the arms, legs, and thighs, and small pustules scattered over the whole body. Patients of this class rarely escaped with their lives, though they supported themselves somewhat better than the former. They died mostly with marks of gangrene and inflammation; and it is singular, that persons of the fullest and most robust habits of body had the least chance of surviving the attack.1

3. In the cases of the third class are comprehended many of the symptoms described in both the former. But the observable circumstance is the order in which the symptoms occurred. For the most part the patients began with exhibiting those of the second class, which commonly were but the precursors of those of the first. And when these made their appearance, no hope remained. It was further re

2

Ce qui paroîtra singulier, est que plus ils étaient robustes, gras, pleins, et vigoureux, moins il y avait à espérer.-Vol. i. p. 181. Compare ib. 207.

La plupart des signes énoncés dans la seconde étaient ordinaire

marked, that in a great number of these cases the early symptoms were not more alarming than those which attend common fevers of an inflammatory or putrid kind. The point of difference was the strong and unconquerable persuasion of almost every patient who finally sunk under the disorder, that his death was certain. No encouragement of the physician was of any avail; and often the looks and expressions of the patient took this despairing turn, when nothing deserving of alarm could as yet be discovered in the pulse, the tongue, or any part of the body or its functions.

4. The fourth class comprehends the cases mentioned in the second, but with milder and more favourable appearances. These either terminated of themselves on the second or third day, or easily gave way to internal medicines; the bubos suppurating kindly, and the patients generally recovering with very little assistance.

ment les avant-coureurs de ceux dont nous avons fait mention dans la première, et que ces derniers survenans annonçaient une mort prochaine. Vol. i. pp. 182, 193.

E

5. The fifth class comprehends all those cases in which the bubos and carbuncles were attended with little or no ill effect on the spirits, or the functions of the body. The swellings rose, sometimes becoming scirrhous, and sometimes dispersing, as of their own accord. They were indeed commonly treated by the patients themselves without any interruption of their usual employments. It was only in a few cases that medical assistance became necessary. was computed that not less than from fifteen to twenty thousand persons belonged to this class, and that, if the disorder had not taken this favourable turn, not a quarter part of the inhabitants of Marseilles would have survived.1

It

To each of the classes described in this paper is subjoined the medical treatment applied to it. This, however, is not given here, as the description is altogether technical. An abridged view

1

Si le mal n'eut pris très souvent cette tournure, il ne resterait pas dans cette ville la quatrième partie de ses habitans.—Vol. i. p. 185.

of the disease and its remedies was afterwards given by the same writers in a separate paper.' They represent their first description as more calculated for the experienced physician; and the second, for those young practitioners who might be called to the treatment of patients under any similar calamity. I will only add, that a comparison of both papers will sometimes lead the common reader to the better comprehension of a term or a phrase, which might have appeared obscure or ambiguous in one of them.

It is impossible to have taken even a cursory view of so interesting a subject, without some reflections on the circumstances by which it was distinguished.

1. The Plague of Marseilles was unquestionably the Plague of the Levant; but it seems to have exhibited one characteristic quality more violent and fatal than had been

1 Vol. i. p. 186. Compare M. Bertrand's mode of treatment with these. Vol. i. p. 201, &c.

usually observed in the disorder of that region.' I allude to that almost immediate and total exhaustion of strength, which prevented every attempt of nature to relieve itself by external swellings, and precluded the physician, at the same time, from expelling the evil by cleansing applications. The incumbent malady suppresses all internal action; nor is any invigorating medicine capable of exciting the patient to a successful struggle against it. For a few hours only is the faint warmth of retreating life supported by artificial means; transpiration ceases; the superficial colour disappears; and death exhibits the body shrunk, faded, and of leaden hue; and, though destroyed by Plague,

1

De toutes celles que les historiens rapportent, que les auteurs de médecine décrivent, et que nos négocians et nos gens de mer ont vu dans les différentes contrées du Levant, aucune n'a été si rapide dans ses progrès, ni si violente dans ses effets, que celle-ci.- Vol. i. p. 202.

• Les émétiques et les purgatifs leur étaient également inutiles, et souvent nuisibles, en les épuisant par des superpurgations funestes. Les cordiaux et les sudorifiques ne servaient de rien, ou tout au plus qu'à éloigner de quelques heures les derniers moments.-Vol. i. P. 179.