Page:A litil boke the whiche traytied and reherced many gode thinges necessaries for the infirmite a grete sekeness called Pestilence.djvu/20

 Seine, the very region where Henry's force had been raised, and lasted with but little intermission for a century and a half. It seems not unreasonable to suppose that the seeds of this later endemic disease may always have lain latent in this region, but for lack of entirely suitable conditions may for long have failed in their native soil to reach the point of germination. These conditions must have been supplied in England. Contact with people of a different stock, and other manners, may have been all that was requisite to enable the infection to burst forth. Strangers are naturally more susceptible to any malady than those who by long residence in an infected area have become gradually inured against a disease. A parallel is furnished by the yellow fever, from which negroes enjoy almost complete immunity, although they are believed to have been the means of introducing the virus to the white man. Even the exemption of Henry's force from attacks of the sweating sickness (supposing it granted, and history is silent on the point) would not seem, therefore, to justify us in refusing our assent to the theory that traces the infection to that source.

Whilst the honour of printing the first English books, as well as that of introducing the art of typography into this country, belongs to an Englishman, the distinction of establishing the first press within the actual boundary of the city of London is claimed by John Lettou, supposed to belong to Lithuania, of which name Lettou is an old form.