Comparatively speaking, there is little mystery left in connection with the greater contagious plagues known to modern medicine. But the famous Black Death, or Plague, or the Pestilence, as it is variously called, remains a secret so far as its origin and its proper treatment are concerned. Its symptoms are somewhat variously described by various ancient writers. In one point all agree: that when near death the body of the victim was covered with dark, gangrenous or carbuncular spots and swellings, or boils made their appearance in the glands of the neck, armpit and groin. It may be that the plague of boils and blains sent upon the Egyptians was none other than this Black Death. And doubtless it is identical with the terrible plague that visited Athens, B. C., 430, continuing its ravages through three years. People died in swarms, and the dead lay about the streets. During the middle ages it appeared in Europe on an average, every fifty years, its last visitation being upon London, in 1665, when 100,000 people perished. Here its danger was increased by the fact that its character was more insidious than usual. The plague described by Thucydides was characterized by high fever and unquenchable thirst, and a reddish inflammation or eruption of the skin lasting seven or eight days before the appearance of the fatal spots; while from Defoe’s account of the plague in London, these symptoms, though common, were anything but universal; and frequently persons felt no special disorder till the appearance of the spots told that death was at hand. Both in Athens and London, contact with the dead bodies seems to have been fatal to any animal. The suddenness of death in many cases calls to mind the last plague of Egypt, or the fate of Sennacherib’s host: “Like the leaves of the forest, when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen; Like the leaves of the forest, when autumn hath blown, That host in the morning lay withered and strown. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still. And there lay the steed, with his nostrils all wide, But through them there rolled not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.”