_Of the PLAGUE in General._
All the facts mentioned in the notes are taken from old
journals or letters written at the times they happened.
It is the common opinion of the inhabitants of _Aleppo_, that they are
visited with the plague about once in ten years, and that it is brought
thither from some neighbouring city, where it first makes its appearance,
as _Antab_, _Urfa_, _&c._ to the northward, or _Damascus_ to the
southward; from which last place it is generally alledged that the worst
plagues have been brought; though some assert that those which have come
from the northward have raged with the greatest violence.
With respect to the intervals between the returns of the plague, though
that of 1742 is an exception, yet the common opinion seems in some
measure to be founded on experience[493]. And it seems a fact pretty
well attested, that it never rages at _Aleppo_ without having first
visited some of the above mentioned places; though the first appearance
of all is, from what I have been able to learn, always in some town on
the coast of _Syria_[494]. If it first shews itself in _Sidon_, _Byroot_,
or _Tripoly_, _Damascus_ is usually the channel through which it comes to
_Aleppo_; but if in _Scanderoon_ or _Byass_, then it commonly passes by
way of _Antab_, _Killis_, _Urfa_, &c.
During the winter this disease is constantly moderate; as the spring
advances it grows more violent, it comes to its height in _June_,
decreases greatly in _July_, and certainly disappears in _August_; and
this seems to be the constant course of the plague at _Aleppo_: so that
none are ever seized with it in the months of _September_ and _October_,
even in such extraordinary instances as when it has made its appearance
for three years successively, as it did in 1742, 1743, and 1744[495].
A considerable difference is observable, both as to the mortality and
number of the infected, in different years; but it does not appear that
it has ever raged in this country with the violence that it has often
done in _Europe_.
Extreme heat seems to check the progress of the distemper; for though,
during the few first hot days, the mortality, as well as the number of
those newly infected, encreased, yet a few days longer continuance of
that weather greatly diminished the number of the sick. Add to this, that
the season wherein it always ceases at _Aleppo_, is that in which the
heats are the most excessive.
Though the natives, as well as several authors, have a notion that the
moon has some influence over this distemper, yet experience no ways
favoured this opinion in the late plague at _Aleppo_.
Having the distemper once, does not prevent a second seizure, numbers
of people being alive when I left _Aleppo_, who have had it twice or
oftener; and I have even seen instances of the same person’s having had
the disease three several times in the same season.