A.D. 1629, epidemic pestilence broke out in Narbonne; it also prevailed at Amsterdam, and at Cambridge in England, where it raged mortally: yellow pestilence was rife at the same time in America, and plague raged at Marseilles. A.D. 1630, the principality of Catalonia suffered from plague in different parts: Drs. Mas, Mox, and Rosell described the disease in their works: its symptoms were those of the malady which we now term Andalusian fever,--a yellow bilious fever. The city of Guadix suffered from pestilence of the puncticular type at the same time: it continued there for two years and upwards. Gangrenous ergotism prevailed in many of the provinces of France, as reported by Dr. Thullier, physician to the Duc de Sully, the prime minister of Henry IV. The first symptom of this extraordinary malady was a numbness of the legs, then pain with slight swelling, devoid of inflammation, to which succeeded rapidly coldness, lividness, mortification, and dropping off of the limbs. In many instances, the nose, fingers, hands, arms, feet, legs, thighs, sphacelated spontaneously, and dropped off. The following extraordinary account of a similar disease occurring in a family at Watlesham, in Suffolk, was transmitted to the Royal Society of London, and published in its ‘Transactions’ for the year 1762. The report was drawn up by Charlton Wollaston, M. D., F. R. S.: it was as follows: John Downing, a labourer at Watlesham, in the month of January, 1762, had a wife and six children; the eldest, a girl about fifteen years of age, the youngest aged four months; at that time all were very well, as the man himself and neighbours assured Dr. Wollaston. On Sunday, the 10th of January, the eldest girl complained in the morning of a pain in her left leg, particularly in the calf, increasing severely towards evening. The same evening another girl (her sister), ten years old, complained also of violent pain in the leg. On the Monday the mother and another child, and on the Tuesday all the rest of the family, except the father, were affected in the same manner. Their pains were excessive, insomuch that the whole neighbourhood was alarmed by the loudness of their shrieks. The left leg only in most of the cases was affected; but in some, both legs were diseased. The infant was removed from its mother’s breast as soon as it fell ill, and survived only a few weeks. The nurse told Dr. Wollaston that it, too, seemed to be in violent pain, and that its legs became black before death.