PESTILENCE. The terms plague and pestilence, corresponding to the Greek loimos Latin poets, have until recent times been used indiscriminately to denote any dia. eas5 of an epidemic character which affected large masses of the community, and were remarkable for their fatality, such as the oriental plague, the sweating sickness, cholera, certain virulent forms of fever, etc. "Tints," says Dr. Craigie, in his learned work ou The Practice of Ph pies (vol. i. p. 349), "the term kiinue was applied by the Greeks to designate a species of epidemic remittent fever; and the plague of Athens described by Thncydides is manifestly an epidemic form of the same disease, which has been at all times in the summer season endemial on the coasts and islands of the Mediterranean and Archipelago. The instances of co frequently mentioned by Dionysins of Railcar imssus, and of pestis, so often mentioned by Livy an 1 other Roman bistcrians in the early history of Borne. are manifestly the remittent or remittent-continuous fever, which has been at all times the native product of that district, and which acquired, after inunda tions of the Tiller, or a certain train of weather, the characters of a very generally dif fused, a very malignant, and a very mortal distemper. Numerous instances of a similar inaccurate mode of expression occur in designating the remittent fevers of the middle ages and of modern times: and we find, even in the early history of the colonization of the West Indian islands and the States, frequent examples of the term plague applied to the remittent fever of these regions, and especially to epidemic'attacks of yellow fever." During the middle ages we find the term testis applied to numerous
disorders, such as syphilis, small-pox, erysipelas, epidemic sore throat, petecchial fever. the sweating sickness, gangrenous pneumonia, ergotism, etc.
Several Hebrew words are translated pestilence or plague, in the authorized version of the Old Testament. Some of these pestilenees were sent as special judgments, and are beyond the reach of inquiry; others have the characteristics of modern epidemics. in so far as their action was not unnaturally rapid. and they were general in their attacks Sufficient data are not in our possession to enable us to identify with certainty any of these epidemics. It has been supposed by some critics that in some of these cases (as in Deuteronomy, xxviii. 27: Amos, iv. 10. and Zechariah, xiv. 18: and in the case of Hezo Mali) the oriental plague is referred to; but Mr. Poole (Smith's Dictionary of the vol. ii. p. 883) is of opinion that there is not any distinct notice of this disease in the Bible.