WEBVTT 00:01.530 --> 00:03.990 Prof: Last time, as you'll remember, 00:03.994 --> 00:08.244 we talked about a general overview of the three pandemics, 00:08.240 --> 00:14.790 as well as the impact of the plague bacterium-- 00:14.790 --> 00:17.320 which we have here, Yersinia pestis, 00:17.320 --> 00:22.280 the star of our show--on the individual human body. 00:22.280 --> 00:28.170 This morning I'd like to talk about community responses to 00:28.167 --> 00:32.807 bubonic plague, first in terms of unorganized, 00:32.814 --> 00:35.504 spontaneous responses. 00:35.500 --> 00:39.790 And then I'd like to look at something really decisive, 00:39.791 --> 00:43.131 which was organized community responses; 00:43.130 --> 00:47.980 that is, the first form of successful public health ever 00:47.978 --> 00:52.468 devised, and the first victory over a human disease, 00:52.474 --> 00:54.594 over bubonic plague. 00:54.590 --> 00:57.610 So, that's where we're headed this morning. 00:57.610 --> 01:02.340 And just so you'll remember, plague is not a disease 01:02.337 --> 01:04.467 entirely of the past. 01:04.468 --> 01:08.118 The third pandemic reached these shores, 01:08.120 --> 01:13.550 and I wanted to remind you that plague is still with us. 01:13.549 --> 01:17.759 These are the areas in the United States where plague, 01:17.760 --> 01:21.940 at the present day, is endemic among wild rodents, 01:21.938 --> 01:26.538 and it causes every year a small trickle of cases of 01:26.543 --> 01:32.023 bubonic plague, usually in the southwest of the 01:32.024 --> 01:33.894 United States. 01:33.890 --> 01:40.830 Well, in terms of community responses, probably the first 01:40.828 --> 01:45.908 and most spontaneous of all was flight. 01:45.910 --> 01:53.790 Panic and fear of sudden death led people to depart in haste. 01:53.790 --> 01:58.430 As Defoe makes clear, those who were the first to 01:58.434 --> 02:03.224 flee were people of means, and those often included the 02:03.218 --> 02:06.708 authorities, and physicians themselves, 02:06.709 --> 02:10.709 and clergymen, thereby increasing disruption 02:10.711 --> 02:14.001 and chaos, and magnifying the sense of 02:14.004 --> 02:14.684 terror. 02:14.680 --> 02:18.150 I imagine you could--for an equivalent, 02:18.150 --> 02:22.610 if you were to wake up tomorrow morning and hear that there was 02:22.605 --> 02:26.555 something terrible on the medical front happening in New 02:26.558 --> 02:29.748 Haven, and that DeStefano and Rick 02:29.746 --> 02:33.026 Levin had taken the last train out, 02:33.030 --> 02:38.010 I can imagine some of the responses that you might have. 02:38.008 --> 02:41.518 In any case, let's remember the atmosphere 02:41.519 --> 02:44.429 in a city visited by the plague. 02:44.430 --> 02:49.610 Last time you heard a description of Florence in 1348, 02:49.613 --> 02:54.503 provided by Boccaccio, and you're now reading about 02:54.502 --> 02:57.342 Defoe and London in 1665. 02:57.340 --> 03:02.240 So, let me give you a different and also dramatic example. 03:02.240 --> 03:06.470 And that was Naples in 1656. 03:06.468 --> 03:10.088 Naples, one of the largest cities in Europe, 03:10.090 --> 03:14.740 especially vulnerable because of its urban poverty and 03:14.736 --> 03:18.326 overcrowding, and its status as one of 03:18.327 --> 03:20.877 Europe's great port cities. 03:20.878 --> 03:24.778 It had, in 1656, the year of this terrible 03:24.777 --> 03:28.837 visitation, a population of 500,000--an 03:28.837 --> 03:33.787 enormous city by seventeenth century standards-- 03:33.788 --> 03:39.218 and 300,000 people died no less in this visitation. 03:39.220 --> 03:43.740 Every activity in Naples ceased at the time. 03:43.740 --> 03:47.700 There was general unemployment and universal hunger. 03:47.699 --> 03:51.659 The living--as in the clich�--weren't sufficiently 03:51.663 --> 03:55.943 numerous to bury the dead, and I mean that literally. 03:55.940 --> 03:59.410 Cadavers were left, not only in doors, 03:59.413 --> 04:01.953 but in all public places. 04:01.949 --> 04:07.499 In the end, some 60,000 bodies were burned in pyres, 04:07.498 --> 04:13.048 and 20,000 more were unceremoniously dumped into the 04:13.049 --> 04:13.919 sea. 04:13.919 --> 04:18.249 Imagine a great city, then, with the intolerable 04:18.245 --> 04:23.705 stench of decomposition, with dogs, vultures and ravens 04:23.711 --> 04:28.131 picking at cadavers, and a total breakdown of law 04:28.130 --> 04:30.920 and order in every public service. 04:30.920 --> 04:36.000 Imagine too the flight of people, the sense that the end 04:36.004 --> 04:38.504 of the world was at hand. 04:38.500 --> 04:42.940 And indeed one of the popular images of the plague in art was 04:42.937 --> 04:47.457 a black figure on horseback, one of the dread horsemen of 04:47.463 --> 04:52.253 the Apocalypse who had come on this final day of reckoning. 04:52.250 --> 04:57.070 So, it was from places like this that everyone who could 04:57.069 --> 05:01.219 took to the roads, often with the fear in their 05:01.223 --> 05:05.443 hearts that God and his anger were in hot pursuit. 05:05.439 --> 05:09.929 So, the first spontaneous reaction was to escape. 05:09.930 --> 05:15.360 But remember what we said about humoralism, Hippocrates and 05:15.360 --> 05:16.110 Galen. 05:16.110 --> 05:19.870 And if you'll remember then, looking back, 05:19.869 --> 05:24.639 medical theory at the time sanctioned this particular 05:24.637 --> 05:28.027 reaction, or led to it logically. 05:28.028 --> 05:30.478 Because epidemics and humoral theory, 05:30.480 --> 05:33.800 as you now know, were caused by an imbalance in 05:33.798 --> 05:37.358 the humors, triggered by a poisoned air, 05:37.355 --> 05:40.715 one of the "six unnaturals," 05:40.718 --> 05:41.808 a miasma. 05:41.810 --> 05:45.700 In other words, the disease was tied to the air 05:45.697 --> 05:49.867 around a given locality, and so it made perfect good 05:49.872 --> 05:53.872 sense, by the medical theory that people had inherited, 05:53.870 --> 05:57.770 that they should escape the locale and therefore the 05:57.766 --> 05:59.216 poisonous miasma. 05:59.220 --> 06:03.720 The response of populations was mediated by the ideas that 06:03.720 --> 06:07.810 people had in their heads, by the ways an epidemic was 06:07.812 --> 06:10.512 understood, or--in a fashionable modern 06:10.509 --> 06:15.729 phrase-- how it was socially constructed. 06:15.730 --> 06:21.220 Now, orthodoxy was spawned in particular with an idea of 06:21.223 --> 06:25.933 what's called miasmatism; that is to say there was a 06:25.930 --> 06:30.570 miasma, which is derived from the Greek word for corrupted or 06:30.569 --> 06:31.419 defiled. 06:31.420 --> 06:36.730 A miasma was a corruption, a defilement or poisoning of 06:36.726 --> 06:37.706 the air. 06:37.709 --> 06:41.409 Poisonous atoms, emitted by rotting organic 06:41.408 --> 06:46.868 matter of infected people and the objects they had touched, 06:46.870 --> 06:50.440 were released, became an effluvia in the air, 06:50.440 --> 06:53.990 which was poisoned thereby. 06:53.990 --> 06:57.900 And once the air had been made poisonous, it could be absorbed 06:57.904 --> 07:01.374 by anyone in a locality--through the pores in the skin, 07:01.370 --> 07:03.490 perhaps, or by being inhaled. 07:03.490 --> 07:07.990 So, the body would then be poisoned like the air. 07:07.990 --> 07:13.000 And, so, the search in the city was for a corrupting agent. 07:13.000 --> 07:18.180 What did people who had this idea, this medical philosophy of 07:18.184 --> 07:22.854 bubonic plague--where would their suspicious alight? 07:22.850 --> 07:26.060 Well, first they would fall on foul odors; 07:26.060 --> 07:29.790 and these were plentiful in an early modern city. 07:29.790 --> 07:34.210 There was the night soil that people hurled from their windows 07:34.211 --> 07:38.561 and doors, the offal that butchers swept into the streets. 07:38.560 --> 07:42.200 There were the products, the noxious products, 07:42.204 --> 07:46.094 of stinking trades, like metal or leatherworking, 07:46.093 --> 07:49.093 or the retting of hemp and so on. 07:49.089 --> 07:54.299 This meant that the logical consequence would be urban 07:54.298 --> 07:55.378 cleanups. 07:55.379 --> 07:59.259 And, so, authorities ordered cleanups. 07:59.259 --> 08:04.109 They collected refuse, closed down certain workshops 08:04.108 --> 08:07.308 and trades, cleansed the streets, 08:07.307 --> 08:12.327 halted work in abattoirs, and ordered the prompt burial 08:12.326 --> 08:13.496 of cadavers. 08:13.500 --> 08:17.560 Furthermore, in Christian Europe water had a 08:17.564 --> 08:22.204 symbolic, if we like, ritual cleansing attached to 08:22.197 --> 08:22.857 it. 08:22.860 --> 08:27.800 It was a purifying quality because of its role in baptism, 08:27.803 --> 08:30.323 where it cleansed the soul. 08:30.319 --> 08:34.159 So, throughout Europe, cities ordered their streets 08:34.159 --> 08:37.309 cleansed with water in times of plague. 08:37.308 --> 08:41.048 They did more though than just cleanse the streets. 08:41.048 --> 08:44.888 They tried also to cleanse the air directly. 08:44.889 --> 08:51.119 There were bonfires that were set, especially with aromatic 08:51.123 --> 08:54.673 wood like pine, or with sulfur. 08:54.668 --> 08:59.338 And there was the firing of cannon, with the idea that this 08:59.336 --> 09:01.506 too would purify the air. 09:01.509 --> 09:05.719 Those were authorities who took those measures. 09:05.720 --> 09:10.510 There were also ideas of individual self-protection. 09:10.509 --> 09:15.609 And since the cause of the plague was this horrible 09:15.613 --> 09:20.613 poisoned air around you, it was a good idea to have a 09:20.613 --> 09:24.623 little vial of aromatic spices around your neck, 09:24.620 --> 09:29.490 or it might be vinegar; and tobacco had a certain 09:29.485 --> 09:33.605 popularity, as people smoked their way to health in the 09:33.605 --> 09:35.355 seventeenth century. 09:35.360 --> 09:39.180 It was also wise to shut up windows and doors, 09:39.181 --> 09:43.091 if you were indoors, to prevent the poison from 09:43.086 --> 09:45.036 entering your home. 09:45.038 --> 09:49.098 The garments of people who were infected also fell under 09:49.100 --> 09:52.500 suspicion, because the miasmatic poison 09:52.504 --> 09:56.974 was held to cling to them, just as you know in your own 09:56.971 --> 10:01.231 experience that the scent of tobacco or perfume can cling to 10:01.232 --> 10:04.772 a dress, a sweater, a shirt. 10:04.769 --> 10:09.039 Well, for this reason, people also tried to protect 10:09.035 --> 10:12.615 themselves with special plague costumes. 10:12.620 --> 10:17.590 You can see you'd be very handsome dressed like that. 10:17.590 --> 10:21.290 And the idea was that the costume would be waxed, 10:21.293 --> 10:25.773 because that would prevent anything from adhering to it. 10:25.769 --> 10:28.569 In this case they weren't thinking about fleas, 10:28.567 --> 10:31.667 they were thinking about the atoms of the corrupted, 10:31.669 --> 10:33.069 defiled atmosphere. 10:33.070 --> 10:36.570 And you'll note that there's a prominent feature; 10:36.570 --> 10:39.010 is the beak here. 10:39.009 --> 10:41.539 And it's not because it's a bird. 10:41.538 --> 10:46.058 The idea was that in the beak you would fill it with herbs 10:46.056 --> 10:49.936 that were spicy and would protect you that way. 10:49.940 --> 10:53.350 And you'll notice that the person is carrying a rod. 10:53.350 --> 10:55.840 That's not for instructive purposes. 10:55.840 --> 10:59.870 That's to keep people away, at a safe distance from you. 10:59.870 --> 11:03.470 So, what better way than to be a bit like a verger? 11:03.470 --> 11:06.370 Or let me show you another example. 11:06.370 --> 11:11.980 And here you might have your own brazier of coal that's 11:11.976 --> 11:14.996 burning, and you might have sulfur or 11:15.004 --> 11:18.984 something else that would scent the atmosphere around you. 11:18.980 --> 11:22.490 And always, of course, you would have your stick to 11:22.485 --> 11:25.635 keep people at a good safe distance to you. 11:25.639 --> 11:28.239 You also took other precautions. 11:28.240 --> 11:30.160 You would approach a plague victim, 11:30.158 --> 11:33.168 if you suspected that you were encountering one, 11:33.168 --> 11:37.458 upwind, and it was said that plague victims could be 11:37.456 --> 11:42.246 approached if you stayed upwind and kept your distance. 11:42.250 --> 11:45.120 But for those who approached downwind, 11:45.120 --> 11:49.550 illness was likely, and the outcome would depend on 11:49.548 --> 11:54.008 a body's susceptibility, on its organic disposition, 11:54.005 --> 11:57.825 that would determine the balance of the four bodily 11:57.833 --> 11:58.603 humors. 11:58.600 --> 12:02.790 If the balance was precarious, any small influence that 12:02.787 --> 12:06.197 disturbed the equilibrium could be fatal, 12:06.200 --> 12:10.180 such as fear, a dissolute lifestyle, 12:10.179 --> 12:12.429 a sudden chill. 12:12.428 --> 12:17.088 But this idea of cleansing, in early modern Europe, 12:17.090 --> 12:22.870 could also have more sinister and ritualistic possibilities. 12:22.870 --> 12:28.340 And these were derived from ancient popular ideas of magic, 12:28.344 --> 12:32.124 of God's anger and punishment for sin. 12:32.120 --> 12:34.600 In other words, the contamination, 12:34.600 --> 12:38.660 it was thought by many people, could have moral causes, 12:38.658 --> 12:41.588 which had stirred the divine wrath. 12:41.590 --> 12:46.230 So, a vigilant community might well try to identify and cast 12:46.229 --> 12:50.789 out those who were morally responsible for the calamity. 12:50.788 --> 12:54.118 Sin could be the abuse of food and drink; 12:54.120 --> 13:00.760 excessive sleep and idleness; immoderate, unnatural or sinful 13:00.758 --> 13:03.348 sex; or blasphemous religious 13:03.349 --> 13:05.169 practices and beliefs. 13:05.168 --> 13:09.518 Let me show you this rather terrifying slide by Jules Elie 13:09.524 --> 13:12.814 Delauney, of 1869, which is called "The 13:12.808 --> 13:14.718 Plague of Rome." 13:14.720 --> 13:18.430 And it refers to the Rome plague in the seventeenth 13:18.431 --> 13:20.511 century, a major epidemic. 13:20.509 --> 13:25.889 And what we see here is the Angel of God pointing out to the 13:25.892 --> 13:29.452 avenging angel the home of a sinner, 13:29.450 --> 13:34.210 and the plague is about to destroy the sinners inside. 13:34.210 --> 13:37.970 This is the idea that people had in their heads. 13:37.970 --> 13:43.170 So, with that idea, who might be inside? 13:43.168 --> 13:47.628 Well, suspicion fell on prostitutes, for example, 13:47.629 --> 13:52.829 and they were rounded up in many places and expelled from 13:52.833 --> 13:56.183 towns, and brothels were closed. 13:56.178 --> 14:03.918 It might fall also on infidels, religious dissenters, 14:03.921 --> 14:06.751 Jews and gypsies. 14:06.750 --> 14:10.850 There might be attacks on foreigners and outsiders, 14:10.854 --> 14:15.214 witches and lepers who were already suspected of being 14:15.205 --> 14:16.925 grievous sinners. 14:16.928 --> 14:21.868 Or for people who had the view that predestination could be 14:21.865 --> 14:25.265 seen by your outward success in life, 14:25.269 --> 14:30.749 whether you were the elect or not, was visible by your worldly 14:30.750 --> 14:33.060 wealth, then beggars, 14:33.061 --> 14:36.861 by their poverty and misfortunes, 14:36.860 --> 14:41.720 were seen as having already received a first installment of 14:41.719 --> 14:46.159 the punishment they deserved for their secret sins. 14:46.158 --> 14:51.238 So, towns throughout Europe closed themselves to outsiders, 14:51.241 --> 14:55.801 and inside the towns undesirables might be rounded up 14:55.799 --> 14:57.289 and expelled. 14:57.288 --> 15:00.488 Or worse still, in some places there were 15:00.485 --> 15:04.075 stonings, lynchings, burnings at the stake; 15:04.080 --> 15:08.270 full-scale pogroms, or what we might today call 15:08.269 --> 15:09.999 ethnic cleansing. 15:10.000 --> 15:16.400 The poisoning hysteria reinforced this idea, 15:16.399 --> 15:20.899 and there was often an hysteria that the poisoning and the 15:20.899 --> 15:24.769 atmosphere was not a natural event but a crime. 15:24.769 --> 15:27.949 And there were anointers called "untori," 15:27.950 --> 15:30.940 or poisoners, who were out to destroy people. 15:30.940 --> 15:36.230 This was a diabolical plot, and so a hunt was often on to 15:36.230 --> 15:38.120 find the culprits. 15:38.120 --> 15:42.220 Let me give two famous and notorious examples, 15:42.220 --> 15:46.540 a first and early one at Strasbourg in the fourteenth 15:46.544 --> 15:49.044 century, where rumor had it--you'll 15:49.035 --> 15:51.275 remember in the fourteenth century, 15:51.279 --> 15:56.309 the Jews were cast out of the Iberian Peninsula, 15:56.308 --> 16:02.698 and the panicked fear was that they were carrying out a plot as 16:02.703 --> 16:09.103 vengeance to destroy Christian Europe by poisoning the wells of 16:09.099 --> 16:10.749 Christendom. 16:10.750 --> 16:15.210 So, crowds at Strasbourg rounded up 8,000 Jews, 16:15.211 --> 16:20.741 took them to the Jewish cemetery and burned them alive. 16:20.740 --> 16:25.140 Or let me tell you another example from Milan in 1630, 16:25.139 --> 16:29.709 and not really a more cheerful one at all, although on a 16:29.705 --> 16:31.195 smaller scale. 16:31.200 --> 16:36.220 And it's told in one of the--two actually-- 16:36.220 --> 16:41.290 of the great works by the inventor of the Italian novel, 16:41.288 --> 16:44.438 and one of the great European novelists of the nineteenth 16:44.441 --> 16:47.261 century, Alexander Manzoni. 16:47.259 --> 16:49.799 The novel is called The Betrothed. 16:49.798 --> 16:54.308 And he also wrote a historical work called The Column of 16:54.309 --> 16:57.109 Infamy--that is to say, Milan. 16:57.110 --> 17:01.330 Here's a picture of the event I want to tell you about, 17:01.325 --> 17:05.145 as described by Manzoni, acting as a historian. 17:05.150 --> 17:10.080 The city of Milan in 1630 was at war with Spain, 17:10.078 --> 17:15.298 and to their misfortune, four hapless Spaniards were 17:15.299 --> 17:19.759 found in the city, just as plague was breaking 17:19.760 --> 17:24.300 out, and they were accused of starting it by spreading 17:24.298 --> 17:29.518 poisonous ointment on the doors of the houses of the city. 17:29.519 --> 17:33.709 Under torture, they confessed to the crime and 17:33.711 --> 17:38.931 were convicted of high treason, and then sentenced to have 17:38.932 --> 17:43.022 their hands cut off, to be broken on the wheel, 17:43.019 --> 17:45.729 and then burned at the stake. 17:45.730 --> 17:49.640 So, at the site of their execution--and hence the 17:49.636 --> 17:53.866 term--we have this, which is the Column of Infamy. 17:53.868 --> 17:58.718 You can see the prisoners being brought, and you can see they're 17:58.721 --> 18:02.951 being broken on the wheel, and all the rest of it in the 18:02.954 --> 18:03.884 picture. 18:03.880 --> 18:10.820 And you can also see that there was erected--here's the chief 18:10.818 --> 18:13.478 criminal, Jacob Mora. 18:13.480 --> 18:18.410 And on the site in Milan, after the plague, 18:18.410 --> 18:23.860 a plaque was posted--the column was meant to deter anyone else 18:23.857 --> 18:27.697 from ever doing something so diabolical-- 18:27.700 --> 18:32.300 and this plaque was placed in Latin saying what had happened 18:32.295 --> 18:35.095 and what the punishment had been, 18:35.098 --> 18:38.208 and warning people to commemorate this event; 18:38.210 --> 18:42.740 that no house should ever be built on this site. 18:42.740 --> 18:48.490 And this is the inscription on the plaque. 18:48.490 --> 18:52.960 So, those were reactions. 18:52.960 --> 18:59.800 Another reaction was one of mass repentance to propitiate an 18:59.798 --> 19:01.768 angry divinity. 19:01.769 --> 19:04.759 And to do that, how did you go about it? 19:04.759 --> 19:08.839 One way was by outdoor processions, confessing your 19:08.838 --> 19:12.508 sins, repenting, and urging your neighbors and 19:12.510 --> 19:16.510 everyone else you encountered to do the same. 19:16.509 --> 19:20.449 There were religious revivals. 19:20.450 --> 19:24.820 The plague years were marked in particular by a new cult of 19:24.817 --> 19:27.417 saints, the ones held to be most 19:27.422 --> 19:31.972 willing to intercede on behalf of humanity and to divert the 19:31.974 --> 19:33.214 divine anger. 19:33.210 --> 19:36.080 There was a great cult of the Virgin Mary. 19:36.078 --> 19:39.418 There was a cult of Saint Christopher. 19:39.420 --> 19:43.160 But in particular, of two new saints who had an 19:43.160 --> 19:46.820 extraordinary vogue during the plague year. 19:46.818 --> 19:52.628 The first was Saint Sebastian, and the other was Saint Rocco 19:52.633 --> 19:54.213 or Saint Roch. 19:54.210 --> 19:57.410 Here is Saint Sebastian. 19:57.410 --> 20:00.210 And if you think of the iconography, 20:00.210 --> 20:04.100 you'll remember that when we talked in the first lecture 20:04.098 --> 20:08.188 about Homer, we saw that Apollo took arrows 20:08.188 --> 20:12.398 to shoot the plague, to destroy the Greeks. 20:12.400 --> 20:16.870 And so there has been a constant idea symbolically of 20:16.869 --> 20:22.439 arrows as symbols of the plague, and Saint Sebastian is someone 20:22.442 --> 20:27.142 who was willing to give his life to save his fellows, 20:27.140 --> 20:31.500 by absorbing the arrows into his own flesh. 20:31.500 --> 20:36.490 He was martyred by the arrows, and this was said to be his way 20:36.487 --> 20:38.447 of defending humanity. 20:38.450 --> 20:43.160 So, there was a great vogue in this era of Saint Sebastian, 20:43.159 --> 20:47.949 who was invoked to help human beings to avoid the plague. 20:47.950 --> 20:51.230 Another was Saint Rocco. 20:51.230 --> 20:52.310 Now, who was he? 20:52.308 --> 20:56.118 He was an aristocrat from Montpellier, 20:56.118 --> 21:00.748 and according to legend he gave his riches away to the poor, 21:00.750 --> 21:03.450 and set off on a pilgrimage to Italy, 21:03.450 --> 21:06.460 where he had the great misfortune of arriving-- 21:06.460 --> 21:10.390 and you know it was a misfortune--in 1348, 21:10.390 --> 21:13.430 at the onset of the Black Death. 21:13.430 --> 21:18.000 He, however, fell ill, but survived. 21:18.000 --> 21:22.940 And then he stayed to tend to the ill, only eventually to 21:22.940 --> 21:27.970 return to France where he faced arrest and finally died in 21:27.969 --> 21:28.939 prison. 21:28.940 --> 21:33.510 Like Saint Sebastian, he was a man who was held to be 21:33.511 --> 21:38.261 willing to sacrifice his body, his wealth and his life, 21:38.260 --> 21:40.900 to save the people of God. 21:40.900 --> 21:44.540 So, images of these saints--and we'll look at this next time 21:44.544 --> 21:47.514 when we look at the artistic representations, 21:47.509 --> 21:50.879 the legacy of bubonic plague on the arts-- 21:50.880 --> 21:53.470 images of these saints, in particular, 21:53.470 --> 21:59.030 proliferated in this period--at the entrances to houses, 21:59.029 --> 22:02.509 in people's bedrooms, in public squares-- 22:02.509 --> 22:05.019 as a protection against the plague. 22:05.019 --> 22:09.879 And there was a vogue in these saints' names that parents gave 22:09.875 --> 22:11.225 their children. 22:11.230 --> 22:15.190 Another way to propitiate--I said professions. 22:15.190 --> 22:20.210 Well, one of the mysterious movements of the plague years, 22:20.209 --> 22:25.399 in the early time of the third pandemic, was a mass movement 22:25.404 --> 22:27.964 known as the flagellants. 22:27.960 --> 22:32.980 Here the adherents vowed to devote themselves for a month to 22:32.980 --> 22:35.790 mass pilgrimage and repentance. 22:35.789 --> 22:38.589 They carried the cross. 22:38.589 --> 22:39.839 They prayed. 22:39.838 --> 22:43.878 They listened to preachers, and they underwent public 22:43.878 --> 22:46.748 whipping and indeed self-flagellation, 22:46.752 --> 22:49.552 in order to satisfy God's anger. 22:49.548 --> 22:54.288 And when you come to look at the film by Ingmar Bergman, 22:54.288 --> 22:57.938 The Seventh Seal, one of the depictions in that, 22:57.940 --> 23:02.270 one of the scenes that will be most interesting to you, 23:02.269 --> 23:08.549 is the capturing on film of this procession of the 23:08.546 --> 23:10.336 flagellants. 23:10.338 --> 23:14.548 You see them praying and beating themselves, 23:14.549 --> 23:17.389 and each other, with whips. 23:17.390 --> 23:21.590 We will see next time too that this affected the iconography of 23:21.586 --> 23:24.286 European Art, from the fourteenth century 23:24.294 --> 23:26.194 through the seventeenth. 23:26.190 --> 23:33.110 There is a theme we'll see next time of the dance of death, 23:33.113 --> 23:39.083 the so-called danse macabre, of people being 23:39.080 --> 23:43.140 rounded up by the grim reaper. 23:43.140 --> 23:47.110 There are also what are called vanitas symbols, 23:47.113 --> 23:51.953 which are symbols in art of how life is very insecure; 23:51.950 --> 23:57.540 that it's brief and can end very unpredictably. 23:57.538 --> 24:01.658 Now, these weren't a school of painting, or an artistic style, 24:01.659 --> 24:03.549 they were the iconography. 24:03.548 --> 24:06.638 They were themes that painters depicted. 24:06.640 --> 24:10.980 And it may also be that portraying the disease in this 24:10.977 --> 24:15.557 way was a kind of exorcism of the mysterious scourge, 24:15.558 --> 24:19.428 and this was a powerful reminder of the transience of 24:19.432 --> 24:20.402 all things. 24:20.400 --> 24:25.170 There were also popular superstitions in these days. 24:25.170 --> 24:28.010 From astrology, there was the belief that 24:28.006 --> 24:30.626 certain metals or precious stones-- 24:30.630 --> 24:34.630 rubies and diamonds--had protective properties against 24:34.632 --> 24:38.382 the plague, as did certain magical numbers. 24:38.380 --> 24:42.100 And it won't surprise you that one of the great numbers that 24:42.095 --> 24:44.925 you could conjure with was the number four. 24:44.930 --> 24:48.260 You know the drill: four elements, 24:48.257 --> 24:51.787 four temperaments, four evangelists, 24:51.786 --> 24:55.516 four humors, four winds, four seasons, 24:55.516 --> 24:57.126 and so on. 24:57.130 --> 25:01.910 So, the number four was very powerful and protective. 25:01.910 --> 25:05.800 Another aspect of plague, of course, was that there were 25:05.804 --> 25:08.924 people who profited from it, profiteering. 25:08.920 --> 25:12.690 The great cities in grip of plague were lands of 25:12.690 --> 25:15.900 opportunity, for rogues of every sort. 25:15.900 --> 25:19.770 The epidemics of disease brought, in their train, 25:19.768 --> 25:22.588 outbreaks of crime and swindling. 25:22.588 --> 25:26.248 Thieves plundered the homes of those who had fled-- 25:26.250 --> 25:30.170 remember, those who had fled were usually the wealthy-- 25:30.170 --> 25:36.760 and charlatans peddled every variety of magical remedies, 25:36.759 --> 25:40.719 while astrologers sold comfort and advice. 25:40.720 --> 25:47.050 Healers charged astounding sums for practicing their dangerous 25:47.053 --> 25:47.783 arts. 25:47.779 --> 25:52.269 Those were forms of spontaneous reaction to plague. 25:52.269 --> 25:56.509 What I'd like to do next is to talk instead about something 25:56.512 --> 25:58.782 very different, that I promised, 25:58.780 --> 26:02.220 which is organized response by authorities. 26:02.220 --> 26:07.110 And this is the first form of organized public health, 26:07.108 --> 26:10.628 that eventually leads, by the late seventeenth and the 26:10.627 --> 26:15.137 early eighteenth centuries, to the first victory of human 26:15.141 --> 26:18.621 beings over a major infectious disease. 26:18.618 --> 26:23.698 So, let's look at what those public health measures were. 26:23.700 --> 26:28.790 Well, empirical observation in time of plague gave rise not 26:28.792 --> 26:34.152 only to spontaneous reactions that we've described but also to 26:34.151 --> 26:39.861 a new idea that began to spread alongside medical orthodoxy-- 26:39.858 --> 26:44.288 a new idea, the idea of contagion. 26:44.288 --> 26:49.728 That somehow the plague spread in an unspecified manner from 26:49.728 --> 26:51.478 person to person. 26:51.480 --> 26:56.520 This idea was largely rejected for centuries by learned 26:56.520 --> 27:00.910 official medicine, which clung to the older idea 27:00.909 --> 27:04.829 of miasmatism of Galen and his system. 27:04.828 --> 27:09.008 But it became an important idea in popular culture, 27:09.005 --> 27:13.175 and in the thinking of certain medical heretics. 27:13.180 --> 27:18.100 It was fully developed by Fracastoro--whom we've mentioned 27:18.104 --> 27:22.774 before--of Padua in Italy, in the sixteenth century; 27:22.769 --> 27:27.989 but also by the German Jesuit Kircher in the seventeenth 27:27.990 --> 27:28.940 century. 27:28.940 --> 27:32.570 The theory was that of a so-called contagium 27:32.569 --> 27:37.069 vivum, which consisted of animalcules of some sort. 27:37.068 --> 27:42.048 Public policy was--to deal with plague-- 27:42.048 --> 27:46.268 was first devised in the northern Italian city-states, 27:46.269 --> 27:50.059 in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries-- 27:50.058 --> 27:54.968 places like Florence, Venice, Milan and Genoa-- 27:54.970 --> 27:58.160 and then were adapted elsewhere, in France and Spain 27:58.162 --> 27:59.542 and Northern Europe. 27:59.538 --> 28:02.898 What was involved, as I say, was momentous; 28:02.900 --> 28:05.460 the world's first system of public health. 28:05.460 --> 28:10.990 And it turned out to be an organizational idea of genius. 28:10.990 --> 28:15.080 The embryo of the system was established during the Black 28:15.082 --> 28:17.612 Death, and then became increasingly 28:17.607 --> 28:21.347 sophisticated and comprehensive through the middle of the 28:21.345 --> 28:25.545 sixteenth and seventeenth and then the eighteenth centuries. 28:25.548 --> 28:30.908 But the Achilles heel, early on, was that the system 28:30.910 --> 28:35.430 was narrowly municipal or local in scope. 28:35.430 --> 28:39.810 A quantum leap was made that turned to make it more effective 28:39.808 --> 28:43.238 in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 28:43.240 --> 28:47.840 when the idea was taken up by early modern states that devoted 28:47.839 --> 28:51.459 the military power of the state to the effort. 28:51.460 --> 28:55.600 You'll note the operation of magistrates, and their power in 28:55.598 --> 28:59.948 London, as you're reading Defoe, in the seventeenth century. 28:59.950 --> 29:03.630 So, the early vision combined, by this time, 29:03.632 --> 29:08.942 with the necessary power over a sufficiently large area to make 29:08.941 --> 29:10.741 success possible. 29:10.740 --> 29:14.580 Now, an interesting aspect of the situation is this: 29:14.576 --> 29:18.986 the authorities took action, although there was no medical 29:18.988 --> 29:22.778 understanding of-- or at least nothing that we 29:22.778 --> 29:28.358 would regard retrospectively as an efficacious understanding of 29:28.358 --> 29:31.238 the disease they were facing. 29:31.240 --> 29:35.400 They acted more or less in the dark, and in the process took 29:35.404 --> 29:39.364 measures that were sometimes extreme and heavy-handed; 29:39.358 --> 29:43.948 that often wasted resources and were sometimes actually 29:43.950 --> 29:45.650 counterproductive. 29:45.650 --> 29:49.230 But in the end, the path they pioneered led to 29:49.234 --> 29:52.984 the first victory over a major human disease. 29:52.980 --> 29:55.740 So, let's look at the policies. 29:55.740 --> 29:57.430 What were they? 29:57.430 --> 30:00.180 First of all was a new institution. 30:00.180 --> 30:03.880 Originally, that is, they were called health 30:03.875 --> 30:05.075 magistrates. 30:05.078 --> 30:09.698 We now know them as boards of health. 30:09.700 --> 30:12.860 And these magistrates, or boards of health as they 30:12.861 --> 30:15.831 came to be known later and are still known, 30:15.828 --> 30:20.008 were endowed with extraordinary powers during emergencies that 30:20.009 --> 30:22.959 gave them-- they combined in their hands a 30:22.958 --> 30:26.748 plentitude of legislative, judicial and executive 30:26.747 --> 30:31.157 authority in matters that related to public health. 30:31.160 --> 30:34.960 By the late sixteenth century, cities in the vanguard of the 30:34.959 --> 30:38.179 movement even had permanent health magistrates, 30:38.180 --> 30:42.890 and their example was followed across Europe. 30:42.890 --> 30:46.100 That was one thing, a new authority then. 30:46.098 --> 30:52.398 A second plague measure was compulsory burial. 30:52.400 --> 30:56.740 And there were so many dead in a major epidemic that you wanted 30:56.740 --> 31:00.240 to dispose of them quickly before they poisoned the 31:00.240 --> 31:03.030 atmosphere, and you couldn't bury them 31:03.034 --> 31:05.744 individually, and so they were cast into 31:05.740 --> 31:08.550 common pits, plague pits. 31:08.548 --> 31:12.508 And this was followed by the destruction by fire of their 31:12.513 --> 31:16.283 personal effects, and the banning of funerals and 31:16.280 --> 31:20.630 funeral processions, a banning of the laying out and 31:20.634 --> 31:21.504 the wake. 31:21.500 --> 31:26.080 And this problem of burial was an important issue in every 31:26.080 --> 31:27.770 outbreak of plague. 31:27.769 --> 31:32.709 Priests and gravediggers were decimated, and there weren't 31:32.705 --> 31:37.465 enough people left then to dispose of the dead in normal 31:37.470 --> 31:38.250 ways. 31:38.250 --> 31:44.460 And it must be remembered that this generated terror in itself; 31:44.460 --> 31:48.300 the presence of large numbers of unburied cadavers, 31:48.298 --> 31:54.308 in a city where the indignity of disposal of hurling newly 31:54.313 --> 32:00.643 dead people into improvised pits heightened the horror of the 32:00.643 --> 32:01.913 disease. 32:01.910 --> 32:06.600 Another feature of the plague measures was the control of 32:06.595 --> 32:09.915 movement-- the control of the movement of 32:09.919 --> 32:13.939 people from plague-infested regions by quarantine, 32:13.940 --> 32:19.620 and squads of soldiers turning people away from city gates and 32:19.617 --> 32:24.457 opening fire on those who tried to cross the line. 32:24.460 --> 32:29.970 Another feature of these times was the isolation of the 32:29.967 --> 32:34.757 infected, in pest houses, known across Europe as 32:34.759 --> 32:36.289 lazarettos. 32:36.288 --> 32:39.888 Or alternatively, as you know from Defoe, 32:39.890 --> 32:43.870 people were simply shut up, together with their families in 32:43.874 --> 32:48.224 their own homes, and forbidden to open the door, 32:48.223 --> 32:54.023 while guards enforced the rule and were stationed outside. 32:54.019 --> 32:57.759 Most fearful of all was a measure called "general 32:57.759 --> 33:01.349 quarantine", in which everyone in an 33:01.345 --> 33:07.395 infected neighborhood was sealed inside his or her home for forty 33:07.397 --> 33:11.027 days, with watchmen outside to arrest 33:11.030 --> 33:14.620 or even kill those who tried to escape. 33:14.618 --> 33:19.468 Let me show you a slide--well, this is actually not the one I 33:19.471 --> 33:23.271 had in mind--this is Marseilles in 1720 to 1722, 33:23.270 --> 33:26.020 during the time of the plague. 33:26.019 --> 33:29.459 And if you looked carefully, you could see many of the 33:29.460 --> 33:32.840 events that we've been describing taking place in the 33:32.836 --> 33:33.806 foreground. 33:33.808 --> 33:36.918 But instead of that, I'd rather concentrate on this, 33:36.924 --> 33:40.534 because this has to do with your reading in Daniel Defoe. 33:40.529 --> 33:44.719 This is London in 1656, that you now know and love. 33:44.720 --> 33:48.950 And you can see here the bonfires, an attempt to purify 33:48.954 --> 33:49.744 the air. 33:49.740 --> 33:54.190 You can see these are watchmen stationed outside to prevent 33:54.194 --> 33:56.504 people leaving their houses. 33:56.500 --> 34:00.710 And you can see the homes that are shut up and sealed, 34:00.714 --> 34:04.614 with people inside, are marked, that these are the 34:04.612 --> 34:06.842 homes of plague victims. 34:06.838 --> 34:11.048 So, those were important, those regulations. 34:11.050 --> 34:15.630 Then there were lazarettos, the pest houses. 34:15.630 --> 34:19.120 And these shouldn't be confused with modern hospitals. 34:19.119 --> 34:24.099 They weren't places of cure but rather barrack-like places of 34:24.097 --> 34:28.077 horror and death, where inmates died en masse; 34:28.079 --> 34:32.019 where people were locked up, not so much to be cured, 34:32.019 --> 34:36.569 but to spare the city of the danger of inhaling deadly vapors 34:36.567 --> 34:39.217 from their contaminated bodies. 34:39.219 --> 34:44.299 The pest house was really the antechamber to eternity. 34:44.300 --> 34:49.300 And the word lazaretto comes from a biblical reference to 34:49.304 --> 34:52.884 Lazarus, who was raised from the dead. 34:52.880 --> 34:56.670 In any case, let me show you a slide of a 34:56.672 --> 34:57.812 lazaretto. 34:57.809 --> 35:01.959 This is a picture from the nineteenth century by Gros of 35:01.963 --> 35:05.743 "Napoleon in the Pest House of Jaffa." 35:05.739 --> 35:11.559 And this is a picture by Tintoretto, of whom we'll see 35:11.561 --> 35:13.981 much more next time. 35:13.980 --> 35:17.880 This is Saint Rocco--remember I promised you Saint Rocco, 35:17.880 --> 35:21.690 who stayed behind, who visited Italy in time of 35:21.690 --> 35:24.740 plague, and fell ill himself, 35:24.744 --> 35:30.364 revived and stayed behind to tend the dead or dying. 35:30.360 --> 35:34.960 And here we see him in the lazaretto, which is pretty much 35:34.958 --> 35:37.378 a place of dread and horror. 35:37.380 --> 35:41.120 And people were conveyed there--and this was important 35:41.119 --> 35:42.389 too--by carters. 35:42.389 --> 35:46.389 And the carters also inspired fear. 35:46.389 --> 35:51.419 People were forcibly gathered up and hurled into their 35:51.418 --> 35:54.358 mournful heaving conveyances. 35:54.360 --> 35:59.050 And these were dreaded almost as much as the disease itself. 35:59.050 --> 36:03.930 This fear often was due to the fact that these petty officials 36:03.934 --> 36:08.424 risked their lives as an investment through extortion. 36:08.420 --> 36:11.500 Healthy men and women could be threatened. 36:11.500 --> 36:15.490 The ill could be blackmailed, so they could be left to die at 36:15.489 --> 36:17.019 peace in their homes. 36:17.018 --> 36:20.838 Burglars could be sold information on empty houses. 36:20.840 --> 36:25.670 And often they were drunk, as they consumed spirits to 36:25.670 --> 36:27.860 fortify their courage. 36:27.860 --> 36:32.110 Another part of the plague regulations was the control of 36:32.106 --> 36:36.586 markets and provisions, to guarantee the supply of food 36:36.592 --> 36:40.642 to an afflicted locality, so that people wouldn't die of 36:40.641 --> 36:44.401 famine, as well as disease. 36:44.400 --> 36:47.730 The health magistrates, or boards of health, 36:47.733 --> 36:52.543 had also the power to close brothels and arrest prostitutes. 36:52.539 --> 36:55.789 As I've said, they often attempted to purify 36:55.786 --> 37:00.086 the corrupted atmosphere with bonfires and with sulfur and 37:00.092 --> 37:01.152 gunpowder. 37:01.150 --> 37:05.050 Well, taken together, all of these plague measures 37:05.047 --> 37:09.097 were draconian, and when first applied they 37:09.101 --> 37:12.601 probably increased fear and chaos, 37:12.599 --> 37:16.749 promoted flight by people desperate not to be locked in a 37:16.748 --> 37:20.008 dying city or carted away to a pest house. 37:20.010 --> 37:25.170 And this may have assisted the spread of plague itself. 37:25.170 --> 37:29.690 Anti-plague regulations were causes of suffering, 37:29.690 --> 37:33.850 and they often met in various parts of Europe with fierce 37:33.847 --> 37:38.447 opposition and caused civil disturbance and social tensions. 37:38.449 --> 37:42.899 They involved the infinite horror of the pest house; 37:42.900 --> 37:45.720 the separation of family members; 37:45.719 --> 37:47.889 the burning of precious possessions; 37:47.889 --> 37:50.829 the prohibition of processions and gatherings; 37:50.829 --> 37:53.829 the prohibition of movement; the closing of markets; 37:53.829 --> 37:57.029 the denial of funeral observances. 37:57.030 --> 38:01.610 So, from Moscow to London, all across Europe, 38:01.608 --> 38:07.438 the passage of plague was marked by demographic disaster, 38:07.438 --> 38:12.328 by social tensions and economic disruption. 38:12.329 --> 38:16.719 Great cities took on the appearance of ghost towns. 38:16.719 --> 38:22.489 And these scenes were repeated for centuries after 1347, 38:22.489 --> 38:26.919 with outbreaks here and there every generation, 38:26.920 --> 38:31.690 and great European-wide pandemics several times a 38:31.686 --> 38:32.676 century. 38:32.679 --> 38:35.879 As you know, the normal pattern was that the 38:35.882 --> 38:39.312 plague laid waste to a locality for months, 38:39.309 --> 38:42.609 and then the disease ebbed and faded away, 38:42.610 --> 38:45.680 as mysteriously as it began. 38:45.679 --> 38:48.849 And this too left a legacy. 38:48.849 --> 38:52.189 For the faithful, the final departure of the 38:52.190 --> 38:55.920 plague was a sign that God had been appeased, 38:55.920 --> 39:00.010 and was a testimony to the wisdom of their repentance, 39:00.010 --> 39:04.910 and perhaps to their decision to hunt out the guilty in their 39:04.914 --> 39:05.574 midst. 39:05.570 --> 39:11.580 And let me remind you that this still is marked in the landscape 39:11.581 --> 39:13.301 of urban Europe. 39:13.300 --> 39:16.070 And I'd like to show you an example. 39:16.070 --> 39:20.760 And this will be the Castel Sant'Angelo, right here, 39:20.764 --> 39:26.294 one of the most common tourist sites of memory in modern Rome 39:26.289 --> 39:27.209 today. 39:27.210 --> 39:28.480 That's a general view. 39:28.480 --> 39:31.730 Let's close in a little more closely. 39:31.730 --> 39:35.660 And here we can see as we're approaching the Castel 39:35.664 --> 39:39.994 Sant'Angelo--I want you to see--I'll have a next picture 39:39.992 --> 39:42.512 where we'll look at the top. 39:42.510 --> 39:46.320 And this then is one of the major landmarks in a major 39:46.315 --> 39:47.745 European city today. 39:47.751 --> 39:48.831 And what is it? 39:48.827 --> 39:50.477 It's due to plague. 39:50.480 --> 39:55.750 At the top of the Castel Sant'Angelo is the archangel 39:55.746 --> 39:59.786 Gabriel, and what he's doing is 39:59.789 --> 40:05.909 sheathing his sword, as a sign the divine wrath had 40:05.909 --> 40:11.159 been appeased, that God had relented and that 40:11.164 --> 40:17.214 the scourge of the population of Rome was no more. 40:17.210 --> 40:21.820 For a modern epidemiologist, the thinking might be quite 40:21.815 --> 40:24.885 different; that a vital link in the great 40:24.887 --> 40:28.337 chain of infection had been broken, in the chain of 40:28.335 --> 40:31.355 transmission; perhaps that the infected 40:31.356 --> 40:34.806 population of black rats had been destroyed; 40:34.809 --> 40:38.319 that all of the susceptible members of the human population 40:38.318 --> 40:41.858 had already perished; that the onset of winter and 40:41.860 --> 40:45.550 cold weather had reduced the activity of fleas. 40:45.550 --> 40:48.560 In any case, the point I want to make was 40:48.556 --> 40:53.066 that eventually the plague measures and regulations were, 40:53.070 --> 40:56.360 or at least seemed to be, effective, 40:56.360 --> 41:00.420 especially after the seventeenth century with the 41:00.418 --> 41:05.658 increased military power of an early modern state that deployed 41:05.659 --> 41:10.899 standing armies and naval forces to apply the policy rigorously 41:10.902 --> 41:14.202 and over a substantial territory. 41:14.199 --> 41:20.649 Venice provided perhaps the first important example; 41:20.650 --> 41:24.620 that was soon imitated in country after country, 41:24.623 --> 41:28.433 until Western Europe was medically isolated by 41:28.427 --> 41:32.567 quarantines, lazarettos and sanitary cordons. 41:32.570 --> 41:36.400 Let me talk a little more in detail about the Venetian idea 41:36.404 --> 41:37.664 of public health. 41:37.659 --> 41:42.629 It was that--and Venice was a great port, as you know--that 41:42.628 --> 41:47.598 the ports of Europe could be protected by isolation from an 41:47.596 --> 41:49.306 invasion by sea. 41:49.309 --> 41:53.369 To achieve this objective, the authorities constructed a 41:53.369 --> 41:56.469 great fortress on the outlying islands, 41:56.469 --> 42:00.929 to which all arriving ships from the Eastern Mediterranean 42:00.927 --> 42:02.177 were directed. 42:02.179 --> 42:06.689 There they were impounded for six weeks, while they were 42:06.690 --> 42:08.740 scrubbed and fumigated. 42:08.739 --> 42:13.919 Crews and passengers were disembarked at these fortresses 42:13.923 --> 42:16.983 and quarantined for forty days. 42:16.980 --> 42:21.240 And the cargo and passengers' effects were unloaded, 42:21.242 --> 42:24.672 turned in the sun, fumigated and aired. 42:24.670 --> 42:29.010 And only at the end of forty days were goods shipped and 42:29.005 --> 42:32.785 passengers released to enter the city at will. 42:32.789 --> 42:36.999 The theory was that by strict quarantine any pestilential 42:37.003 --> 42:40.093 vapors would be given time to disperse. 42:40.090 --> 42:43.130 And so the city might be spared. 42:43.130 --> 42:46.650 Well, let's look at a couple of lazarettos. 42:46.650 --> 42:49.670 This is at a port called La Spezia. 42:49.670 --> 42:53.530 And the point I'm trying to make is that these were very 42:53.530 --> 42:56.690 complicated and authoritarian institutions. 42:56.690 --> 42:59.310 They're fortresses no less. 42:59.309 --> 43:05.139 This is at Naples, the island of Nisida. 43:05.139 --> 43:10.659 Or at Marseilles, this is the great lazaretto on 43:10.657 --> 43:12.417 Pharo Island. 43:12.420 --> 43:14.780 This was simple in principle. 43:14.780 --> 43:17.680 It was a maritime quarantine. 43:17.679 --> 43:21.699 But to be effective, it presupposed state power. 43:21.699 --> 43:26.299 A lazaretto was a fortress for thousands of passengers and 43:26.295 --> 43:28.275 crew; had to be policed, 43:28.284 --> 43:32.884 provisioned and isolated from all contacts with the city. 43:32.880 --> 43:36.250 It required a strong naval presence too, 43:36.250 --> 43:40.890 to compel unwilling and possibly terrified sea captains 43:40.891 --> 43:46.451 to anchor within these waters, and to prevent attempts at 43:46.451 --> 43:48.441 evasion or escape. 43:48.440 --> 43:51.160 Within the lazaretto, there were detailed, 43:51.159 --> 43:54.809 complex regulations to ensure that hundreds, 43:54.809 --> 43:58.709 sometimes thousands of passengers, in different stages 43:58.708 --> 44:02.268 of quarantine, would be isolated not only from 44:02.268 --> 44:04.948 the city but also from each other, 44:04.949 --> 44:08.809 and that the items of the ship's crew would all be 44:08.806 --> 44:12.266 properly fumigated and exposed to the sun. 44:12.268 --> 44:16.778 The idea of quarantine was an empirical result of long 44:16.777 --> 44:19.787 experience, and its establishment, 44:19.789 --> 44:23.539 to be successful, presupposed the bureaucratic 44:23.536 --> 44:27.656 naval and administrative resources of the early modern 44:27.659 --> 44:28.359 state. 44:28.360 --> 44:31.280 Well looking back with modern understanding, 44:31.280 --> 44:34.870 you would probably conclude that the medical theory 44:34.869 --> 44:38.959 underlying the Venetian system of quarantine was flawed by 44:38.961 --> 44:40.471 modern standards. 44:40.469 --> 44:44.889 There were no pestilential miasmas, and many of the rituals 44:44.893 --> 44:47.643 of purification were to no effect. 44:47.639 --> 44:53.319 But the idea of lengthy and military-enforced isolation was 44:53.315 --> 44:56.345 highly effective in practice. 44:56.349 --> 45:00.639 Forty days exceeded the incubation period of the 45:00.643 --> 45:06.313 disease, and so were sufficient to guarantee that a person then 45:06.309 --> 45:09.599 released was medically harmless. 45:09.599 --> 45:12.949 At the same time, the period of quarantine was 45:12.949 --> 45:16.599 long enough to ensure the death of infected fleas, 45:16.597 --> 45:18.977 and of the bacterium itself. 45:18.980 --> 45:22.990 So, an inaccurate theory produced sound administrative 45:22.987 --> 45:23.967 procedures. 45:23.969 --> 45:28.019 The Venetian lazaretto, backed by the Venetian fleet, 45:28.018 --> 45:31.048 demonstrated that it could, in practice, 45:31.054 --> 45:33.784 protect the city from disaster. 45:33.780 --> 45:37.930 And within a generation, other Mediterranean powers 45:37.931 --> 45:41.591 imitated the experiment, building lazarettos: 45:41.585 --> 45:44.485 Naples, Genoa, Valencia, Marseilles, 45:44.492 --> 45:45.492 Corfu. 45:45.489 --> 45:49.509 And all ships from the East were compelled to dock at them. 45:49.510 --> 45:53.950 By the end of the seventeenth century, the port cities of 45:53.949 --> 45:57.279 Europe were no longer so menaced by sea. 45:57.280 --> 46:01.300 The disease continued to be imported, but was contained with 46:01.304 --> 46:03.084 just two major failures. 46:03.079 --> 46:08.319 In 1720, bubonic plague spread from the lazaretto to the city 46:08.322 --> 46:11.732 of Marseilles, killing 60,000 people. 46:11.730 --> 46:16.560 And then in 1743, the last burst of epidemic 46:16.561 --> 46:21.171 plague in Europe, at Messina in Sicily. 46:21.170 --> 46:24.980 Meanwhile, there was the overland threat, 46:24.980 --> 46:28.590 and this was seen to by the Hapsburg Empire which, 46:28.590 --> 46:33.280 in the course of the eighteenth century, 46:33.280 --> 46:36.860 initiated and perfected a great permanent cordon 46:36.862 --> 46:41.272 sanitaire of soldiers, stretching across the length of 46:41.266 --> 46:42.916 the Balkan Peninsula. 46:42.920 --> 46:48.420 The Austrian cordon was ten to twenty miles wide during threat 46:48.422 --> 46:51.492 of plague, and 1,200 miles long. 46:51.489 --> 46:55.339 It consisted of a great permanent line of soldiers and 46:55.344 --> 46:58.254 sentry posts, stationed to prevent people 46:58.253 --> 46:59.493 from passing. 46:59.489 --> 47:03.879 So, one of the great armies of Europe assumed the task of 47:03.882 --> 47:07.932 isolating Western Europe, from the east, 47:07.931 --> 47:15.471 just as the lazarettos and the ports isolated it by sea. 47:15.469 --> 47:19.299 Thousands of soldiers, 12,000 during times of 47:19.297 --> 47:22.687 epidemics, were stationed to do that. 47:22.690 --> 47:25.540 And it was the case then, by the eighteenth century, 47:25.539 --> 47:29.299 bubonic plague, the scourge of five centuries, 47:29.300 --> 47:34.190 was entirely eliminated, and didn't return to Western 47:34.193 --> 47:35.043 Europe. 47:35.039 --> 47:39.299 Let me look at--this is a slide of a--it could be anywhere, 47:39.302 --> 47:41.952 it happens to be the city of Bari. 47:41.949 --> 47:46.599 And you can see the cordon of soldiers surrounding the city 47:46.601 --> 47:49.811 and protecting it from bubonic plague. 47:49.809 --> 47:54.229 And it might be said as well that occasionally the pope 47:54.226 --> 47:59.376 reinforced the physical sanitary cordon with a spiritual one; 47:59.380 --> 48:03.560 that is, threatening anyone who crossed the line with 48:03.561 --> 48:05.011 excommunication. 48:05.010 --> 48:09.460 Well, this was the world's first victory in the conquest of 48:09.461 --> 48:10.231 disease. 48:10.230 --> 48:13.770 The greatest epidemic disease in European history had been 48:13.769 --> 48:16.979 eliminated, not by the advance of medicine 48:16.981 --> 48:21.141 or scientific knowledge, but by the deployment of the 48:21.143 --> 48:24.653 military and bureaucratic power of the state. 48:24.650 --> 48:29.170 Or certainly so it seemed, though we might wonder if other 48:29.172 --> 48:33.062 perhaps imponderable factors were also at work. 48:33.059 --> 48:36.619 The replacement of our friend the black rat, 48:36.619 --> 48:40.509 who you now know and love, that was very sociable and 48:40.505 --> 48:43.415 liked to live close to human beings, 48:43.420 --> 48:47.360 by the brown rat, that was shy and retiring and 48:47.364 --> 48:49.084 kept its distance. 48:49.079 --> 48:53.349 Or there were improved standards of sanitation and 48:53.347 --> 48:54.217 hygiene. 48:54.219 --> 48:58.439 Or people talked about the impact--perhaps it was climatic 48:58.440 --> 49:00.440 change that was decisive. 49:00.440 --> 49:03.560 And people point to the Little Ice Age, 49:03.559 --> 49:08.749 which began in the sixteenth century and reached minima of 49:08.751 --> 49:13.081 temperatures about 1650, and again in the 1770s, 49:13.079 --> 49:17.629 and then gave way to warming in the nineteenth century. 49:17.630 --> 49:21.980 And we see this in works of art, in Dutch painting. 49:21.980 --> 49:25.720 The seventeenth century gave rise to a great vogue of winter 49:25.715 --> 49:29.635 scenes that you don't really see in the modern Netherlands, 49:29.639 --> 49:33.779 when the canals froze in the seventeenth century and people 49:33.780 --> 49:35.850 were able to skate on them. 49:35.849 --> 49:39.429 And there were many other examples of winter scenes of 49:39.427 --> 49:40.167 painting. 49:40.170 --> 49:43.300 This was how cold it was in the seventeenth century. 49:43.300 --> 49:45.070 Indeed, it swept all of Europe. 49:45.070 --> 49:48.530 The River Thames froze in London. 49:48.530 --> 49:52.110 The Baltic froze, so that one could travel by 49:52.110 --> 49:54.470 sled from Poland to Sweden. 49:54.469 --> 49:57.069 And these weren't good conditions for Yersinia 49:57.070 --> 49:59.780 pestis, and the fleas that were its vectors. 49:59.780 --> 50:03.010 But we've run out of time. 50:03.010 --> 50:05.820 But at least we've contained the plague. 50:05.820 --> 50:10.600 And next time we'll look at its impact on European culture and 50:10.596 --> 50:11.376 thought. 50:11.380 --> 50:17.000