Before the sixth century, the terrible century of the great
plague, there seem to be no records of small-pox or other
eruptive fevers. Neither Hippocrates, Galen, nor the Greek
physicians who practiced at Rome, mention small-pox, although it
is now believed that the Emperor Marcus Aurelius died of this
disease. According to Dupony, the first document mentioning
variola was in 570 A.D., by Marius, a scholar of Avenches, in
Switzerland. ("Anno 570, morbus validus cum profluvio ventris, et
variola, Italiam Galliamque valde affecit.") Ten years later
Gregory of Tours describes an epidemic with all the symptoms of
small-pox in the fifth reign of King Childebert (580); it started
in the region of Auvergne, which was inundated by a great flood;
he also describes a similar epidemic in Touraine in 582. Rhazes,
or as the Arabs call him, Abu Beer Mohammed Ibn Zacariya Ar-Razi,
in the latter part of the ninth century wrote a most celebrated
work on small-pox and measles, which is the earliest accurate
description of these diseases, although Rhazes himself mentions
several writers who had previously described them, and who had
formulated rules for their cure. He explained these diseases by
the theory of fermentation, and recommended the cooling
treatment.
Pages:
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806