The author in this monograph endeavors to explain the remedies then in use for preservation against the infection of the disease. “Avoid all fatigue, anger, intemperance, too much association with women, as the act ennervates our forces and enfeebles our spirits. One should clothe himself in the wools of Auvergne and the camulets of Escot.” Moreover, says our author, “one should perfume his clothes with laurel, rosemary, serpolet, marjolane, sage, fennel, sweetbriar, myrrh, and frankincense.” When the room was to be disinfected “one should use fumigations of good dry hay. One should not go out early without eating and taking a drink. One should close the ears with a little cotton scented with musk and hold in his mouth a clove or piece of angelica root. One should hold in his hand a piece of sponge saturated in vinegar, which should be smelled frequently. One should wear upon his stomach an acorn filled with quicksilver and a small pouch containing arsenic. Finally, one should take twice a week a pill composed of aloes, myrrh, and saffron.” Notwithstanding all these precautions, Pierre Sordes was attacked by the plague; having a buboe in the left groin, which caused him acute pain and to which he applied “_un emplastre de diachyllum cum gummis_” and afterwards a blister. Not being able to obtain resolution, feeling his strength undermined and perceiving his entire body “covered with black lumps and spots, fatal prognostic signs to all who are found thus marked, I called for a surgeon, the last one left alive, and he brought his cautery and with it pierced through the apostume. From then the fever disappeared little by little, and I was perfectly cured eight days after the application of the aforesaid cautery, with the exception that, reading in a draught Bartas “Treatise on the Plague,” I brought on another attack of fever that well nigh carried me off. “This is my experience at Figeac in the year 1587, when the plague destroyed 2500 people, with all the miseries and calamities that can be read in Greek and Roman histories.” LE MAL DES ARDENTS. Towards the end of the tenth century a new epidemic appeared in Europe, the ravages of which spread terror among the people of the Occident; this disease was known by the name of _mal des ardents_, sacred fire, St. Anthony’s fire, St. Marcell’s fire, and hell fire.