[1124] [This opinion is not generally admitted by the most experienced
medical men in this country. It is a disputed point whether the plague
is _even_ contagious; and the mass of evidence is in favour of its
being so occasionally, but that the plague is usually not propagated in
this manner. The disappearance of this pest from our own and most other
countries of Europe is undoubtedly owing to the much greater attention
paid to drainage, ventilation, and the prevention of the accumulation
of filth in the streets, &c. When the peculiar atmospheric conditions
upon which its diffusion depends are present, quarantine has proved
insufficient to prevent its propagation.]
[1125] The oldest plague of which we find any account in history,
that so fully described by Thucydides, book ii., was expressly said
to have come from Egypt. Evagrius in his Histor. Ecclesiast. iv. 29,
and Procopius De Bello Persico, ii. 22, affirm also that the dreadful
plague in the time of the emperor Justinian was likewise brought from
Egypt. It is worthy of remark, that on both these occasions, the
plague was traced even still further than Egypt; for Thucydides and
the writers above-quoted say that the infection first broke out in
Ethiopia, and spread thence into Egypt and other countries.
[1126] They may be found in Muratori Scriptores Rerum Italic. tom. xvi.
p. 560, and xviii. p. 82, thence copied into Chenot, p. 147. See also
Boccacio, Decamer. Amst. 1679, p. 2.
[1127] [“The Venetians seem to have been the first who established
quarantine in their dominions about the year 1484, soon after the
Turks became their neighbours in Europe; the constant intercourse
which they maintained with those powerful neighbours, either in war or
by commerce, rendering it necessary for them to take this and other
precautions against the introduction of this contagion into their
country.”]
[1128] De Peste, in Mead’s Opera Medica.
[1129] Everything said by Le Bret on this subject may be found equally
full in D. C. Tentori, Saggio sulla Storia Civile, &c., della Republica
di Venezia. Ven. 1786, 8vo, t. vi. p. 391. As Sandi in his Principi di
Storia Civile della Republica di Venezia, 9 vols. 4to, 1755-1769, gives
the same account, lib. viii. cap. 8. art. 4, they must have both got
their information from the same source.
[1130] Historia Vinitiana. Vinegia, 1552, 4to, lib. i. p. 10.
[1131] L’Hoggidi, overo il mondo non peggiore, ne più calamitoso del
passato. Ven. 1627, 8vo, p. 610.
[1132] De Republica Venetorum, lib. iv.
[1133] Thesaurus Antiquitatum Italiæ, v. 2, p. 241.
[1134] Topografia Veneta, overo Descrizione della Stato Veneto.
Venezia, 1786, 8vo, iv. p. 263.
[1135] Lib. i. cap. 11, p. 65.
[1136] Account of the principal Lazarettos, Lond. 1789, 4to, p. 12.
[1137] Cronica di Verona, in Verona, 1747, 4to, iii. p. 93.
[1138] See G. W. Wedelii exercitatio de quadragesima medica, in his
Centuria Exercitationum Medico-philologicarum. Jenæ, 1701, 4to, decas
iv. p. 16. Wedel mentions various diseases in which Hippocrates
determines the fortieth day to be critical. Compare Rieger in
Hippocratis Aphoris. Hag. Com. 1767, 8vo, i. p. 221.
[1139] Martini Lange Rudimenta Doctrinæ de Peste. Offenbachii 1791,
8vo. See Gottingische Anzeigen von gelehrt. Sachen, 1791, p. 1799.