Treatise on Plague

Abstract

THIS volume deals with the historical, epidemiological, clinical, therapeutic, and preventive aspects of plague, and it marks a distinct and important addition to what has hitherto been written about the subject. It gives a careful and well arranged summary of many writings, ancient and modern, which deal with oriental plague. Many of the ancient writers, some interesting and basing their statements on carefully observed facts, others less interesting and largely fanciful, are here succinctly placed side by side, and the advances or the reverse evolved out of them for subsequent generations are described in chronological order. What the reader of this volume will at once perceive as a marked difference from other works on plague is the recognition of the important bearing of the discovery of the Bacillus pestis as the real cause of the disease, and its influence on our knowledge of the manner of spread of the disease and its prevention. In these respects Dr. Simpson, as an epidemiologist of recognised standing, and by his practical knowledge of the bacteriological aspect, is in a distinctly more favourable position than previous writers on plague.

Treatise on Plague.

By Dr. W. J. Simpson. Pp. xxiv + 466. (Cambridge: University Press, 1905.) Price 16s. net.