NOTES 309

etc., in remittent malaria). . . . The great Hippocratic group
imply the doctrine of humors in its phraseology and outlook on
symptoms, but it is in the background, and nowhere are the humors
described. It is clear, however, that bile and phlegm are the most
prominent.^ (W. H. S. Jones in his General Introduction to his
translation of Hippocrates in the Loeb Classical Library, vol. I;
this is a good summary of the many variations of the doctrine of
Humors in the earliest medical writers.)

:4 In that treatise he often says that Nature endeavors to preserve
from, dissolution the elements and all varieties of mistio, 'combina—
tion.

: Between 1485 and 1551 there were in England five epidemics
of Sudor Anglicus, English Sweat, i. e. autumn of 1485, 1508, 1517,
1528, 1551. On the Continent it appeared in 1528 and 1529 in
many countries, with the notable exception of France. At Anspach
about 1528, there was an outbreak, and L. Fuchs, the physician
and botanist, is said to have saved many lives. Everywhere it
affected mostly the rich and spared the poor.  For & detailed account
see Creighton, History of Epidemics in England, Cambridge, 1891.
In a letter in Italian to his friend Rannusio written apparently in
or soon after 1541 (year not stated in LeWere dt XIII huomini
—Wustri, Venice, 1565), Fracastorius says that he is interested in
Rannusio's account of the malady in England because he has written
about it, i. e. in the present treatise which was not then published.
He says in effect: '^The part of the body with which this contagion
is analogous must be, like the contagion itself, very tenuous and
acute, e. g. the spirits and the foam of the blood. Vou ask me if
this contagion can be conveyed by contagion from one body to
another at a distance, e. g. to France and Italy. No, because it
ends in one day, which hinders the contagion. 'The principle,
i. e. infected air, cannot be carried to a distance because the infected
particle is so tenuous and soon alters. / A novel infection of the air,
such as you wrote me exists in England, is possible in Italy, but I

believe it to be very rare . . . just as in Italy there is not the
principium which generates elephantiasis, nor the substance in
which such a contagion arises. . . . I do not know clearly about

these conditions in EEngland, but it is said that vapors arise from the
gypsum there, very subtile and keen, which cause this infection
there at certain times, but at what times I do not know."^ On p. 97
of the present treatise he repeats the statement about gypsum. He
was especially interested in &a malady such as this which had not been
described by ancient writers.

:6 He means, as may be seen from note 15, that the air in England
has some property that makes it easy to produce. in it the principle
or primary agent of this special infection.

ï7 Fraeastorius now discusses exanthematic typhus, and distin—
guishes it from other fevers of the contagious class. See Index.
Other names for it are pefechsae, 'red eruptions' (Italian petecchie),
and 'petechial fever.^ Mundella, in a letter dated 1543, calls it
petechiae sive ezxanthemata.