Plague? Jesuit Accounts of Epidemic Diseases in the 16th Century (review)

346 Short Notices Constantius' cousin Julian soon after his accession in 361. The work is a mixture of fiction and material drawn from the ecclesiastical historians. Artemius is identified with the saint whose relics, translated to Constantinople, gave rise to miraculous healing of hernias and testicular and genital diseases, as commemorated in the seventh-century Miracles of St Artemius recently translated, with reprinted Greek text, by Crisafulli and Nesbitt (Brill, 1997). The five texts published here were chosen to temper the laudatory picture of the ecclesiastical historians, starting with Eusebius of Caesarea, and to complement the accounts of the pagan Zosimos and twelfth-century John Zonaras, both largely dependent on the lost classicizing history of the fourth-century pagan Eunapius. A list of editions and translations of the various sources for the period is supplied, together with a chronology of the main events and a scholarly bibliography. The introduction explains the lost and surviving sources for the period and then each text is provided with a substantial introduction giving the historical context and extensive notes. Besides the editors contributors to the volume are Frank Beetham, M . H. Dodgeon, Jane Stevenson and Mark Vermes. A n n Moffatt Department of Art History Australian National University Martin, A. Lynn, Plague? Jesuit Accounts of Epidemic Diseases in t 16th Century (Sixteenth Century Studies 28), Kirksville, Missouri, Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1996; cloth; pp. xiv, 268; 9 tables, 4 graphs; R.R.P. US$35.00. In Plague? Jesuit Accounts of Epidemic Disease in the 16th Cen Short Notices 347 Lynn Martin questions the modern diagnosis of bubonic plague as the epidemic disease which terrorised early modern Europe. This is a murky area, because, as Martin acknowledges, the practice of what he calls regressive medical history, the use of present medical knowledge to increase our understanding of disease in the past, raises the problem of anachronism for the unwary historian. Martin concludes that the Jesuit accounts he explores reveal a disease that does notfitwith the modern profile of bubonic plague, particularly in regard to its means of transmission. This conclusion is reflected in his use of the question mark in the title of the book, and in his use of the word 'pest' to name the disease described in Jesuit correspondence, rather than translating the word 'peste' as 'plague', as other historians have done. Martin's conclusion is convincingly supported both with qualitative analysis and with quantitative data gleaned from his sources. However, his book is at its best and most interesting when it moves from concern with the identity of the disease to concentrate on the Jesuit experience of disease. The correspondence which Martin has used as his sources is a treasure trove of lay responses to illness and death in the Early Modern period. Those interested in the relationship between religious sensibility, illness and medicine will find this book particularly useful. In addition, Martin's account of Jesuit experiences of public health regulations adds another dimension to earlier work on the development of efforts by civic authorities to restrict outbreaks of epidemic disease. O n e area of Martin's book which disappoints is its understanding of the concept of disease itself in this period. The profound differences between our understanding of what disease is and that of the people of the sixteenth century are not well articulated by Martin, and at times seem to be forgotten completely This oversight is particularly significant given the importance of 348 Short Notices the concepts of contagion and disease causation to Martin's argument and the complex and varied meanings the term 'contagion' could have in the Renaissance context. Despite this, Plague? is a worthy and interesting examination of the experience of epidemic disease from the perspective of a particular group in sixteenth-century society. The excerpts from Martin's sources offer tantalising glimpses for those interested in the h u m a n dimension of the experience of disease in the Renaissance. Katrina Ford Department of History Victoria University of Wellington Roob, Alexander, Alchemie und Mystik (Das Hermetische Muse Koln, Taschen, 1996; paper; pp. 703; c. 700 colour and b/w illustrations; R.R.P. DM39.95. Alchemy has been described variously as a...