An historical sketch of medicine and surgery, from their origin to the present time, and of the principal authors, discoveries, improvements, imperfections and errors / by W. Black, M.D.

  • William Black
Date:
1782
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An historical sketch of medicine and surgery, from their origin to the present time, and of the principal authors, discoveries, improvements, imperfections and errors / by W. Black, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    t ] equal medical magic in their hands: if any real benefit has ever been derived from either, it can only be referred to the inexplicable force of implicit credulity, and of a powerful imagination. The prefent chapter clofes with the recital of a dreadful calamity which afilidted mankind in the fourteenth century. In the fhort fpace of four years the plague ravaged round three ^great divi- fions of the globe, and is computed to have fwept away the fourth part of its inhabitants. One thou- fand, three hundred and forty-fix it raged in Egypt, in Turky, and Greece, in Syria, and in other .parts of Afia : one thoufand, three hundred and forty-feven, fome trading fliips carried the infedion to Sicily^ Pifa, Genoa, and Italy; the following year it pe- netrated through Savoy, into France and Spain: one thoufand, three hundred and forty-nine, Britain and Flanders were invaded, and the fucceeding year Germany, Hungary, and other parts of the Euro- pean continent. Quarantines had not then been eftablifhed by any commercial nation of Europe. The fymptoms and medical hiftory of this plague are drawn by an eye witnefs, Guido de Cauliaco, an expert furgeon, and profefibr at Montpelier, The fymptoms of the leprofy, then prevalent in Europe, are alfo well deferibed by Cauliaco. He is likewife the Author of a Surgical treatife, in which may be feen the pradice, and the names of the principal furgical writers in his days. CHAP.