of the volumes in question in the succeeding or secular year.

It is with the first volume the following paper is chiefly concerned, though notice is occasionally taken of other parts of the work. It consists of a brief narrative reduced from the Journal; the substance of the opinion of the physicians sent by the court to inquire into the nature of the disorder; and a few observations which occurred to me from the perusal of the whole collection.

When the paper was completed, it was submitted to the judgment of Sir Henry Halford as a sequel to the former. Sir Henry perused it with his accustomed indulgence, and obligingly wished that it might be read to the Royal College. It is almost needless to say that after the experience of so much kindness it was impossible not to acquiesce in the proposal;

neral pursuits, that if I had not considered the present paper as exhibiting a decided specimen of the Levant Plague, and its characteristic difference from the Plague of Athens, I should not have ventured on the preparation of it; and that, having done this, I have completed my view of a subject to which I was first led by accident alone.

THE

PLAGUE OF MARSEILLES.

ON the 25th of May, 1720, a trading vessel arrived at Marseilles from the coast of the Levant,' with clean bills of health, the plague not having appeared there till after her departure. In her voyage, however, she touched at Leghorn, where some of her crew died of what was supposed by the physicians of that place to be malignant fever.

Another sailor having died, two days after the arrival at Marseilles, the body was inspected by the principal surgeon who superintended the health of that port, and who found no mark of contagion on it. The same judgment was

De Seïde, de Tripoli de Syrie, et de Chypre.-Vol. i. p. 33.

B

afterwards pronounced, by the same authority, on one of the guards who had been stationed in the vessel to enforce the quarantine, and who died on board.

Between this time and the end of June, other vessels arrived from the same coast, with foul bills, the plague having shown itself before their voyage began. Several deaths afterwards occurred on board all these vessels, nor was it till the 8th of July that the first decided mark of contagion—a swelling in the upper part of the thigh-was discovered on one of the bodies.' From that time precautions began to be taken; the bodies were interred in quick-lime, and their clothes burnt. The marine council, the president of the parliament, and the governor of Provence, were informed of the apparent danger. The physicians also openly reported to the magistracy such cases of infection as fell

Le chirurgien lui trouve une enflure à la partie supérieure de la cuisse, et alors il déclare que cela lui parat une marque de contagion, et qu'il demande à consulter.-Vol. i. p. 36.

2 The Marshal Duke de Villars; ib. Compare vol. ii. p. 367.

under their notice; and the patients were immediately removed to the infirmaries beyond the walls.

These measures having prevented the immediate spread of the disorder, the common people, ever suspicious and violent, began to indulge their animosity against the physicians and surgeons, whom they openly insulted, and accused of causing false alarms injurious to the town.1 For a while, the authorities were compelled to give way to this caprice; and, in the report of the cases, their language was prudentially softened, though the disorder was still treated as real plague. The murmurs of the people indeed were soon suppressed by the progress of the disorder itself, which showed its character in the undoubted marks of bubos, and fell with particular violence on the poor and crowded population of the old part of the town; nor was it long ere the contagion reached all classes

1 On insulte aux médecins et aux chirurgiens d'avoir donné, par leur erreur, l'alarme à toute la ville.-Vol. i.

p.

39.