A History of Epidemics in Britain, Volume 1 (of 2) by Charles Creighton

Erasmus. [862] This letter is printed in his _Opuscula_, Papiae, 1496. Attention was first called to it by Thiene, in his essay confuting the doctrine of the West-Indian origin of syphilis. [863] In Hensler, App. p. 108. [864] Manardus, _Epist. Med._ lib. VII. epist. 2. Basil, 1549, p. 137 (as cited by Hirsch). The first letter of Manardus “de erroribus Sym. Pistoris de Lypczk circa morbum Gallicum,” was printed in 1500 (Hensler, p. 47). [865] I quote it from Hensler, _Geschichte der Lustseuche die zu ende des xv Jahr hunderts in Europa ausbrach_. Altona, 1783, Appendix, p. 109. [866] Mezeray, _Histoire de France_, II. 777. [867] The diagnosis in De Comines’ text appears to have struck the editors of the chief edition of his work, that of 1747; for they have appended a footnote to the passage, which is a superfluity unless it be meant to express surprise: “Charles VIII. malade de la petite vérole à l’age de vingt-deux ans.” [868] Martin, _Histoire de France_, VII. 257, 283. [869] _Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology._ Translated by C. Creighton, 3 vols. London, 1883-86, II. 92-98. [870] _Miscellaneous Works of the late Robert Willan, M.D., F.R.S., containing an Inquiry into the Antiquity of the Smallpox, Measles, and Scarlet Fever, etc._ Edited by Ashby Smith, M.D., London, 1821. [871] Th. Nöldeke, _Geschichte der Araber und Perser, nach Tabari_. Leyden, 1879, pp. 218, 219. [872] The term “autonomy” in the foregoing is used according to the exposition which I originally gave of it in an address to the British Medical Association (1883) on “The Autonomous Life of the Specific Infections” (_Brit. Med. Journ._, Aug. 4, 1883). The semi-independence of constitutional states has been dealt with in my book, _Illustrations of Unconscious Memory in Disease_. London, 1885. [873] The South-African controversy, which became acute, was carried on in journals of the colony (the _South African Medical Journal_ about 1883 and 1884 is a likely source of information), but some echoes of it were heard in letters to the _British Medical Journal_, 1884. A few years ago a similar diagnostic difficulty arose, not in an African race, but among the inmates of a Paris hospital. In the smallpox wards of the Hôpital St Antoine, a number of cases occurred, one of them in a nurse, another in an assistant physician, of a particular skin-disease, which was either discrete or confluent, lasted about ten days, and was attended by fever up to 40° C. or 41° C. Yet these cases were discriminated from smallpox; they were diagnosed, and have been recorded, as an epidemic of ecthyma. (Du Castel, _Gazette des Hôpitaux_, 1881, No. 122, quoted in the _Jahresbericht_.) [874] _Krankheiten des Orients._ Erlangen, 1847, p. 127. [875] _History of Physic_, II. 190. [876] Gruner, a learned professor of Jena, who made collections of works or passages relating to syphilis and to the English sweat, published also in 1790 a collection of medieval chapters or sentences on smallpox, “De Variolis et Morbillis fragmenta medicorum Arabistarum,” including the whole of Gaddesden’s chapter but omitting the earlier and more important chapter from Gilbert. Gruner correctly says at the end of his extracts: “while the Arabists write thus, they seem to have followed their Arabic guides, and to have repeated what they received from the latter.” This is obvious from the text of the chapters themselves: some quote more often than others from Avicenna, Rhazes and Isaac; but it is clear that they all base upon the Arabians. The substance is the same in them all; it is a merely verbal handling of Arabic observation and theory. There are no concrete experiences or original additions, from which one might infer that they were familiar at first hand with smallpox and measles. Häser, however, seems to take these chapters in the medieval compends as evidence of the general prevalence of smallpox in Europe in the Middle Ages. As he finds little writing about smallpox when modern medical literature began, he is driven into the paradox that epidemics of smallpox had actually become rarer again in the sixteenth century (III. p. 69). But the sixteenth-century references to smallpox, although they are indeed scanty, are at the same time the earliest authentic accounts of it in Western Europe. [877] This intention is most clearly expressed by Valescus de Tharanta: “Then let him be wrapped in a woollen cloth of Persian, or at least of red, so that by the sight of the red cloth the blood may be led to the exterior and so be kept at no excessive heat, according to the tenour of the sixth canon [of Avicenna].” _Apud_ Gruner, p. 46. [878] _History of Physic_, Pt. II. p. 280. [879] _Rosa Anglica._ Papiae, 1492. [880] _Chronica Majora._ Rolls ed. V. 452. [881] _Rolls of Parliament._ [882] Early English Text Society’s edition by Skeat. Passus xvi. (108), and Passus vii. [883] Trench, in his _Select Glossary_, has adopted the derivation of measles from _misellus_, without apparently knowing that John of Gaddesden had actually used “mesles” for a form of _morbilli_. The derivation of measles from _misellus_ has been summarily rejected by Skeat, who thinks that “the spelling with the simple vowel _e_, instead of _ae_ or _ea_, makes all the difference. The confusion between the words is probably quite modern.” Perhaps I ought not to contradict a philologist on his own ground; but there is no help for it. I know of four instances in which the simple vowel _e_ is used in spelling the name of the disease that is associated with smallpox, the English equivalent of _morbilli_. In a letter of July 14, 1518, from Pace, dean of St Paul’s to Wolsey (_Cal. State Papers_, Henry VIII. II. pt. 1), it is said, “They do die in these parts [Wallingford] in every place, not only of the small pokkes and mezils, but also of the great sickness.” In the _Description of the Pest_ by Dr Gilbert Skene, of Edinburgh (Edin. 1568, reprinted for the Bannatyne Club, 1840, p. 9), he mentions certain states of weather “quhilkis also signifeis the Pokis, Mesillis and siclik diseisis of bodie to follow.” And if a Scotsman’s usage be not admitted, an Oxonian, Cogan, says, “when the small pockes and mesels are rife,” and another Oxonian, Thomas Lodge, in his _Treatise of the Plague_ (London, 1603, Cap. iii.) says: “When as Fevers are accompanied with Small Poxe, Mesels, with spots,” etc. On the other hand, Elyot, in the _Castel of Health_ (1541), Phaer in the _Book of Children_, (1553), Clowes in his _Proved Practice_, and Kellwaye (1593) write the word with _ea_. There is, indeed, no uniformity, just as one might have expected in the sixteenth century. Again, Shakespeare (_Coriolanus_, Act III., scene I) spells the word with _ea_ where it is clearly the same word that is used in _The Vision of Piers the Ploughman_ in a generic sense and in the spelling of “meseles:”--“Those meazels which we disdain should tetter us.” Lastly, there are not two words in the Elizabethan dictionaries, one with _e_ signifying lepers, and another with _ea_ signifying the disease of _morbilli_. In Levins’ _Manipulus Vocabulorum_, we find “ye Maysilles” = _variolae_, but there is no word “mesles” = _leprosi_. There was only one word, with the usual varieties of spelling; and in course of time it came to be restricted in meaning to _morbilli_, Gaddesden’s early use of “mesles” in that sense having doubtless helped to determine the usage. [884] _Harl. MS._, No. 2378. So far as I have observed, there is no prescription for “mesles,” or for smallpox under its Latin name or under any English name that might correspond thereto. Moulton’s _This is The Myrror or Glasse of Helth_ (? 1540), which reproduces these medieval prescriptions with their headings, is equally silent about smallpox and measles. [885] Willan’s _Miscellaneous Works_. “An Inquiry into the Antiquity of the Smallpox, Measles, and Scarlet Fever.” London, 1821, p. 98. The MS. is Harleian, No. 585. [886] Sandoval, cited by Hecker, _Der Englische Schweiss_. Berlin, 1834, p. 80. [887] MS. Harl., 1568. [888] There is a fine copy of the earliest printed version in the British Museum, with “Sanctus Albanus” for colophon. The same text was reprinted often in the years following by London printers--in 1498, 1502, 1510, 1515 (twice), and 1528. [889] Camden Society, ed. Gairdner, 1876, p. 87. [890] Walsingham, _Hist. Angliae_, I. 299. Also _Chronicon Angliae a quodam Monacho_, _sub anno_ 1362. [891] “Also manie died of the smallpocks, both men, women and children.” [892] _History of the Smallpox_, 1817. Blomefield, also, in his _History of Norfolk_, quotes the passage about “pockys” correctly from the “Fruit of Times,” applies it to Norwich, to which city it had no special relation, and then says that this is the first mention of “small pocks.” [893] Fabyan’s _Chronicle_. Ed. Ellis, p. 653. [894] Levins, _Manipulus Vocabulorum_, 1570. Camden Society’s edition, column 158. [895] _Lettres du Roy Louis XII._ Brusselle, 1712, IV. 335. [896] _Cal. State Papers._ [897] “Item, que à son grand desplaisir il ait esté naguaires mal disposé d’une maladie nommée la petitte verolle, dont à present, graces à Dieu, il est recouvert et passé tout dangier.” _Lettres du Roy Louis XII._, IV.