21 



Huge fires, kept burning for weeks, were used from the most ancient 

 times. The physician Acron is reputed to have rendered great service 

 by the use of fires at Athens during the pest at the beginning of the 

 Pelopennesian war. Fires made of shavings and chips were thought 

 preferable, because they produce a clear flame, without smoke. Aro- 

 matic wood was added to these fires, but special caution obtained 

 against burning anything producing an offensive odor, such as the 

 wood of certain nut trees, for fear of liberating vapors likely to add 

 to the disturbed condition of the air. Not only were garments and 

 similar articles burned, but sometimes houses and ships as well. Oppo- 

 sition often existed against such measures on the ground of further 

 deteriorating the atmosphere. 



Mixtures of lime were favorably regarded and whitewashing of 

 infected apartments was habitually practiced. Acid fumigations are 

 spoken of in the eighteenth century. Muriatic acid fumes, suggested 

 as a disinfectant in 1774 by Guyton Morveau, of Paris, were used in 

 1800 to disinfect rooms, garments, mattresses, and the like, after the 

 epidemic of yellow fever in Spain (" Yellow fever in Spain," Yellow 

 Fever Institute, United States Public Health and Marine-Hospital 

 Service, Bulletin No. 5). With all these measures, great stress was 

 laid in cleaning up infected cities during and after epidemics, giving 

 special attention to sewers, wells, cesspools, and disposing properly of 

 dead bodies. In reading the chronicles of the middle ages the con- 

 viction can not be avoided that, were it not for occasional epidemics, 

 public sanitation would have fallen entirely into disuse. 



MEASURES ADOPTED IN A PEST-STKICKEN CITY. 



To gain a precise knowledge of what measures were usually prac- 

 ticed in places afflicted with an epidemic in early days, it is instructive 

 to examine specifically the provisions adopted in a particular city. A 

 suitable instance is presented in the Treatise on Plague, by Alessandro 

 Massaria, who was in charge of sanitary measures at Vicenza, Italy, 

 during a prevalence of bubonic plague of one year's duration in 1577. 

 The first death was attributed to garments clandestinely introduced 

 from Padua, where plague prevailed. After a necropsy establishing 

 the diagnosis the furniture in the house was burned and every exposed 

 person stripped, given new clothes, and removed outside the city. 

 The house was purified by aromatic fumigations and painted with 

 milk of lime. All infected vestments and bedding received a treat- 

 ment with strong lye. The disease, however, spread, and in one year 

 the city, with a population of 30,000, suffered 1 ,908 deaths from plague. 

 As soon as the epidemic established itself the city was divided into 32 

 sections and a daily house-to-house inspection made by 64 trustworthy 

 citizens, two to each precinct. All cases of sickness were reported to 

 one of four public physicians. These physicians served for periods of 



