the boils of the deceased. The like
has occurred both in ancient and modern times, not without favorable
results for Science; nay, more mature views excited an eager desire to
become acquainted with similar or still greater visitations among the
ancients, but, as later ages have always been fond of referring to
Grecian antiquity, the learned of those times, from a partial and
meagre predilection, were contented with the descriptions of
Thucydides, even where nature had revealed, in infinite diversity, the
workings of her powers."

There cannot but be a natural interest in every medical mind to-day in
the few descriptions given of the awful ravages of the epidemics which,
fortunately, in our enlightened sanitary era, have entirely
disappeared. In the history of such epidemics the name of Hecker stands
out so prominently that any remarks on this subject must necessarily,
in some measure, find their origin in his writings, which include
exhaustive histories of the black death, the dancing mania, and the
sweating sickness. Few historians have considered worthy of more than a
passing note an event of such magnitude as the black death, which
destroyed millions of the human race in the fourteenth century and was
particularly dreadful in England. Hume has given but a single paragraph
to it and others have been equally brief. Defoe has given us a journal
of the plague, but it is not written in a true scientific spirit; and
Caius, in 1562, gave us a primitive treatise on the sweating sickness.
It is due to the translation of Hecker's "Epidemics of the Middle Ages"
by Babbington, made possible through the good offices of the Sydenham
Society, that a major part of the knowledge on this subject of the
English-reading populace has been derived.

The Black Death, or, as it has been known, the Oriental plague, the
bubonic plague, or in England, simply the plague, and in Italy, "la
Mortalega" (the great mortality) derived its name from the Orient; its
inflammatory boils, tumors of the glands, and black spots, indicative
of putrid decomposition, were such as have been seen in no other
febrile disease. All the symptoms were not found in every case, and in
many cases one symptom alone preceded death. Although afflicted with
all the manifestations of the plague, some patients recovered.
According to Hecker the symptoms of cephalic affliction were seen; many
patients were stupefied and fell into a deep sleep, or became
speechless from pals