In the case of plague, Alexander Massaria,[214] from his experience at Vicenza, came to the conclusion that one attack rendered a man immune with very few exceptions, but that a second attack might be mortal. Mercurialis and Van Helmont were in agreement as to the rarity of second attacks. Diemerbroeck[215] recorded two cases of reinfection in the same year of the plague at Nymwegen, and several cases at an interval of a few years. During the plague of Marseilles in 1720, various writers observed cases of reinfection, and relapse was also said to be frequent. In the plague of 1771 at Moscow, Samilowitz, prejudiced by his own advocacy of inoculation, denied the existence of reinfection, and suffered retribution for his dogmatism by three relapses in his own person. In the same plague both Mertens and Orraeus recorded cases of reinfection. In the plague of Aleppo, Russell noted 28 cases of reinfection within three years among 4,400 victims of plague. Thus the idea of complete immunity, so prevalent popularly both in Europe and the Levant, must be accepted with some reservation.
OXFORD: HORACE HART M.A.
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Metamorphoses, vii. 520.
[2] Hist. Francorum, x. 1.
[3] De Gestis Langobardorum, iii. 24.
[4] A. Bastian, Ein Besuch in San Salvador, p. 318; and Frazer, Commentary on Pausanias, ii. 10. 3.
[5] The Great African Island, p. 268.
[6] Gordon Cumming, In the Hebrides, pp. 53 seq.