Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 2).djvu/256

 symptoms became apparent. Some rushed madly through the street, others flung themselves from windows or roofs. The disease was not contagious, and those who handled the infected bodies were not on that account more liable to be seized. Recovery was forecasted by ripening and suppuration of the buboes, whilst indolence of those tumours was surely indicative of a fatal termination. The medical faculty dissected the corpses with assiduity, but found neither explanation nor remedy. In their prognosis also they were often wrong, some recovering whom they had given up, and others dying, of whom they had entertained the best hopes. Having once manifested itself, the plague became endemic, and more than half a century afterwards continued to be one of the chief causes of mortality.