“Gardez surtout, gardez qui’un profane vulgaire De votre art respecte ne perce le mystere; Son eclat devoile perdrait sa dignite D’un mystere connu decroit la majeste,” Let us invoke God, the Supreme physician, let us demand the professional banishment of every doctor who reveals a professional secret. “Exsul sit medicus physicius secreta revelans.”—Amen! THE GREAT EPIDEMICS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. THE PLAGUE Several great epidemics of the Plague had already devastated the world; the plague of Athens in the fifth century, B. C.; the plague of the second century, in the reign of Marcus Aurelius; the plague of the third century, in the reign of Gallus; then came that most terrible epidemic of the sixth century, known by the name of the inguinal pestilence, which, after ravaging Constantinople spread into Liguria, then into France and Spain. It was in 542, according to Procopius, that an epidemic struck the world and consumed almost all the human species.[10] “It attacked the entire earth,” says our author, “striking every race of people, sparing neither age nor sex; differences in habitation, diet, temperament or occupation of any nature did not stop its ravages; it prevailed in summer and in winter, in fact, at every season of the year. “It commenced at the town of Pelusa in Egypt, from whence it spread by two routes, one through Alexandria and the rest of Egypt, the other through Palestine. After this it covered the whole world, progressing always by regular intervals of time and force. In the springtime of 543 it broke out in Constantinople and announced itself in the following manner: “Many victims believed they saw the spirits of the departed rehabilitated in human form. It appeared as though these spirits appeared before the subject about to be attacked and struck him on certain portions of the body. These apparitions heralded the onset of the malady. It is but fair to say that the commencement of the disease was not the same in all cases. Some victims did not see the apparitions, but only dreamed of them, but all believed they heard a ghostly voice announcing their inscription on the list of those who were going to die. Some claim that the greater number of victims were not haunted either sleeping or waking by these ghosts and the mysterious voice that made sinister predictions.