58 



MEDICAL SCIENCES. 



police for all countries. The idea was a happy one, but, carried into execu- 

 tion under the joint supervision of the ecclesiastical, the municipal, and the 

 University authorities, the scheme was imbued with the prejudices of that 

 time. Thus lepers continued to be kept in a state of isolation as in the 

 twelfth century, and the ceremonies by which they were deprived of their 

 rights as citizens were maintained. The well-known black plague, one of the 

 greatest scourges that ever devastated the world, and which originated in the 

 Asian marshes in 1348, after a long succession of earthquakes and heavy rain, 

 ravaged Italy and France, spreading from thence to Germany, England, 

 and Holland. The country districts were depopulated and converted into 

 deserts. In the towns this plague raged with such intensity that Venice lost 



Fig. 108. Banner of the Apothecaries of 

 St. Lo. Symbolic Arms of the 

 Corporation. 



Fig. 109. Banner of the Apothecaries of 

 Caen. Symbolic Arms of the Cor- 

 poration. 



a hundred, and Strasburg fifty thousand inhabitants. In many localities nine- 

 tenths of the population perished in a few months. The best medical advice 

 was powerless against an atmospheric poisoning, the effects of which often 

 proved fatal in the space of an hour, and the municipal authorities thought to 

 arrest it by large fires which were lighted at the cross roads and in the squares 

 of the towns. The Church, by order of Clement VI., pope at Avignon, 

 endeavoured, as at the period of the plague which ravaged Italy and decimated 

 the population of Rome in 1254, when Innocent IV. was pope (Fig. 110), to 

 inspire the people with courage, by means of processions, sermons, and public 

 prayers. The Holy See granted plenary indulgence to all those who, by tend- 

 ing the sick, exposed themselves to almost certain death. Few medical men 



