Plague and Biot 



from the Lazaretto and spread over the town, 

 and hundreds or thousands of people had been 

 in contact with them. If one was to believe in 

 the existence of plague, one could only expect 

 a great outbreak within a week or two. But 

 nothing happened. The sick recovered, and 

 no further case of suspicious sickness occurred. 

 This of course confirmed the unbelievers in 

 their disbelief, and the ignorant in their distrust 

 of doctors. To a dispassionate observer it 

 appears incredible that a doctor should invent 

 and exploit an epidemic for his personal gain ; 

 yet that such was the case we were solemnly 

 assured by serious people. The truth may 

 never be fully known ; what happened is 

 probably that a few cases of plague did occur, 

 but that the disease was stamped out in the 

 early days, and that the sick persons removed 

 later were suffering from non-infectious pneu- 

 monia or less serious complaints. 



Eighteen months afterwards, in the summer 

 of 1907, there was a serious outbreak of a 

 mysterious disease, said to be septic pneu- 

 monia of a plague type, at S. Antonio, a 

 suburb of Funchal. Fourteen persons, includ- 

 ing a doctor, were attacked, and the fourteen 



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