ently took not due measures thereagainst,--not
only did few recover thereof, but well nigh all died within the third
day from the appearance of the aforesaid signs, this sooner and that
later, and for the most part without fever or other accident.[6] And
this pestilence was the more virulent for that, by communication with
those who were sick thereof, it gat hold upon the sound, no otherwise
than fire upon things dry or greasy, whenas they are brought very near
thereunto. Nay, the mischief was yet greater; for that not only did
converse and consortion with the sick give to the sound infection of
cause of common death, but the mere touching of the clothes or of
whatsoever other thing had been touched or used of the sick appeared
of itself to communicate the malady to the toucher. A marvellous thing
to hear is that which I have to tell and one which, had it not been
seen of many men's eyes and of mine own, I had scarce dared credit,
much less set down in writing, though I had heard it from one worthy
of belief. I say, then, that of such efficience was the nature of the
pestilence in question in communicating itself from one to another,
that, not only did it pass from man to man, but this, which is much
more, it many times visibly did;--to wit, a thing which had pertained
to a man sick or dead of the aforesaid sickness, being touched by an
animal foreign to the human species, not only infected this latter
with the plague, but in a very brief space of time killed it. Of this
mine own eyes (as hath a little before been said) had one day, among
others, experience on this wise; to wit, that the rags of a poor man,
who had died of the plague, being cast out into the public way, two
hogs came up to them and having first, after their wont, rooted amain
among them with their snouts, took them in their mouths and tossed
them about their jaws; then, in a little while, after turning round
and round, they both, as if they had taken poison, fell down dead upon
the rags with which they had in an ill hour intermeddled.

[Footnote 5: Syn. help, remedy.]

[Footnote 6: _Accidente_, what a modern physician would call
"complication." "Symptom" does not express the whole meaning of the
Italian word.]

From these things and many others like unto them or yet stranger
divers fears and conceits were begotten in those who abode alive,
which well nigh all tended to a very barbarous conclusion, namely, to
shun and flee from the sick and all that p