Publisher's Synopsis
The scattered records of literature afford a valuable, but neglected, contribution to the study of epidemic pestilence. They show us pestilence as an affair of the mind, as medical literature has shown it as an affair of the body. They teach us too the humiliating lesson that, in spite of the progress of civilization, in spite of the apparent growth of humanity, in spite of the development and dissemination of scientific knowledge, human nature has again and again reverted to the primitive instincts of savagery in face of the crushing calamity of epidemic pestilence. The superficial student of psychology may find it difficult to believe that, so late as 1630 in Milan, so late as 1656 in Naples, so late as 1771 in Moscow, the blood-lust of a maddened populace sought and found a sedative in an orgy of human sacrifice. But so it was. And in this homing instinct of the human mind is to be found the clue to much in the records of literature and art that else is wholly meaningless. It is a grim chapter of history that lies before us, but maybe we shall find here and there some spiritual Bethel reared out of the hard stones on which suffering humanity has lain its weary head.
