HYDATID DISEASES. Volume 2. By the late JOHN DAVIES THOMAS, M. D. (Lond.), F. R. C. S. (Eng.). A collection of papers on Hydatid Disease. Edited by ALFRED AUSTIN LENDON, M. D. Sydney: L. Bruck, Publisher. 1894.

The author has succeeded in getting together a great deal of important information on the subject of Hydatids. It will repay a careful reading.

GONORRHOEA. Being the Translation of Blenorrhoea of the Sexual Organs and Its Complications. By Dr. EARNEST FINGER, Docent at the University of Vienna. One volume of 330 pages, octavo, illustrated by numerous wood engravings and by seven chromo-lithographic plates. Third revised and enlarged edition. Bound in muslin, gold lettered, $3.00. William Wood & Company, New York.

This work has already received favorable notice from the press and favorable reception by the profession. It is only necessary to say that this third edition brings the subject thoroughly up to date. There is probably no better exponent of the recent pathology on this subject.

MECHANICAL AIDS IN THE TREATMENT OF CHRONIC DISEASES. BY GEORGE H. TAYLOR, M. D., author of Health by Exercise, etc. New York: George W. Rogers, publisher. 1894.

This little brochure contains some very excellent suggestions and some good illustrations of very ingenious apparatus designed for exercising partially anchilosed joints, etc.

TABLES AND NOTES ON HUMAN OSTEOLOGY. For the Use of Students of Medicine. By SEBASTIAN J. WIMMER, A. M., M. D., with a preface by Prof. WILLIAM WAUGH, A. M., M. D. Philadelphia: The Medical Publishing Co., 1725 Arch street. 1894.

This is an excellent book, far superior for the student to the Quiz compend. Every student should carry one in his pocket for refreshing his memory and to enable him to carry in his mind the points in anatomy that it is necessary to remember. We would like to see a work of this kind substituted for the compend.

THE August issue of The Art Amateur editorially draws attention to a recent French judicial decision confirming the right of a national library to retain property of which it originally obtained possession improperly. It was held that the books and engravings having once beeu formally given to the library and having been marked with the library stamp and in good faith entered in its catalogue, could not now be reclaimed.

PACIFIC MEDICAL JOURNAL.

Vol. XXXVII.

OCTOBER, 1894.

No. 10

Original Articles.

THE PLAGUE FOUR HUNDRED YEARS AGO AND NOW. By S. S. HERRICK, M. D., San Francisco.

(Read before the San Francisco County Medical Society, August 14, 1894.) I am able to show to the members of this Society a book which bears the following colophon (translated into English): Printed at Venice by John and Gregory Gregorson, or McGregor, (Giovanni and Gregorio de Gregorii) on the fourth (day before) the Kalends of August, 1493; under the best auspices of James Contarin (Giacomo Contarini), Patrician of Venice, Philosopher and most learned Judge. The name of the author was Alexander Benedict (Alessandro Benedetto), a physician residing at Verona. It is printed on paper in Roman type. There is no division into paragraphs. Capital letters are used without regard to uniform rules, and proper names frequently begin with small letters. The punctuation marks are the period, the colon, the parenthesis and the hyphen, but their use seems to be through accident rather than design. There are two characters for u and v, but they are employed indiscriminately. Contractions abound in the typography: for example, a straight mark above a vowel indicates the omission of m or n; various marks on p and q indicate certain letters omitted; e with a straight mark above signifies est; mos with a straight mark above the vowel signifies modus.

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, printing with movable types was first practiced at Haarlem about 1445, by Lourenz Janszoon Coster; at Mainz, about 1450; at Subiaco (Roman territory), 1465; at Rome, 1470; at Paris, Milan and Venice, 1469; in England, by Caxton, 1470. The earliest books were printed on vellum, and were religious works. By 1471 paper was in general use in printing, having become a staple article of com

VOL, XXXVII-38.

merce about the 14th century. Gothic type was first employed. Plain Roman type appeared in 1464, and is an imitation of a manuscript called Caroline minuscule, which was developed toward the end of the 8th century.

The latinity of this book is very unlike that of the Augustan age, and nothing like a literal translation would make tolerable English. Following are specimens from various parts, punctuated, capitalized and paragraphed according to present usage:

(From the close of the Preface.)

Some hold that the celestial bodies in a manner govern the elements; others attribute precisely the same law to nature, not unknown and yet not fully known to us, even in the smallest [particulars]. Wherefore I can not, in this place, sufficiently praise the knowledge of the stars secretly derived from heaven, through which the divine Hippocrates foresaw a coming pestilence and sent out his disciples to aid the neighboring cities, to whom, as they aver, Greece deservedly decreed those honors which before [were bestowed on] Hercules.

"But respecting other causes and prognostics of this malady, which are attributed to the elements, we shall speak in their proper place. We shall indicate what things foretell the plague, and many things to be observed about it: for instance, regulation of diet; under what circumstances we shall disregard the warnings of the stars; whether the omens be favorable; and by various medicaments we shall render the body itself healthy and sound. Lastly, lest untoward results may attend the medicaments through ignorance, we shall add others in almost endless number.

"Among all [authorities] we have followed the ancient physicians Hippocrates, Galen and Paul of Ægina; and of modern ones several of good repute. We shall add certain proofs, which we are not ashamed to adduce-some on credible testimony, others on our own trial.

"This is the fifth of the twelve books on fevers, which you have required of me, most illustrious Senator, before I sail for Greece; and if it be compatible with your dignity and magnanimity, I congratulate myself on your satisfaction. You have, therefore, like the elder Cato, a brief memoir on the plague, by which, if need be, you may protect yourself, your brethren, family and slaves, from the dreadful contagion. And if, at the present time, this charge be imposed on any magistrate by the

most illustrious Senate, that the republic be defended from this frequent peril; and if public and private diligence shall have resigned to irrevocable fate, you have at hand the timely remedies which the most learned physician can direct. And so, in the midst of physicians timid or bold and bad, when they, being deceived, bring home the contagion, you shall dwell safe in your own house, a Senator constant in season to us and the republic.

"In these matters we have observed, according to our ability, the proprieties of language. The Latin language is unable to express all things as well as the Greek, and use must be made of certain new, but common, Greek terms which have become Latin by custom among physicians. For we knew you by assoeiation in common studies at the gymnasium as most polished in every branch of learning and familiar with the Latin language. But there will be many critics who [will regard] these our words as vulgar and trivial, and apparently discrediting the Latin language (a bitter and empty censure). There is room for them to write, if they can improve on this. Farewell.

"At Venice, the VIII [day before] the Kalends of July, 1493." (From CHAPTER II. On the Causes of the Plague.)

"The causes of this malady are various, as the more observing physicians have declared. For a contamination of the atmosphere by some poisonous agency infects extensive regions through the pestilential influence of the planets; which influence surrounding us mortally invades the vital parts through the respiration. Others operate even through the pores of the skin, to which the breath and blood flow in their onward movement; and when these are infected, a pestilential fever springs up. A deadly and most abundant exhalation produced from every bloody field of battle, as Galen observes, brings pestilence on surrounding regions. Africa is known to have been once devastated by a remarkable plague, which was produced by a putrid vapor from innumerable locusts immersed in the sea and afterward cast on the shore. Likewise after earthquakes the plague often springs from the baneful vapor lurking in the abyss, which long lay dormant, then poisoned and polluted the pure liquid air; whence arose new and unheard of fevers. On a certain occasion at Venice all the women pregnant aborted, and the same year they were the first to die of the plague. Also from stagnant waters exhaling depraved vapors the air is polluted and

spreads its corruption wide around. In digging wells sometimes a vein of sulphur or bitumen is struck; the noxious exhalations breathe pestilence; immediately fill the nostrils and suffocate, unless one betake himself to sudden flight. This also happens in mines. Some attribute it to the breath of a certain dragon, but this I think fabulous."

(CHAPTER III. In What Way the Human Organism is Infected.) "Experts have assigned four contributive conditions, viz., the essential force of the exciting cause; susceptibility of the subject; proximity of one person to another; and interval of time [period of incubation ?], wherein different individuals are affected variously. Consequently certain persons succumb suddenly, some continue ill a long time, others convalesce.

*

In our time some have been seized in extreme old age, who when young escaped in the greatest epidemics, for there are various causes by which different effects are produced. It is remarkable that woolen garments especially have preserved this contagion for a long time. In my father's day at Venice I have heard that a feather bed, which was an object of suspicion in time of the plague, was thrown into the inmost part of a certain patrician's house, and which the mother of the household seven years afterward ordered to be destroyed. By remaining long in a neglected spot it contracted a more virulent contagion, through which the slaves were immediately seized with a sudden plague. It is manifest that the common people and slaves are more exposed to these ills, and thereby originated an epidemic which carried off the greatest part of the nobility. No more gondolas were assigned by public authority to carry away the corpses at that time, and there was neither means nor place for burial.” (CHAPTER V. On Omens or Signs of Impending Plague.) "The causes before mentioned principally indicate plague, viz. eclipse of the sun or moon in a circle of the chief stars; or a baleful conjunction or malignant aspect of certain stars. Likewise blazing comets or meteors, with various fixed stars in the firmament confirming; torches and darts shining in prolonged train; streamers or openings of the sky; falling stars and other heavenly prodigies. * * * Moreover, frequent and dense mists foretell a greater plague, such as the south or west wind brings, according to Aristotle, and the sun fails to dispel. Likewise a cold spring and a dry, hot summer, later becoming moist or too rainy, according to Hippocrates; also excessive drought