THE PLAGUE 115 



From that time on the plague periodically spread over Italy until 

 the seventeenth century, while malaria has been in continuous posses- 

 sion down to our own time. We are told that the epidemic of 1348 

 reduced the inhabitants of the Eternal City to 20,000. 



We are familiar with the graphic description of the plague in 

 Florence by Bocaccio, who wrote: 



Such was the cruelty of Heaven and perhaps of men, that between March 

 and July following, it is supposed, and made pretty certain, that upwards of 

 a hundred thousand souls perished in the city only, whereas, before that calam- 

 ity, it was not supposed to have contained so many inhabitants. What mag- 

 nificent dwellings, what noble palaces were then depopulated to the last person, 

 what families extinct, what riches and vast possessions left, and no known heir 

 to inherit, what numbers of both sexes in the prime and vigor of youth whom 

 in the morning neither Galen, Hippocrates nor Esculapius himself, but would 

 have declared in perfect health after dining heartily with their friends here, 

 have supped with their departed friends in the other world. 



It is worthy of note that Guy de Chauliac, body physician to 

 Clement VI (pope from 1342 to 1352) recognized the two forms of 

 the plague. He wrote : 



Pestis habuit duos modos. Primus fuit per duos menses cum febre continua 

 et sputo sanguinis. Et isti moriebantur infra tres dies. Secundus fuit per 

 residuum temporis cum febre etiam continua et apostematibus et anthracibus 

 in exterioribus, potissime in subaxellis et inguinibus. Et moriebantur infra 

 quinque dies. Et fuit tantae contagiositatis, specialiter quae fuit cum sputo 

 sanguinis, quod non solum morando, sed etiam inspiciendo unus recipiebat ab 

 alio. 



There are but few passages in literature so tragic as the short 

 record of the plague of the fourteenth century begun by the friar of 

 Kilkenny, but soon interrupted by his death : 



I friar, John Clyn, of the order of Friars Minor and of the convent of Kil- 

 kenny, wrote in this book those notable things which happened in my times, 

 which I saw with my eyes, or which I learned from persons worthy of credit. 

 And lest these things worthy of remembrance should perish with time and fall 

 away from the memory of those who are to come after us, I, seeing these many 

 evils, and the whole world lying, as it were in the wicked one, among the dead, 

 awaiting death as I have truly heard and examined, so have I reduced these 

 things to writing; and lest the writing should perish with the writer, and the 

 work fail altogether with the workman, I leave parchment for continuing the 



