Page:Thucydides, translated into English Vol 1.djvu/253

 49-50 THE PLAGUE 137 held out amid these sufferings in a marvellous manner, and either they died on the seventh or ninth day, not of weakness, for their strength was not exhausted, but of internal fever, which was the end of most ; or, if they survived, then the disease descended into the bowels and there produced violent ulceration ; severe diarrhoea at the same time set in, and at a later stage caused exhaustion, which finally with few exceptions carried them off. For the disorder which had originally settled in the head passed gradually through the whole body, and, if a person got over the worst, would often seize the extremities and leave its mark, attacking the privy parts and the fingers and the toes ; and some escaped with the loss of these, some with the loss of their eyes. Some again had no sooner recovered than they were seized with a forgetful- ness of all things and knew neither themselves nor their friends. The general character of the malady no words can 5° describe, and the fury with which it Even the anhnah and fastened upon each sufferer was too birds of prey refused to much for human nature to endure, iouch the corpses. There was one circumstance in particular which dis- tinguished it from ordinary diseases. The birds and animals which feed on human flesh, although so many bodies were lying unburied, either never came near them, or died if they touched them. This was proved by a remarkable disappearance of the birds of prey, which were not to be seen either about the bodies or anywhere else ; while in the case of the dogs the result was even more obvious, because they live with man. Such was the general nature of the disease : I omit 51 many strange peculiarities which char- Nothing availed a- acterised individual cases. None of gainst the disease. the ordinary sicknesses attacked any one while it lasted, or, if they did, they ended in the plague. Some of the sufferers died from want of care, others equally who were receiving the greatest attention. No single remedy could