Buboes (plague swellings)

E in questo tempo si cominciò in Siena la grande Mortalità, la maggiore, e la più oscura, e la più horribile, che mai si potesse dire, o immaginare; e così bastò infino all'Ottobre 1348. Ella fo di tanta oscurità, che morivano gli huomini, e le donne quasi di subito. Enfiava l'anguinaja, e 'l ditello, e di subito favellando si morivano.

At this time the great mortality began in Siena. It was the greatest, darkest, and most horrible that anyone could ever tell or imagine, and it lasted until October 1348. It was so dark that men and women died almost at once. Their groins and armpits swelled, and they died suddenly, while they were talking.

Cominciossi nelle parti d’Oriente, nel detto anno, inverso il Cattai e l’India superiore, e nelle altre provincie circustanti a quelle marine dell’oceano, una pestilenzia tra gli uomini d’ogni condizione di catuna età e sesso, che cominciavano a sputare sangue, e morivano chi di subito, chi in due o in tre dì, e alquanti sostenevano più al morire. E avveniva, che chi era a servire questi malati, appiccandosi quella malattia, o infetti di quella medesima corruzione incontanente malavano, e morivano per somigliante modo; e a’ più ingrossava l’anguinaia, e a molti sotto le ditella delle braccia a destra e a sinistra, e altri in altre parti del corpo, che quasi generalmente alcuna enfiatura singulare nel corpo infetto si dimostrava. Questa pestilenzia si venne di tempo in tempo, e di gente in gente apprendendo, comprese infra il termine d’uno anno la terza parte del mondo che si chiama Asia.

In that same year a pestilence began in the East, toward Cathay and upper India and the other lands along those ocean coasts. It struck people of every rank, age, and sex. They began to spit blood and died, some at once, some in two or three days, and some lingered longer. Whoever cared for these sick people caught the disease, or was infected with the same corruption, and at once fell ill and died in the same way. Most got a swelling in the groin, many under the armpits, right or left, and others elsewhere on the body. Almost always some single swelling appeared on the infected body. This pestilence spread over time from people to people, and within a year it took in Asia, the third part of the world.

E non come in Oriente aveva fatto, dove a chiunque usciva il sangue del naso era manifesto segno d'inevitabile morte; ma nascevano nel cominciamento d'essa, a' maschi et alle femine parimente, o nell'anguinaja o sotto le ditella certe enfiature, delle quali alcune crescevano come una comunal mela, altre come uno uovo, et alcune più et alcun'altre meno, le quali i volgari nominavan Gavòccioli. E dalle due parti del corpo predette infra brieve spazio cominciò il già detto gavòcciolo mortifero indifferentemente in ogni parte di quello a nascere et a venire: e da questo appresso s'incominciò la qualità della predetta infermità a permutare in macchie nere o livide, le quali nelle braccia e per le coscie, et in ciascuna altra parte del corpo, apparivano a molti, a cui grandi e rade, et a cui minute e spesse. E come il gavòcciolo primieramente era stato, et ancora era, certissimo indizio di futura morte, così erano queste a ciascuno a cui venieno.

It did not act as it had in the East, where a nosebleed was a clear sign of certain death. Here, at the start of the illness, men and women alike grew swellings in the groin or under the armpits. Some grew as big as an ordinary apple, others as big as an egg, some bigger and some smaller. The common people called them gavoccioli. Soon these deadly swellings began to appear and grow anywhere on the body, not just in those two places. After this the signs of the sickness began to change into black or bluish spots. In many people these appeared on the arms, the thighs, and every other part of the body. Some had a few large ones, others many small ones close together. The swelling had been at first, and still was, a sure sign of coming death, and so were these spots, for anyone who got them.

Unde in eodem anno Parisius et in regno Franciae, et non minus, ut fertur, in diversis mundi partibus, et in sequenti anno, fuit tanta mortalitas hominum utriusque sexus, et magis juvenum quam senum, quod vix poterant sepeliri, et vix ultra duos vel tres dies in infirmitate jacebant, sed subito et quasi sani moriebantur; unde qui hodie erat sanus, cras mortuus, ad foveam portabatur. Habebant enim subito bossas sub assellis vel in inguine, quibus insurgentibus erat infallibile signum mortis; et haec infirmitas seu pestilentia a medicis epidemia vocabatur.

That year in Paris and the kingdom of France, and no less, people say, in many parts of the world, and in the following year, there was such a mortality of men and women, more young than old, that they could hardly be buried. They were seldom sick more than two or three days. They died suddenly, while they seemed almost healthy. Someone healthy today was carried to the grave dead tomorrow. They suddenly got swellings under the armpits or in the groin, and when these rose up, they were a sure sign of death. The doctors called this sickness or pestilence an epidemic.

“ A considerable amount of ingenuity was exercised in the concealment of cases. Patients have been found hidden under bedding and under bundles of clothing, and friends have even gone so far as to lock their sick up in large wooden chests when the search-parties were expected, in the hope that they might thus elude their vigilance. A favourite device was for the patient to assume an air of great activity ; he would be found so busily engaged in his work that he had not time even to answer questions put to him. In the case of women, the sick were frequently come upon grinding corn and singing energetically, but the tell-tale, anxious, haggard face, and the suffused eyes would arouse suspicion, and upon examination the diagnosis was often confirmed by high temperature and enlarged glands.

“A considerable amount of ingenuity was exercised in the concealment of cases. Patients have been found hidden under bedding and under bundles of clothing, and friends have even gone so far as to lock their sick up in large wooden chests when the search parties were expected, in the hope that they might thus elude their vigilance. A favorite device was for the patient to assume an air of great activity; he would be found so busily engaged in his work that he had not time even to answer questions put to him. In the case of women, the sick were frequently come upon grinding corn and singing energetically, but the telltale, anxious, haggard face, and the suffused eyes would arouse suspicion, and upon examination the diagnosis was often confirmed by high temperature and enlarged glands.