A Treatise on the Plague and Yellow Fever

Excerpt: 'Among the many diseases which afflict the human race, we find one, upon record, so irresistible in its progress, so fatal in its attacks, and so entirely beyond the powers of medicine; that, like the serpent Python, the Leviathan, or the Mammoth, among animals, it has generally been distinguished by names expressive of its destroying nature; not, like other diseases, by any particular appellation derived from its symptoms. In the Hebrew language this distemper is expressed by the word which signifies perdition; in Greek it is called loimos, from luo, to destroy; in Latin, pestis, from pessundo, to overthrow; and in English, the plague, from the Latin plaga, a stroke with a whip; alluding to the common opinion, that it is a scourge from heaven, taking vengeance on mankind for their sins.'