[705] The history of the epidemical erysipelas here described cannot fail to prove interesting to the modern reader. I need scarcely remark that epidemics of a similar nature are occasionally met with in Great Britain at the present day. I myself have encountered two such epidemics in the locality where I am now writing, the one in 1823, and the other in 1846. As described by Hippocrates, the disease sometimes supervened upon a slight injury, and generally terminated in gangrene. On epidemical erysipelas, see De Haen (Ratio Medendi), Bartholinus (Hist. Anatom. Rat. Hist., 56), Wells (Transactions of a Society for the Improvement of Medical and Chirurgical Knowledge), Cooper’s Surgical Dictionary; and Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine, under Erysipelas.
[706] Galen amply confirms this statement, that when erysipelas fixes on a particular part of the body it is more formidable in appearance than in reality, and that the disease is attended with most danger when it leaves an external member, and is determined inwardly.
[707] The classical reader will here call to his recollection a striking passage in the celebrated description of the Plague of Athens, as given by Thucydides: “For the mischief, being at first seated in the head, spread over the whole body, and if one survived the most formidable symptoms, an attack on the extremities manifested itself; for it was determined to the genital organs and to the hands and feet, and many escaped with losing them, and some with the loss of their eyes.” (ii., 49.) The passage is thus rendered by Lucretius:
“tamen in nervos huic morbus et artus
Ibat et in partes genitales corporis ipsas;
Et graviter partim metuentes limina lethi
Vivebant ferro privati parte virili:
Et manibus sine nonnulli pedibusque manebant
In vita tamen et perdebant lumina partim.”
(vi., 1203.)