At the end of the fifteenth century typhus fever was prevalent in many parts of Europe; the first scientific account of it comes from the pen of Fracastorius, who had an opportunity to observe the disease during the epidemics in Italy in 1505–8, and who described it as a disease indigenous to Cyprus and the neighbouring islands and appearing for the first time in Italy. The names given to the disease were numerous and cannot all be mentioned here; the name ‘Hauptweh’ (headache) or ‘Hauptkrankheit’ (head-disease) was current in Germany, while the additional words ‘ohne Sterbedrüsen’ (without death glands) expressly distinguish the disease from bubonic plague. T. von Györy[20] mentions a large number of synonyms—Hungarian disease, lazaret fever, spotted fever, petechial disease, &c. In 1490 the disease was borne by Spanish soldiers, who had fought in the Venetian army against Turkey, from Cyprus to Spain, and during the war of Ferdinand the Catholic against the Moors it spread to Granada and did more damage to the Spanish army than the swords of the Moors.[21] In the year 1490 a serious epidemic broke out in Lorraine, which Maréchal and Didion[22] think was typhus fever; it appeared in that bitter and indescribably cruel conflict between René, Duke of Lorraine, and the people of Metz. Despite the armistice proclaimed on June 18, the pestilence spread far and wide and in August entered Metz, compelling the inhabitants to take to flight; the nobles retired to their castles, and the citizens went out into the country. And although the city was strictly quarantined, the disease spread throughout Lorraine and northern Alsace. In the year 1528 an epidemic of typhus fever occurred in connexion with warlike events. This pestilence broke out in Upper Italy and spread to Lower Italy, where a war was going on between French troops on the one side and German and Spanish troops on the other. The loss of human life was uncommonly large, 30,000 French soldiers and twice as many non-belligerent inhabitants are said to have died. And the pestilence was also borne from Italy to Germany.