A TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE 
OP MILAN IN 1630. 
BY 
ROBERT FLETCHER, M. D., 
EDITOR OF INDEX MEDICUS 
AND 
ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN 
LIBRARY OF THE SURGEON-GENERAL’S OFFICE, 
UNITED STATES ARMY, 
WASHINGTON. 
£ovi> Q0afftmore (preee 
The Friedenwald Company 
BALTIMORE, MD., U .8. A. 
1898. [From Bulletin of tiie Johns Hopkins Hospital, 
August, 1898.] 
A TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE OF 
MILAN IN 1630, 
BY ROBERT FLETCHER, M. D. 
In early Bible history there are records of the utter de- 
struction of temples or even cities, the removal of every stone 
which marked their existence, and the sowing of the ground 
with salt, so that it might ever after be sterile. Of the effi- 
cacy of the latter part of the proceeding, some doubts might 
he entertained. In more modern times the residence of some 
notorious criminal has, in like manner, been destroyed and 
removed with the solemn declaration by the State that the 
ground upon which it had stood should be held as accursed, 
and that no building should ever be erected upon it. There 
are two noteworthy instances in which, in addition, a stone 
column with an inscription describing the crime and its 
punishment was erected upon the site of the dwelling of the 
criminal. The first in order of date is still in existence in 
Genoa. A certain Julius Cassar Vacchero, known as the 
“richest merchant of Genoa,” entered into a conspiracy in 
1628 to destroy the republican government of Genoa and to 
deliver the State to the Duke of Savoy. He was beheaded with 
many of his fellow conspirators, his wife and children were 
banished, and by a decree of the Senate his palace was razed 
to the ground, every stone removed, and a pillar with an 
inscription devoting him to “eternal infamy” was erected 
on its site. A naval officer* who visited the spot a few years 
* Captain Greer, now Rear Admiral Greer, U. S. N. (Retired). 
He copied the inscription, which corresponds exactly with that 
given in the account of Yacchero’s conspiracy in the Archivio 
storico d'Italia, an important collection of public documents pub- 
lished by the Italian Government, and amounting to nearly a 
hundred volumes. 4 
A TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE OF MILAN IN 1630. 
ago described to me the desolate appearance of this vast space 
of ground overgrown with brambles and weeds, with the 
weather-beaten stone pillar in its centre. In reply to his enqui- 
ries, no one could tell him anything of the story connected 
with the place, only that the ground was “accursed,” and 
the pillar was “ colonna d’infamia ” 
The other column was erected in Milan, in 1630, and the 
tragedy it commemorated is the subject of the present sketch. 
Traditions of the terrible pestilence known as the Black 
Death, which ravaged Europe in 1348, and which, according 
to estimates made from such sources as were accessible, swept 
away one-third of the inhabitants of the known world, were 
still rife in Milan when the great plague of 1630 broke out in 
that city. A writer has left a vivid description of the condi- 
tions brought about by the former visitation. He says: 
“ Wild places were sought for shelter; some went into ships 
and anchored themselves afar off on the waters. But the angel 
that was pouring the vial had a foot on the sea as well as on 
the dry land. No place was so wild that the plague did not 
visit—none so secret that the quick-sighted pestilence did not 
discover—none could fly that it did not overtake. 
“For a time all commerce was in coffins and shrouds, but 
even that ended. Shrift there was none; churches and 
chapels were open, but neither priests nor penitents entered— 
all went to the charnel-house. The sexton and the physician 
were cast into the same deep and wide grave; the testator, and 
his heirs and executors were hurled from the same cart into 
the same hole together. Fire became extinguished, as if its 
element had expired, and the seams of the sailorless ships 
yawned to the sun. Though doors were open and coffers 
unwatched, there was no theft; all offenses ceased, and no cry 
but the universal woe of the pestilence was heard among men.” 
There is nothing more cruel than fear, and no fear more 
debasing than that which is engendered by the presence or 
approach of a pestilence. We have not been without some 
experience of this in our own day, but when we add to this 
ignominious cowardice, the gross ignorance and superstition 
which existed at the period of which I am about to speak, we 
can understand, partly at least, how such a story became pos- 
sible. A TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE OF MILAH TFT 1630. 
5 
Manzoni, the famous Italian writer, the author of the best 
romance of the century in his language, “ Ipromessi sposif 
“ The Betrothed,” has told the story of this Milanese column 
in a small work published in 1840, Storici della Colonna infame. 
It has not been translated into English, though there is a 
French version of it. 
The column in question was erected in 1630, and was blown 
down during a storm, in 1788. The inscription upon it was 
in Latin, which, in its construction, very closely resembles 
some portions of the inscription on the Genoese pillar. The 
literal translation of it is this : 
“ Here, where this plot of ground extends, formerly stood 
the shop of the barber Giangiacomo Mora, who had conspired 
with Guglielmo Piazza, Commissary of the Public Health, and 
with others, while a frightful plague exercised its ravages, by 
means of deadly ointments spread on all sides, to hurl many 
citizens to a cruel death. For this, the Senate, having declared 
them both to be enemies of their country, decreed that, placed 
on an elevated car, their flesh should be torn with red-hot 
pincers, their right hands be cut off, and their bones be broken ; 
that they should be extended on the wheel, and at the end of 
six hours be put to death, and burnt. Then, and that there 
might remain no trace of these guilty men, their possessions 
should be sold at public sale, their ashes thrown into the river, 
and to perpetuate the memory of their deed the Senate wills 
that the house in which the crime was projected shall be razed 
to the ground, shall never be rebuilt, and that in its place a 
column shall be erected which shall be called Infamous. Keep 
afar off, then, afar off, good citizens, lest this accursed ground 
should pollute you with its infamy. August, 1630.” 
This barbarous sentence was executed in all its details, and 
for a hundred and fifty years, this pillar, intended to blast the 
memory of two really innocent persons, stood as the proof of 
the ignorance and credulity of their judges. In 1777, a certain 
Count Pietro Verri, Counsellor of State in the service of the 
Empress Maria Theresa, wrote a work, which, however, did 
not see the light until 1804, twenty-seven years later, entitled 
(translated) “Remarks upon torture, with special relation to 
the effects of the baleful ointments to which was attributed 
the plague which devastated Milan in the year 1630.” Count 6 
A TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE OF MILAN IN 1630. 
Yerri had carefully perused all the records of the trial of 
Piazza and Mora, and while pointing out the injustice done 
these wretched men, he decried in good set phrase the legal- 
ized use of torture. It is not surprising that he delayed the 
publication of his treatise. As late as 1768 the Empress 
Maria Theresa had authorized the publication of a codification 
of the laws relating to the use of torture by the courts. The 
judicial application of torture, or “the question,” as it was 
termed by a delicate euphemism, comes down from the Roman 
code of laws. Count Yerri quotes from the writings of many 
jurists as to the rights of the accused, and the power of the 
judges, in cases where it was necessary to extract the truth. 
The late Dr. Welling, of Washington, delivered an address on 
the law of torture, giving the codification of Guazzini, a 
famous Italian jurisconsult, which was published in 1612. 
There is a wonderful resemblance in the provisions of all these 
laws as described by Guazzini, Yerri, and the later codification 
of Maria Theresa. Great discretion was given to the judges, 
but they were forbidden to apply the torture in any case more 
then three times. If the accused, appropriately named Vaff- 
litto, the sufferer, bore these three administrations without 
confessing, then he was to be held guiltless as by Divine deci- 
sion. In the “Ancient customs of Brittany,” a very curious 
compilation made in 1330 and 1340, the same limitation was 
made, and if the accused bore it all without yielding, then he 
was to be, in the language of the compiler, “ Safe and free, 
because it was evident that God exhibited miracles for him.” 
Another provision of the law regulating the application of 
torture, which was violated in the case in question, was that 
which forbids its use for the discovery of the corpus delicti, 
which must appear aliunde—from other sources—but only for 
the purpose of discovering the author and accomplices of the 
crime. Here there was certainly neither dead body nor injured 
person. 
The preparation of the accused for the torture was ceremoni- 
ous. It was a general belief of the times that an amulet or 
compact with the evil one which would enable him to endure 
the crudest suffering and thus evade the desired confession, 
might be concealed in his clothes, hair, or even in his stomach 
or bowels. His clothing was therefore changed, every par- A TftAGEDY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE OF MILAN” I FT 1630. 
7 
tide of hair was shaved off, and a purgative was given him, so 
that he might be effectually deprived of all diabolic aid. 
Piazza was thus prepared every time that he was tortured.* 
The belief in this protective power was of ancient date. A 
distinguished Italian magistrate,! in a work on criminal law 
published in 1532, states that an accused man revealed the 
secret of his ability to resist torture and refrain from cries or 
disclosures. He confessed that one of his relatives had pre- 
pared for him a cake of wheat flour, to which was added the 
mixed milk of a mother and daughter. Every day he was to 
swallow some crumbs of this cake, and as long as it lasted it 
insured his insensibility to torment. On the other hand, there 
were certain liquids and greases which, when rubbed into the 
body of an accused person, counteracted all his protective 
charms, and, says Marsiliis, with cynical exultation, “when 
that was done one could hear the joints crack and the bones 
sing.” M. Le Blanc! says that these counter-charms were 
known in England in the 12th century, in Italy in the 14th 
century, and in China to quite recent days.§ 
The original account of the proceedings which led to the 
tragic end of Piazza and Mora is that of the Canon Ripamonti. 
He was born in 1577, and was historiographer of Milan. He 
published the first ten volumes of the Ecclesiastical History 
of Milan, in 1617, and by request of the Decurions wrote an 
account of the plague which devasted the city in 1630. This 
latter is a quarto book of 410 pages, written in Latin, and pub- 
lished at Milan in 1641. The title-page is a copper-plate en- 
graving, curiously emblematic. There is a gigantic skeleton 
filling the entire page; his hands hold weapons, armor, and 
books of devotion; his bony feet protrude from under a car- 
pet on which lies a man, the victim of the plague. In front 
* “ Abraso prius dieto Gulielmo, et vestibus Curise induto, propi- 
nata etiam potione ea purgante.” (Processo [etc.], p. 41.) 
t Hippolytus de Marsiliis. Practica criminalis [etc.], fol., Vene- 
tiis, 1532, fol. 12. 
]; Le Blanc, (Edmond). Del’ancient croyance k des moyens se- 
crets de defier la torture. Paris, 1892, p. 14. 
\ Bodin states that magic words conferring immunity under tor- 
ture were sometimes written on the scalp of sorcerers, where it was 
concealed by the hair. (De la demonomanie des sorcieres, 1587.) 8 
A TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE OF MILAN IN 1630. 
of the skeleton is an altar with a crucifix, to which a woman, 
seated, with the usual naked boy attending her, points with a 
sword. 
Two hundred years later, in 1841, this work was translated 
into Italian by Francesco Cusani, who has added many valu- 
able notes in an appendix. 
In 1839 the full official account of the trials of the “Anoint- 
ers ” was published in Milan.* It is in Italian, but all that 
relates to the application of the torture is discreetly veiled in 
the less familiar Latin, which, however, the modern editor has 
translated into Italian. 
From these sources the facts have been obtained, now to be 
briefly presented. 
Early in the morning of the 21st of June, 1630, during the 
prevalence of the plague in Milan, a woman of the lower classes 
saw from her window a man going down the street who was 
writing on a paper. He wiped his fingers on the wall of a 
house, probably to get rid of ink-stains, but with the readiness 
of ignorance and fear, she was sure that he was smearing 
deadly ointments to promote the spread of the pestilence. A 
crowd of excited women invaded the Council-chamber, and the 
Senate was informed of the occurrence. Orders were imme- 
diately given to trace out and arrest the guilty man. 
It must seem strange to us that the rulers of a great city, 
even at that time, could have been so ignorant as to believe 
that such means could be productive of the pestilence, or that 
any man or men could desire to destroy their fellow-citizens, 
and risk their own lives besides. But extraordinary occur- 
rences demanded extraordinary causes to account for them. 
The plague was attributed to hail, to the poisoning of the 
fountains by the Jews—to deadly ointments so placed that 
passers-by would touch them. It became dangerous for any 
one to touch walls or buildings. Kipamonti relates that three 
French travelers admiring the facade of a building, one of 
them touched the marble, and was immediately set upon by 
the mob and dragged half dead to the prison. An old man, 
80 years of age, about to sit down on a bench in the church of 
San Antonio, wiped off the dust with his cloak. A woman 
*Processo originale degli Untori nella peste del 1630. Milan, 1839. 
8°. A TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE OF MILAN IN 1630. 
9 
cried out that he was anointing the benches, and even there, 
in the house of God, the worshippers beat and kicked the life 
out of the unfortunate man. Such was the spirit of the time. 
The earliest notice, perhaps, of this belief in “ Anointers” 
is to be found in the works of Guy de Chauliac, who was phy- 
sician to Pope Clement VI and was living in Avignon, in 
1348, when the Black Death ravaged that city. He says: 
“ It was believed that the Jews had poisoned the world, for 
which reason they were slain. In other places they drove 
away beggars after cutting off their ears * * * and if it 
was found that any one had powders or ointments, he was 
compelled to swallow them, to show they were not poisons.* 
Ambroise Pare, in his Livre de la peste, throws further light 
on the matter. In his Advice to Magistrates, during the 
visitation of the pestilence, he concludes the chapter thus : 
“ What shall I add ? They must keep an eye on certain 
thieves, murderers, poisoners, worse than inhuman, who grease 
and smear the walls and doors of rich houses with matter from 
buboes and carbuncles, and other excretions of the plague- 
stricken, so as to infect the houses and thus be enabled to 
break into them, pillage and strip them, and even strangle the 
poor sick people in their beds; which was done at Lyons in 
the year 1565. God! what punishment such fellows deserve ; 
but this I leave to the discretion of the Magistrates who have 
charge of such duties.”f 
The scrivener, with the ink-horn at his belt, was discovered, 
and proved to be a certain Guglielmo Piazza, a commissioner 
of health, a petty officer employed to report cases of the dis- 
ease. He stoutly denied all knowledge of the crime charged 
to him, and maintained his resolution through two appli- 
cations of torture, although the second one was the “question 
extraordinary,” in which atrocious complications were added 
to the ordinary proceeding. But in his cell, broken down 
with the effects of the torments he had twice experienced, and 
dreading their renewal, which he knew would come, the un- 
happy man yielded to the insidious suggestions of those around 
him. He confessed his guilt, and declared that he obtained 
the death-dealing ointment from the barber Giangiacomo Mora. 
1499, fol. 19. 
t (Euvres, 1575, fob. p 662. 10 
A TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE OF MILAN IN 1630. 
The latter was immediately arrested, but was likewise vehe- 
ment in his declarations of innocence, avowing that he had 
never seen or known Piazza. The latter was made of sterner 
stuff than the barber, who yielded at the first application of 
the torture, and confessed everything they suggested to him. 
From that time on these two wretched men vied with each 
other in manufacturing falsehoods. They implicated even a 
Count Padilla, the son of the Commandant of the Castle. lie 
was arrested, but having powerful friends, his trial did not 
take place until long after the execution of Piazza and Mora. 
It was from the documentary evidence on his trial that Count 
Verri obtained the full details of the iniquitous treatment of 
the two victims who had perished. Count Padilla was ulti- 
mately acquitted. 
Mora, the barber, had a wife and five children ; the eldest, 
a young man, assisting him in his business. The latter was 
arrested with his father, and the entire contents of the shop 
were seized and carried to the court. As was usual in those 
days, the barber dabbled in medicine, and he declared, no 
doubt with truth, that the various pans and vessels contained 
remedies for or preservatives from the pest. The sale of these 
specifics was very extensive. A man who was hanged for 
robbery during the height of the pestilence confessed, with 
the rope around his neck, that he had prepared an ointment 
as a charm against the Anointers. Cusani, in his notes, gives 
the formula of what became known as Unguento dell’ Impic- 
cato, “ The ointment of the hanged man.” It may take its 
place with the “ Vinegar of the four thieves,” which had its 
origin duriug the plague of Marseilles. Its composition was 
supposed to be: Wax, 3 ounces ; olive oil, 2 ounces; oil of ivy, 
oil of stone, leaves of anethum, or dill, laurel berries, sage and 
rosemary, of each half an ounce. A little vinegar was added. 
It is interesting to observe that these remedies, or prevent- 
atives, were composed almost entirely of aromatics, some of 
which furnish the accepted germicides of our own day. The 
apertures of the body were to be especially guarded by appli- 
cation of these waters or tinctures. Ambroise Pare recom- 
mends that a surgeon called to attend patients with the plague 
should first be purged and bled. Next he should have two 
issues made, one at the insertion of the deltoid of the right A TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE OF MILAN IN 1630. 
11 
arm, and another about three fingers’ breadth below the left 
knee. He considerately adds that these need not be made if 
the surgeon already has any running sore. “For truly,” he 
declares, “ we know from experience, that they who have such 
open sores, have not been subject to the plague, and have taken 
no harm, though they were every day among cases of it.” * 
Pare also gives a formula of a “ Preservative water,” with 
which the surgeon was to wash his whole body “very fre- 
quently,” and he adds, “ it is a good thing to wash the mouth 
with it, and draw a little of it up the nose, and put a few 
drops into the ear.” 
This preservative consisted of a mixture of rose water, elder- 
flower water, and wine, in which were boiled, by slow heat, 
the roots of inula, angelica, gentian, bistort and zedoary; also 
the leaves of sage, rosemary, wormwood and rue; juniper and 
ivy berries with lemon peel, and the mystic theriac and mith- 
ridate were finally added. 
As a proof of the danger of contact with the bodies of in- 
fected persons, Pare relates in his vivid style how he himself 
nearly fell a victim to a sudden deadly syncope, the result 
of the overpowering effluvia which arose from the buboes 
and carbuncles of a plague-patient, as he uncovered him. 
Upon regaining consciousness he sneezed violently ten or 
twelve times, so that his nose bled, and he attributes his 
escape to “virtue of the expulsive power of his brain, seeing 
that all his other faculties were dead for the time.”f 
The barber’s acquaintance with Piazza seems to have been 
limited to occasional visits of the latter to his shop for the 
usual service of his trade, and they both stated that Mora had 
undertaken to prepare a pot of his “preservative” for his 
customer. On this slight foundation was built a superstruc- 
ture of conspiracy for wholesale murder, by the never-failing 
power of torture. Once, in his agony, the wretched barber 
cried to his judges that if they would tell him what they 
wanted him to say, he would say it! He confessed everything 
that was insidiously suggested, such as that he had mixed 
foam from the mouths of those dead of the plague with his 
ointment, and then declared that Piazza, whose business took 
* Op. cit., 663. 
f Op. cit., p. 664. 12 
A TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE OF MILAN IN 1630. 
him among the dead bodies, had supplied him with the ma- 
terial. 
In the account of the trial there is frequent allusion to the 
“purging the infamy” of the accused. A Homan law, given 
by Justinian,* provides that gladiators, slaves, and infamous 
persons like them, when called as witnesses, should be first put 
to the torture, so as to insure their telling the truth. In like 
manner, in the Italian laws regulating the legal application of 
torture, the accused person was declared to be “infamous,” 
and his implication of others in his crime was not to he ac- 
cepted as proof, unless he maintained his charge while sub- 
jected to torture. If he then reiterated his declaration he was 
said to have “ purged his infamy,” and his evidence was ad- 
mitted. Piazza, as he involved others in his accusations, was, 
on each fresh occasion, tortured to “ purge his infamy,” and 
thus make his charges applicable. The degree of suffering 
inflicted upon him seems to have been much lighter than on 
other occasions. He had been promised immunity from his 
sentence by the Auditor of the Court if he made full confes- 
sion, another instance of the treachery of these officials, for 
the Governor only could exercise such power. 
More than once, Piazza and Mora recanted, and declared 
that their confessions were false, and uttered only in fear of 
further torments. A threat of another application of the ques- 
tion, and, above all, the hope that if no longer recalcitrant 
they might expect some mitigation of the horrible punishment 
which had been decreed as their fate, soon reduced them to 
submission. They were in the hands of men who were desti- 
tute of pity. The plague was raging, and the populace, fierce 
and ignorant, demanded their victims. The Commandant of 
the Castle, the father of Count Padilla who had been accused 
of complicity in the alleged crime, demanded of the Court that 
the execution of the sentence on Piazza and Mora should be 
delayed in order that they might be confronted with his son 
and their accusations be met. The judge refused to accede to 
his request on the ground that “the people were clamorous.” 
When the condemned men found that their examinations 
were at an end, and that, despite the promise of impunity, they 
* Digest, lib. XX, tit. V, de testibus, 1, 21. A TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE OF MILAX IX 1630. 
13 
were to be submitted to the full execution of their terrible 
sentence, they retracted in their confessions to the priest all 
the charges they had made against other persons, declaring 
that they were made under the agonies of torture, or in the 
apprehension of further suffering. 
In the collection of medical portraits and engravings in the 
library of the Surgeon-General’s office, at Washington, is an 
elaborate print, representing in all its details the execution of 
Piazza and Mora. 
The engraving, which is from a copper-plate, is about six- 
teen inches square. It was published in Rome by the au- 
thority of the Nuncio of the Roman College. The engraver 
was Horatio Colombo. There is no date, but it is probable 
that it was brought out close upon the event it commemorates.* 
The title on the top is (translated), “The sentence pro- 
nounced on those who had poisoned many persons in Milan in 
the year 1630.” This is followed by the names of the Magni- 
fies who sat in judgment, and the particulars of the punish- 
ment decreed. Each scene in the picture has its letter, which 
is referred to in an explanatory legend below. The entire dis- 
regard of the unities of time and place which characterized 
such productions is well displayed in this curious engraving. 
On the right is the shop of the barber Mora, and in front of it 
the “ Column of Infamy ” is already erected. A large plat- 
form car, drawn by two oxen, exhibits the victims, execution- 
ers, and priests. A brazier of live charcoal contains the pin- 
cers with which the flesh was to be torn. The barber’s right 
hand is on the block, and a chopper held over the wrist is 
about to be struck down by a wooden mallet held aloft by the 
executioner. Further on is seen a large platform, on which 
the two victims are having their limbs broken by an iron bar, 
preparatory to their exposure on the wheel for six hours. The 
wheels are also displayed, one of them already on a pole, with 
the men bound upon it. 
Still further on are the fires consuming the bodies, and, 
last scene of all, on the extreme left is a fussy little stream 
* In the Processo originale degl’ Untori, Milan, 1839, there is at 
the end a folding plate, which is a poor copy of this engraving. 
The editor speaks of the original as “ una stampa di quel tempo.” 14 
A TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE OF MILAN IN 1630. 
foaming under bridges, which is supposed to be a river, and in- 
to it a man is throwing the ashes of the two malefactors. 
Comment upon this tragic occurrence is needless. It tells 
its own story and bears its own moral. 
A few words may be added as to the mortality of this 
pestilence and the measures adopted by the authorities to 
encounter it. Like all statistics of those early times, the esti- 
mates are variable, but there are letters from the Sanita to the 
Governor, which state the then daily mortality at 500. It is 
probable that the total number of deaths was abont 150,000. 
The tribunal of the Sanita, a body something like a modern 
board of health, seem to have acted with sense and energy, 
though impeded by the obstinacy and ignorance of the Senate, 
the Council of Decurions and the Magistrates. To declare 
that the plague had appeared in Milan was to drive the people 
off, and to frighten trade away. The two physicians of the 
Sanita, Taddino and Settala, scarcely dared to appear in the 
streets, and the latter, who was 80 years old, nearly lost his 
life from the angry mob. Later, when the existence of the 
pestilence had to be admitted, some strange precautions were 
adopted. An immense procession was to proceed through the 
city in honor of San Carlo and to implore his aid, and the 
authorities ordered the doors of all sequestered houses to be 
nailed up lest the distempered inmates should try to join the 
procession. There were 500 such houses, according to the Cava- 
lier Somiglia, who also wrote an account of this fearful time. 
An immense hospital was constructed to accommodate 2,000 
persons, though at one time, in the height of the disease, the 
number of its patients had increased to 16,000. The pits dug 
for the dead became filled, and bodies in all stages of putre- 
faction were lying in houses and in the streets. In despair, 
the Sanita applied to two priests who had been efficient in 
their aid. They promised that in four days all the corpses 
should be removed. They went into the country, and sum- 
moning the people in the name of religion, they succeeded in 
having three immense pits dug. The monatti of the Sanita 
were employed to bring out the dead, and in the stipulated 
time the good fathers had fulfilled their pledge. The persons 
in the employ of the Sanita for removing corpses were of three 
grades. The monatti carried the bodies out of the houses and A TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE OF MILAN IN 1630. 
15 
carted them to the pits. The apparitori, or summoners (the 
name is still preserved in the English Ecclesiastical Courts as 
apparitors) went before with a bell notifying the people to 
bring out their dead. The commissari were in control of the 
other two. It will be remembered that the unfortunate Piazza 
was a commissario. 
Among the precautions taken by physicians for their own 
protection, while visiting plague-stricken patients, was the 
Fig. 3. 16 
A TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT PLAGUE OF MILAN IN 1630. 
adoption of a particular dress. Pare recommends that the 
material should be camlet, serge, satin, taffeta, or morocco, 
but not cloth, frieze, or fur, lest these latter should harbor 
the poison, and death should he thus conveyed to the healthy. 
Manget, in his Traite de la peste (Geneve, 1721, 2 vols.), has 
a frontispiece to the first volume representing the dress of a 
doctor during the plague at Marseilles. From his description 
it seems that the mantle, breeches, shirt, boots, gloves, and 
hat, were all of morocco leather. The beak attached to the 
mask was filled with aromatics, the air passing over them in 
respiration. Figure 2 is a reproduction of this plate from 
Manget’s work. In a recent number of Janus (Amsterdam, 
1897, p. 297), M. Reber gives an interesting account of an en- 
graving in his possession, the work of the artist John Melchior 
Fuesslin, which also represents a doctor at Marseilles during 
the plague, and is, he thinks, of about the same date as the 
work of Manget. His engraving is herewith reproduced as 
Fig. 3. The legend underneath may be translated: 
“ Sketch of a Cordovan-leather-clad doctor of Marseilles, 
having also a nose-case filled with smoking material to keep 
off the plague. With the wand he is to feel the pulse.” 
In Manget’s sketch the Steklein becomes a veritable stick, 
but the information conveyed by it would probably be quite as 
useful in the one case as in the other. The appearance of this 
leather-clad doctor, with his nezfumant, could scarcely have 
been reassuring to the plague-stricken wretch. 
Since this address was written I have received the March 
number of the Bristol Medico-Chirurgical Journal, which con- 
tains a notice of the Manget and Keber sketches, by Dr. L. M. 
Griffiths, the accomplished assistant editor. He reproduces 
the plates from the Janus blocks, and mentions that an amu- 
let of arsenic was worn on the chest in time of plague, as a 
prophylactic, in the city of Bristol, as well as elsewhere. He 
quotes Kemp’s treatise, 1665, thereanent. Ambroise Pare had, 
however, recommended this device a hundred years before. It 
was to be worn over the heart, in order that “ the heart might 
become accustomed to poison, and so be the less injured when 
other poisons sought it.” Fig. 3.