The Black Death and Medicine

Marchione di Coppo Stefani, The Florentine Chronicle, written in 1370’s

In the year of the Lord 1348 there was a very great pestilence in the city of Florence. The symptoms were the following: a bubo in the groin, where the thighs meet the trunk; or a small swelling under the armpit; sudden fever; spitting blood and saliva (and no one who split blood survived it.) It was such a frightful thing that when it got into a house, as was said, no one remained.

Tadino, (Ragguaglio, page 24)

The health commission, either through Ignorance or some other Cause, did let an old ignorant Barber of Bellano persuade them that such maladies were not the Plague.

But as the months progressed, the delegates were horrified at the number of deaths. They set to work drawing up Orders to exclude from the City all those who came from places where the Contagion had manifested itself.

Anyone who mentioned the danger of the pestilence, whether in the streets, the shops or in private houses – anyone who even mentioned the word plague – was greeted with incredulous mockery or angry contempt. The same disbelief, or rather, blind obstinacy, prevailed among the senators and the magistrates.

Many doctors in 1630, echoing the voice of the people (but hardly, in this case, the voice of God) ridiculed the sinister prophecies and gloomy warnings of the minority.