BOOK XXVI. iii. 4-iv. 6 



beings or special ages, or even people of a special 

 position in life, (just as if a plague chose its victims), 

 one children, another adults, one making the nobihty 

 especially Hable, another the poor. 



IV. It is noted in the Annals " that it was in the 

 censorship * of Lucius Paulhis and Quintus Marcius 

 that there appeared for the fii-st time in Italy the 

 carbuncle, a disease pecuHar to the province of Carbimcies. 

 Galha Narbonensis. There died of it in the same 

 year as I compose my work two men of consular 

 rank, JuHus Rufus <^ and Laecanius Bassus," the 

 former through the ignorance of his pliysicians, who 

 tried lancing ; the latter, however, through his own 

 tearing out with a needle from his left thumb a 

 spUnter (boil) so small that it could scarcely be 

 seen.<* The carbuncle fonns in the most hidden 

 parts of the body, and usually as a red hardness 

 under the tongue, hke a pimple but blackish at the i 



top, occasionally of a leaden colour, spreading into 1 



the flesh but without swelhng, pain, irritation, or 

 any other symptom than sleep, overcome by which 

 the patient is carried off in three days. Sometimes 

 also the disease, bringing shivering, small pustules 

 around the sore, and more rarely fever, has reached 



remains. The MS. E has eviilsa to agree with acu. After acu 

 a word may have been lost, perhaps aculeo (splinter) or 

 furunculo (boil). Carbunculus (when not anthrax) was a 

 malignant pustule or ulcer. Celsus (V 28a) says that it 

 should be cauterized, but does not mention cutting. " If acus 

 does not mean ' head ' here it is probably coriupt. There 

 are two ways of transforming a simple boil into a genei-al 

 infection. One is to lance with a knifc (Rufus), the other is 

 to squeeze the head out with a dirty thumb (Bassus)." A.C.A. 



269 



