, were seldom, if ever, carefially examined, and 

 scrutiny or dissection of the dead which may have perished from plagues 

 of the most diverse character, was neglected or forbidden. Pathologi- 

 cal anatomy had not made such progress as to convince the popular 

 mind of its value ; and, besides, what was the need for this troublesome 

 inquiry when these afflictions were believed to arise from sources beyond 

 the reach or power of man. 



Terms as little significative as those of less enlightened centuries, 

 such as plague, murrain, distemper, &c., are still in use as popular 

 designations for these maladies. The term ' murrain ' is, perhaps, for 

 general purposes that best adapted to express that which technically 



