Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/169

Rh P I Z P L A 159 authors write from the ultramontane point of view, but the latter much more in detail, giving original documents and information respecting events subsequent to 1870 not to be found in English sources. Nippold s Handbuch der neucsten Kirchcngeschichte, vol. ii., supplies an outline of the papal policy in connexion with other contemporaneous religious movements ; and a concise but more impartial sketch will be found in Ranke, Die romischen Piipste (7th ed.), ii. 162-208. The literature connected with the Vatican Council is given under OLD CATHOLICS. (J. B. M. ) PIZARRO, FRANCISCO (c. 1471-1541), discoverer of Peru, and the principal hero of its conquest, born at Truxillo in Estremadura, Spain, about the year 1471, was an illegitimate son of Gonzalo Pizarro, who as colonel of infantry afterwards served in Italy under Gonsalvo de Cor dova, and in Navarre, with some distinction. Of Pizarro s early years hardly anything is known ; but he appears to have been only poorly cared for, and his education was cer tainly neglected. Shortly after the news of the discovery of the New World had reached Spain he was in Seville, and thence found his way across the Atlantic ; there he is first heard of in 1510 as having taken part in an expedi tion from Hispaniola to Urabd under Alonzo de Ojeda, by whom, in his absence, he was entrusted with the charge of the unfortunate settlement at San Sebastian. Afterwards he accompanied Balboa to Darien; and under Balboa s suc cessor, Pedrarias, he received a &quot;repartimento,&quot; and be came a cattle farmer at Panama, where in 1522 he entered into a partnership with a priest named Hernando de Luque and a soldier named Diego de Almagro for purposes of ex ploration and conquest towards the south. An expedition along the coast of New Granada (November 1524) was unfortunate, but supplied various confirmations of rumours previously heard as to the existence of a great and opulent empire farther to the south. On March 10, 1526, Pizarro, Almagro, and Luque renewed their compact, but in a much more solemn and explicit manner, to conquer and divide equally among themselves this empire still undis covered, and Pizarro and Almagro, with a force of about one hundred and sixty men, again sailed from Panama. The force was too small to effect much at the time, and was at length recalled by the governor, but Pizarro was not to be shaken, and, though he was left for months with but thirteen followers on a small island without ship or stores, persisted in his enterprise till at length he had coasted as far as to about 9 S. lat., and obtained distinct accounts of the Peruvian empire. The governor still show ing little disposition to encourage the adventurers, Pizarro resolved to apply to the sovereign in person for help, and with this object sailed from Panama for Spain in the spring of 1528, reaching Seville in early summer. After long and tedious delays, the queen, in Charles s absence, executed at Toledo on 26th July 1529 the famous capitu lation by which Pizarro was upon certain conditions made governor and captain-general of the province of &quot; New Castile &quot; for the distance of 200 leagues along the newly discovered coast, and invested with all the authority and prerogatives of a viceroy. One of the conditions of the grant was that within six months he should raise a suffi ciently equipped force of two hundred and fifty men, of whom one hundred might be drawn from the colonies ; but this he had some difficulty in fulfilling. Sailing from San Lucar clandestinely (for his due complement was not yet made up) in January 1530, Pizarro was afterwards joined by his brother Hernando with the remaining vessels, and when the expedition left Panama in January of the following year it numbered three ships, one hundred and eighty men, and twenty-seven horses. A footing was established on the mainland at Tumbez, whence Pizarro set out for the interior in May 1532. San Miguel de Piura was founded a few weeks afterwards, and Caxamarca entered on November 15th. The subsequent movements of Pizarro belong to the history of PERU (see vol. xviii. p. 677; and, for authorities, comp. p. 679). PLAGUE (Aoi/uds, Pestis, Pestilentia). This name has been given to any epidemic disease causing a great mortality, and in this sense was used by Galen and the ancient medical writers, but is now confined to a special disease, otherwise called Oriental, Levantine, or Bubonic Plague, which may be shortly defined as a specific febrile disease, transmissible from the sick to healthy persons, accompanied usually by buboes and sometimes by car buncles. This definition excludes many of the celebrated pestilences recorded in history, such as the plague of Athens, described by Thucydides ; that not less celebrated one which occurred in the reign of Marcus Aurelius and spread over nearly the whole of the Roman world (164- 180 A.D.), 1 which is referred to, though not fully described, by the contemporary pen of Galen; and that of the 3d century (about 253), the symptoms of which are known from the allusions of St Cyprian (Sermo de Mortalitate). There is a certain resemblance between all these, but they were very different from Oriental plague. Symptoms. There are two chief forms : (l)mild plague, jjestis minor, larval plague (Radcliffe), peste fruste, in which the special symptoms are accompanied by little fever or general disturbance ; and (2) ordinary epidemic or severe plague, fiestis major, in which the general disturb ance is very severe. Cases which are rapidly fatal from the general disturbance without marked local symp toms have been distinguished as fulminant plague (pestis siderans, peste, foudroyante). 1. In the minor form of the disease spontaneous swellings of the glands occur, chiefly in groins and arm pits, but also in neck or other parts, which either undergo resolution or suppurate. There is a certain amount of fever ; the temperature is rarely high, but has been known to be 104 Fahr. The duration of the disease is ten to twenty days usually, but may be eight weeks, for most of which time the general health is little impaired and the patient able to go about as usual. It rarely, if ever, causes death, the only fatal case at Astrakhan in 1877 having been so through a complication. The disease is not obviously contagious ; whether it is propagated by infection or not is unknown. It is possibly rather of a miasmatic character. This form of disease has sometimes preceded or followed severe epidemics, as in Mesopotamia (Irak) on several occasions, 1873-78, and in Astrakhan, 1877 ; its importance in relation to the origin of plague has only lately been appreciated. 2 It might be expected that gradations would be found connecting this form with the severe epidemic form ; but this appears to be not usually the case, the latter form appearing somewhat suddenly and abruptly. Hence the minor form has probably often been regarded as a distinct disease, even when observed in plague countries. 2. As regards pestis major, or severe plague, the symp toms appear to have been nearly the same in all great epidemics for several centuries, if not for two thousand years, but will be best given from modern observations, such as those of Surgeon-Major Colvill, Dr Cabiadis, and others in Irak, and recent observers in India. The early symptoms are sometimes like those of ague (shivers, often long continued, and pains in the limbs), but combined with nervous symptoms. The patient becomes distracted, tosses about in constant fear of something he cannot describe, 1 Amm. Marcell, xxiii. 7 ; see Heckev. De Peste Antoniana, Berlin, 1835. 2 Payne, Trans. Epidem. Soc. of Lond., iv. 362 ; Tholozan, La Peste en Turquie, Paris, 1880; J. N. Radcliffe, Report of Local Government Board, 1879-80 (Supplement, pp. 24, 49), and article &quot;Plague,&quot; in Quain s Dictionary of Medicine, London, 1882.