cians, melancholy, fear, forrow, and the like, are the neceffary confequences of fuch blood, as well as of any other melancholic, exceffive humour : 1 fay, exceffive: for, though men, in whofe bodies any melancholic humour prevails, are naturally inclined and fubject to grief and fear; yet, if that humour be not exceffive, and, either in quantity or quality, tranfgrefs not the bounds of nature, it never feduces or overthrows the mind. In the original we read, Great, moderate, small. Now, the organs of refpiration are the whole the rax, but chiefly the midriff; on whose motion the lungs are extended every way, and receive the s ternal air: but when the midriff ceafes to mov the lungs fall down, and breathe out the fuper fluous air, together with the fumid nocent exha tion; and by these alternate breathings, the demnity of the ever-burning heart is wifely cured. Since, therefore, by the common cor of all, the vital faculty, and even life itfeif, chiefly due to this member, it is confonant to s fon, that they, who, hy rules of art, are to jup of the iffue of a disease, and to the state of the patients, should, almost preferably to the mat of their, arteries, observe the manner of this breathing, which nature governs, according ♪ heart requires. With good reason, there ere, Lucretius, enumerating the fatal fymptom those who were, vifited with this plague, notice of this difficulty and disorder of therm ration, which he expreffes after the mar phyficians, making a threefold diftin&tis f Thefe several disorders of their refpiration eba borrowed from Hippocrates, and the first be notice of, is, " creber fpiritus," a thicknes " Triste supercilium; furiofus vultus, & acer." i. e. Disconsolate eyes, and frowning eye brows, together with a fternness and wildness of look. Thefe fymptoms, of which Thucydides is filent, Lucretius has borrowed of the Coan dictator, who, in Coac. Præfag. lib. i. fect. ii. cap. 3. teaches, that a good colour in the face, with a wildnefs of afpect, is an ill fign in acute diseases; in which too, frowning eyebrows are a mark of frenzy. But, as we fhall hear by and by, the conftitution of the whole face was altered and amifs; therefore it portended fomething worse than frenzy But though a frowning forehead prefage a frenzy. in acute diseases; because the blood, by reafon of its corruption is degenerated into a plenteous quantity of bileous and melancholic humour; yet it is often obferved in fome, even when they are in perfect health; nor does it portend any thing dreadful in them; though some are apt to be fhy of their conversation. But the fternnefs and wildnefs of countenance, mentioned by Lucretius, was a moft certain token, not of an eminent, but of a prefent frenzy, occafioned by the inflammation of the bileous humour, accompanied by the corrup-quency of breathing, which is spoken in regul tion that bred it, either in the præcordia, or in the brain, that already fympathized with the inferior parts. Ver. 1149. Lucretius fays, « Creber spiritus, haud ingens, raróque coortus." For the better understanding of which, we must take notice, that the refpiration in animals, which is truly a mixed function, it being both natural and voluntary, was excellently inftituted by provident nature, chiefly for the refreshment of the heart: for when she had made the heart the chief feat and refidence of the innate heat, from whence that vivifying and lively power is, through the tubes of the veins and arteries, as likewife through invisible pores, communicated to the body of the animal, it was of neceffity, that this member should be hot, and, in fome measure, inflamed itfelf, that it might fupply with warmth all the other members. But this inflammation would have been fatal, or, according to the nature of all fires, a moft certain fuffocation had enfued, had the not wifely provided against it, as well by the introduction of cooling air, as by the expulfion and excretion of the fuliginous vapours, engendered in the heart; the first of which is performed by infpiration; the laft, by what we call expiration. But between both these reciprocating and alternate motions two refts or intervals neceffarily intervene wherefore the chief differences of refpi the refts or intervals; and this, fays Hippar regard to the extenfion of the organs, thermiq that is to fay, when the refts or intervals are long, if the refpiration be great and strong in regard to the extenfion of the organs, indicates a debrium; if small, an extinction of the innate, or natural heat. Ver. 1150. Lucretius fays: Sollicita porro, plenæque sonoribus aures :" These were tokens that the humours were crept pwards by the duct of the arteries: and Hipporates, in "Coacis Præfagiis, teaches, that sounds nd noifes in the ears, are a deadly symptom in tute difeafes. -Much and frothy fweat, pread o'er the neck;] Lucretius fays, Sudarifque madens per collum fplendidus humor." extrude and throw from thence whatever is molefting to them; and the hoarsenefs Lucretius mentions; proceeded from the exafperation of the larynx, occafioned by a defluction of falt phlegm, which likewife fell upon the lungs, and then caused a violent cough. Vér. 1154. Lucretius fays, In manibus vero trahier nervi."This contraction of the nerves of the hands was a fure token of prefent convulfions, which, as we have feen already, proceeded according to Thucydides, from what he calls λuyś, zavà, an empty hicket. See above in the note on ver. 1122. Now a convulfion is an involuntary contraction of the parts, that communicate and partake with the nerves, proceeding from a preternatural cause. But whether fome of our modern physicians, who differ from the ancients, in affigning feveral other caufes of convulfions, than thole which these last allowed of, be in the right, it is not our business in this place to inquire. Hippocrates, 8. de Comp. Med. pofitively afferts, that there are but two caufes of convuifion; viz. Repletion and inanition: and Galen too, firmly avouches, that no third caufe can be found out for the ficcity or drynefs, which the fame author more than once affirms to be the caufe of fpafms, is included in, and reduced to inanition. The hands, therefore, of the and this too he borrowed from Hippocrates, in rogn. who there teaches, that sweats are very od in all acute difeafes, if they happen at a itical time, and entirely allay the fever: that ey are good likewife, if they come from the hole body, and make the patient the more catily tar his difeafe: but if they effect nothing of this, ey are not in the leaft beneficial: that cold eats, and fuch as come only about the head, te, and neck, are the worst of all, and, for the part, very dangerous fymptoms. Befides; fe that labour under impofthumations, efpecial-infected were convulfed, by reafon of the dryness fuch as are caufed by a pleurify, or by an innmation of the lungs, are fubject to fweat about neck. Thus Hippocrates: and from hence fee, that the peripneumony, or inflammation impofthume of the lungs, under which the ted Athenians laboured, was the cause of this il symptom. Ver. 1151. The words in the original are, auia fputa, minuta, croci contincta colore, faque, per fauces raucas viz edita tuffi. hich is taken almoft word for word from Hip. crates, in the place above cited: where he lays, it the worst fort of fpittle are thofe that are llow, or of a reddish colour; or that cause a dent coughing, and that are thin, and come ay in little quantity. Now Lucretius call fe fpittles" tenuia," thin, which is a mark of ir crudity, in regard to their fubftance; "mita," that is to fay, fewer than they ought to in regard to their quantity. "croci contin&ta lore," yellowish, which was a mark of their bili is nature; and," falfa," falt, which quality was te to the corruption of the humours, or to a ixture of falt and ferious humidity for thele e the causes, that Galen himself, 2. de diff. Feb. p. 6. affigns, of the faitness of humours. And en the poet, to fhow us that these were not only le excrements of the brain, that are often purged way by spitting, and are called fpittle, adds, per fauces raucas vix edita tuffi," i. e. that they ould scarce be thrown up, by coughing, through heir hoarfe founding jaws: for it is the proper unction and fole bufinefs of a cough, to ferve the members that are employed in refpiration, and to TRANS. II. : and inanition of the nerves, and of the whole inflamed body, that was weakened and brought low by a manifold evacuation: befides; an eryfipelas, from whence proceeded a frensy, had seized the brain, and all its membranes; hence the pernicious filthiness of the corrupted blood was imparted to the marrow of the fpina, or back-bone, from the first knuckles or joints of which arife the, nerves of the hands and fingers. Thus that corruption, falling down, doubled the difficulties, irritating, and filling, or choking up the ducts of voluntary motion. Here our tranflator has emitted the latter part of the verfe above cited, in which his author mentions another fymptom, that attended this disease: viz. a trembling of the joints, "In manibus vero trahier nervi, tremere artus." Now, according to the definition of phyficians, "Tremor eft fymptoma in actione læfa;" and this happens when the voluntary motive faculty is depraved, by reafon of its difproportion to its own object, which is the body. For, fince, in the concretion of animals, the elements of earth and water are predominant, and fince they are for that reafon by nature heavy, whatever moves, would by natural inclination always defcend, unless the motive faculty fuftained and kept it up and if that faculty be strong, and in due order, all things are performed aright, and according to the ftrict command of the will: but if that faculty be weakened or difordered; then there immediately arifes a complicated motion, which is called a trembling; and that proceeds from the motive X x faculties endeavouring to lift up the member, Ver. 1155. This verse runs thus in the original: the infected. Now, of all the feveral parts that Non magis effe velim, quam pravo vivere nafa the first place, the wings, or round rifings a The symptoms grow ftill more and more dargerous for, though it cannot be controverted, that the feet are cool not without reafon; inafmuch as, by nature, they are both thin of flesh, and abound with nerves; yet they grow cold be fides, by reafon of their distance from the warmest parts of the body; the heat retreating to, and ga-griftly fubftance of it is fubject to both: f thering itself together in, the breast, in almost all fevers, except in the bilious and burning; and unlefs too the disease be malignant, as this at Athens was Galen, in his Comment on epid. 3. teaches the caufes of this coldnefs of their feet: If the difcafe, fays he, be malignant, the extreme parts grow cold, by reafon of the decay of strength, and the greatnefs of the inflammation, that attracts the whole mafs of blood to itself, for without thefe, the difeafe is never mortal. And the fame author, in his comment on this Aphorifm of Hippocrates, in great pains of the belly, a coldness of the extreme parts is an ill fign, comprifes this whole matter in a few words. The coldnefs of the extreme parts, fays he, is caused by the violence of the inflammation in the bowels. It proceeds likewife from the defection and decay of the vital faculty which happens whenever the natural heat is either extinguished, or fuffocated, by reafon of the great quantity of it, then chiefly, when it be-attenuated and contracted. comes cold. It is occafioned, befides, by any violent pain, that feizes the middle parts of the body: and by means of which, nature is contracted into itself, and the blood repairs to it, abandoning not only the extreme parts of the body; as the feet, the hands, and the head; but the whole skin likewife. Thus Galen: and hence we fee, why the natural heat, that was attacked by fo many enemies, languifhed and decayed, "minutatim," as Lucretius expreffes it, by little and little, till at length a coldness of the extreme parts fucceeded in its place; and that too, perhaps, not without a lividness of colour, both which are fatal tokens an all acute difeafes. Ver. 1150. Here the poet begins to defcribe fymptoms of an imminent and near approaching death, which discovered themselves in the face of Ver. 1158. The caufes of these events we k from Galen, who, in Comment. Progn, trad that fuch accidents proceed, either from fe cause that wastes and corrupts the carneous of animals, or from the weakness and decay of t natural heat, which can no longer extend it into the extreme parts of the body; but rema in little quantity confined to the bowels Befides, it always happens in these cafes, the great a portion of blood and fpirits flows t the extreme parts of the body, as did before, wh nature was fully provided with them: for wh reason, a great alteration of the natural habi» body is apparently difcerned in the face; thefe are the caufes that the eyes first of all contracted and hollowed: For, being of a fat fubftance than the other parts, they fwell otuberate when they are fupplied with a fuffient quantity of fpirits; but, for want thereof, y fink and fubfide. Add to this, that the ifcles of the temples are confumed and wafted ay, by the malignancy, or by the diuturnity, of difeafe; and difabled nature is rendered inable to repair that lofs: Hence the temples hollowed, and, the jugal bone being promit, the eyes feem to be funk within their tets. Jer. 1159. These effects, according to Galen, ceeded from the fame caufes we mentioned in Bote on ver. 1155. where we produced the ority of that author. : er. 1160. In these two verses the poet tells that they died generally the eighth or ninth after they were taken fick : from which Thudes varies a little for his words are as fol· καὶ τὸ σῶμα, ὅσον περ χρόνον καὶ ἡ νόσος ζοί, ἐκ ἐμαραίνεῖο, ἀλλ' ἀντειχε παρὶὰ δόξαν τῇ αιπωρία, ὥτε δε φθείροντο οι πλείτοι ἐναβαῖοι καὶ αἴει ὑπὸ τὸ ἐνὸς καύμα]ος, ἔτι ἐχονές τι δυνάμεως· is to fay, as long as the difeafe was at the ht, their bodies wafted not, but refifted the ent beyond all expectation, infomuch, that of them died of their inward burning, in or feven days, and whilst they yet had gth. Whoever defires to be fatisfied of the r of thefe critical days, in judging of dif may confult Galen, de Crifibus de dieb. deT. where his curiofity will be abundantly cond. I will only take notice, that the pefti, which raged in Italy, in the year 1548. much more violent at the time of its first ing out for, as Guido Cauliacus relates, died within three days after they fell fick : he Florentine hiftorian, Mattheo Villano, ing of the fame plague, fays, " e morivano, i fubito, chi in due, e chi in tre dì :" i. e. hey died, fome fuddenly, fome in two, and in three days. And the plague that defolae fame country in the year 1631, was fcarce iolent; for it fnatched them away in three ur days at moft, fay the authors who have en of it. T. 1162. Here the poet tells us in thir verfes, that if any chanced to escape, yet even were forced to compound for their lives, the lofs of fome of their members, either eyes, or their privy parts, or feer, or hands; he whole virulence of the difeafe. falling upon parts of the body, caufed fo great a corrupthat, for fear of death, they were necessa to fubmit to an amputation of them. Nay, he, fo great an oblivion of all thing- feized fome, that they knew not even their ownes, nor remembered who they were. er. 1163. This too Lucretius has taken from cydides, who fays, Ει διαφύγοιεν ἐπικαλέον]ος το ταξις ἐς τὴν κοιλίαν, καὶ ἡλκόσεως τὲ αὐτῇ ἰγυρᾶς, γνομένης, καὶ διαῤῥοίας ἅμα ἀκράτε ἐπιτέσης, & καὶ ὕφερον διὰ τὴν ἀσθένειαν διεφθείροντο. li, lays ne, clcayed that (their inward burni g; then difcafe falling down into their bellies, and ing there great exulcerations, and immoderate looseness, they died, many of them, afterwards through weakness. Ver. 1165. A pain in the head is very frequent in all peftilential diseases: nay, fome have thought fit to place it among the forerunning tokens of an approaching plague. But the pain, mentioned by Lucretius, proceeded not from a cold, or vaporous caufe; but from too great a quantity of corrupted blood, which oppreffed the head with its weight, inflamed it with its heat, and, by its malignancy, disordered the membranes of the brain. Hence nature, roufing up to her own relief, endeavoured to expel the offenfive humour through the paffage of the noftrils, which are the proper emunctories of the head: But fince the blood, befides its over-abundance, was replenished with a certain virulency, it grew extremely refractory and rebellious to nature, and the whole mass of it, all at once, flowed to the place where it had found an open paflage ; and there difcharged itself, even as a rapid torrent whofe mound is thrown down, pours out all its waters through the gaping breach: No wonder, therefore, that, as Lucretius fays, Huc hominis totæ vires, corpufque fluebat. Ver. 1167. The lofs of their members, which Lucretius mentions in these fix verfes following, is defcribed by the hiftorian, in thefe words: Διεξήει γὰρ διὰ παντὸς τῷ σώμαῖος, ἄνωθεν ἀρξάμενον τὸ ἐν τῇ κεφαλῇ πρῶτον ἱδρυθέν κακὸν, καὶ εἴ τις ἐκ τῶν μεγίτων (κινδύνων δηλονότι. Schol ) περιγένοιο τῶν γε ἀκρωτηρίων ἀντίληψις αὐτῷ ἐπεσήμαινε, κατέσκηπε γὰρ καὶ εἰς τὰ αἰδοι· καὶ εἰς ἄκρας χείρας, καὶ πόδας καὶ πολλοὶ περισκόμενοι τάτων διέφευγον, εἰσὶ δὲ ὅτι καὶ Tär oftaλpãr. Thucyd. For the disease, says he, which first of all took the head, (fee above ver. 1104.), began above, and came down, and paffed through the whole body: and whoever overcame the worst of it, was nevertheless marked with the lofs of fome of his extreme parts; for, breaking out both at their privy members, and at their fingers and toes, many efcaped with the lofs of these only: There were fome likewife that loft their eyes. Thus Thucydides Yet it might, one would think, have been expected, that they, who had had fo copious a difcharge of corrupted blood through the noftrils, would, for the future, have been exempted from any fresh attack: but Galen, lib. i. de Crifib. cap. 3 folves this difficulty, and teaches, that bleeding at the nofe may be beneficial, if it happen at a due time; but that otherwife it is rather prejudicial. Humours, that wandered all over the bodies of the infected, may, with reafon, be believed to have fallen upon fome of the members, rather than upon others and particularly, as Lucretius, after Thucydides, fays, -in partes genitales corporis ipfas, Of which our tranflator takes no notice. But the realon why the corruption fell chiefy on thofe parts, is, because of the familiarity and fympathy between them, and the members that ferve to refpiration: For, we have heard already, that the greatest part of the difeafed laboured under a pe ripneumony, or inflammation of the lungs, which | had occafioned a violent cough; and in those cafes, as Hippocrates fays, feveral times of his own experience, the matter generally discharges itself on the privy parts: therefore it is not strange, that, for fear of death, thofe wretches fuffered an amputation of their pudenda; and, as Lucretius fings, Vivebant ferro privati parte virili; Of which too our tranflator is wholly filent. And we may easily believe, that the defluxion of humours on thofe parts, occafioned fuch a corruption, as reduced phyficians to their laft remedies, amputation and fire, fince Galen, in his comment. on epidem. 3. firmly avouches, that even where there is no peftilential infection, if an inflammation, or an eryfipelas, feizes on these parts, they very foon corrupt, and affect the fuperior parts of the body: fo that we are neceffitated, fays he, to cut away the putrefaction, and to feer the place, as being the root of the disease. Ver. 1171. Galen, in com. epidem. 3. afcribes the cause of this lofs of members, only to the putrefaction of the humours; the nature of which is to corrupt the parts on which it feizes, Here Lucretius is carped at by P. Victorius, in var. lection. for not having, as he pretends kept clofe enough to the narration of Thucydides: He is excufed, however, by Lambinus, whom Hierony. mus Mercurialis, lib. iii. var. lection. cap. 12. accufes of being a plagiary, in the defence he makes for our author. Ver. If73. Thucydides in like manner, Tờ δὲ καὶ λήθη βλάμβανε παραυίκα ἀναφάν]ας (ὑγιάνιας | Schol.) τῶν πάντων ὁμοίως, καὶ ἠγνόησαν σφᾶς τε αὐτὸς | nai cù; sinòcius" that is to fay, and many of them, prefently upon their recovery, were taken with fuch an oblivion of all things whatsoever, that they neither knew themfelves nor their acquaintance. Though the lofs of memory be not uncommon in acute diseases, yet it is frequent in chronical diftempers, that are of a long duration. It is related of Benedi&us Florettus, a perfon of univerfal learning, who lived in the lan age, that having | long struggled with a disease of eight months continuance, he at length overcame his adversary; but in the conflict had entirely forgot the Greek tongue, of which he had been a great mafter; as likewife the rules of metrical numbers in all languages whatsoever. Nor does the memory decay through the means of diseases only, but of old age likewife; and fometimes too it is loft even in the vigour and full ftrength of life, either by external or internal causes? Well, therefore, may we declaim with Pliny: "Memoria nihil æquè fragile eft in homine, morborum, et cafus injurias, atque etiam metûs fentiens; aliàs particulatim, aliàs univerum," cap. 24. There is nothing, fays he, in | man fo frail as his memory, it being obnoxious to the injuries of difcafes and accidents, nay, even of fear: fometimes it is loft in part, fometimes totally. We need not, therefore, be astonished, that they, who were vifited with the most acute of all difcafes, a virulent plague, loft their memory. The only caufe of which was the corruption of But if through ftrength, or heat of age, Plague of Athens, Sta 15. Ver. 1175. In these twelve verfes, the pos Scatter'd in fields the bodies lay: In vain fhe call'd; they came not nigh, |