Though this distemper has most frequently been accounted a _fever_ in the highest degree, yet, as we have already noticed, it seems to be essentially different.[99] The testimonies there quoted are sufficient to establish the fact; and, were it needful, many others might be brought from authors both ancient and modern. In the plague said to have taken place in the days of Romulus,[100] Plutarch relates, that the people died without any sickness. To this very ancient testimony we shall add that of Dr. Patrick Russel, who closes the account of his first class of patients with the following paragraph: “That the plague, under a form of all others the most destructive, exists without its characteristic eruptions, or other external marks reckoned pestilential, can admit of no doubt; and it is to be regretted that mankind have so often, from the absence of these, been betrayed into errors of fatal consequence on its first invasion; at which early period human prudence can only be exerted in the way of defence with any probability of success.” [99] See p. 102 _et seq._ [100] P. 19, note. The symptoms of this fatal disease were sometimes a sudden loss of strength, confusion or weight in the head, giddiness at intervals, oppression about the præcordia, dejection of spirits, taciturnity, an anxious aspect, but without any symptoms of fever. In these, death ensued within twenty-four hours; some were said to have died within a few hours, but our author saw none of these, and is inclined to doubt the truth of the accounts, having in several instances, where this is said to have happened, found upon inquiry that matters had been inaccurately stated, and that the patients had really been ill one or two days.