Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 966.5

PATRICK RUSSELL (1727-1805) A treatise of the plague Printed for G.G.J. and J. Robinson, Pater-Noster Row 1791 [24] 583, clix, [8] pages. 30 cm.

Although when this work was published, Britain had been free of the bubonic plague for more than 125 years, in continental Europe and within the Turkish Empire, the epidemic had periodically caused devastation in the 18th century; in our volume Russell describes as an eyewitness the month-by-month course of the plague at Aleppo (present-day Syria) in the years 1760-1762. In an appendix Russell gives daily details for 120 cases that he observed, cases where a substantial number of the patients survived. In the interest of protecting Britain, he then discusses quarantine measures against both persons and merchandise from infected countries, and he argues that the spread of the plague is greatly affected by weather. Of special interest in this book is the emphasis placed in economic loss as a result of quarantine, a topic not normally dealt with in works on the plague. Patrick Russell was one of three Scottish brothers who served their compatriots as well as indigenous populations overseas. As a young man, he joined his older brother Alexander, likewise a physician, in Aleppo , where he became physician to the British resident community of merchants. It is perhaps Russell’s connection with the merchant world that directed his interest toward the economic toll exacted by the plague.

Cited references: Waller, 8330; Wellcome IV, p. 593

John Martin, M.D. Endowment