The history of the small pox / By James Moore.

  • James Moore
Date:
1815
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of the small pox / By James Moore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    following passage in an antiquated Chronicle, attributed to Marius Bishop of Vaux, in Swit- zerland ; In the year 570, a violent malady, with a relaxation of the bowels, and the Variola, (supposed to mean Small Pox,) afflicted Italy and France. * As this is the first time in which the word •variola was ever employed, and as no definition is given, its intended signification must be doubtful. Especially, as this word is not to be found in any other author, till between three and four hundred years afterwards. The Chronicle above mentioned was brought to light by De Chene the Jesuit, and was simply inscribed Mario Episcopo. From which inscription, and from internal evidence, it is ascribed to Marius Aventicensis, a Bishop of Lausanne in the 6th century. The manuscript bore the marks of great antiquity, from which it may be presumed, not to have been very legible. And the term, variola, may possibly have been an interpolation of a modern trans- criber to supply a word which he could not decypher. But if that word was really used by * « Hoc anno (570) morbus validus cum profluvio ventris, « et variola Italiam Galliamque afflixit. Recueil des Historiens des Gaules &c. par Mart. Bouquet. Tom. ii. Marii Episc. Chronicon.
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