[10] The account of Gabriele de' Mussi, called _Ystoria de morbo seu mortalitate qui fuit a. 1348_, was first printed by Henschel, in Haeser's _Archiv für gesammte Medicin_ (Jena) ii, 26-59. The editor claims that De' Mussi was actually present at Caffa during the Tartar siege, and came to Europe in the plague-stricken ships which conveyed the infection to Italy. Signor Tononi, who in 1884 reprinted the _Ystoria_ in the _Giornale Ligustico_ (Genoa) vol. x (1883), p. 139 _seqq._, has proved by the acts of the notaries of Piacenza that De' Mussi never quitted the city at this time, and his realistic narrative must have been consequently derived from the accounts of others. From the same source Tononi has shown that De' Mussi acted as notary between A.D. 1300 and 1356, and was consequently born probably somewhere about 1280. He died in the first half of the year 1356. [11] Tana was the port on the north-western shore of the sea of Azor, which was then known as the sea of Tana. The port is now Azor. [12] De' Mussi says the siege lasted "three years." Tononi shows that this is clearly a mistake, and adduces it as additional evidence that the author was not himself at Caffa. [13] Gabriele de' Mussi, _Ystoria de Morbo_, in Haeser, _ut supra_. [14] K. Lechner, _Das grosse Sterben in Deutschland_ (Innsbruck, Wagner, 1884), p. 8. [15] J. J. Pontanus, _Rerum Danicarum Historia_ (1631), p. 476. [16] See Lechner, _Das grosse Sterben_, p. 15. De' Mussi gives the same account. [17] "Chi cominciavano a sputare sangue, morivano chi di subito." The contemporary chronicle of Parma by the Dominican John de Cornazano also notes the same: "Et fuit talis quod aliqui sani, si spuebant sanguinem, subito ibi moriebantur, nec erat ullum remedium" (_Monumenta historica ad provincias Parmensem et Placentinam pertinentia_, vol. v, p. 386). [18] Anglada, _Étude sur les Maladies Éteintes_ (Paris, 1869), p. 416. The idea that this peculiar malady was altogether novel in character is confirmed by its specially malignant nature. According to a well-recognized law new epidemics are always most violent and fatal. The depopulation of the Fiji Islands by the measles is an instance of the way in which a comparatively mild disease may in its first attack upon a people prove terribly destructive. It is commonly thought that it has been the action of some new disease whereby the races which built the great prehistoric cities of Africa and America have been completely swept away.