Lucretius wrote:
“…I teach great truths, and set out to unknot
The mind from the tight strictures of religion, and I write
Of so darkling a subject in a poetry so bright.”The medical centerpiece of the poem is Lucretius’s description of the Athenian plague in Book VI, which outlines the sequence and duration of symptoms with great specificity. Interest in this account of the plague extends well into the print period. In fact, with thirty editions by 1600, Lucretius is the single most frequently reprinted plague text in the sixteenth century, with more editions than even the most popular German plague pamphlets. A medical miscellany manuscript in Latin and Greek belonging to Galileo’s mentor Gian Vincenzo Pinelli includes a complete transcription of the plague section from Lucretius Book VI, along with extracts from Thucydides and other essential sources on the disease and its history. This excerpt is perfect proof, not only of the text’s medical relevance, but of the fact that at least one significant scholar was happy to excerpt the medical section without the associated discussions of theoretical atomism. Other medical passages in the text are also com- monly marked, such as a discussion of the effects of alcohol on the soul, a discussion of epilepsy, and the discussions of how death and disease seem to gradually erode the soul. Lucretius includes this last discussion as evidence for the materiality and destructibility of the soul, and the parts of the discussion that specifically address disease and aging are marked twice as often as the following argument that the soul is mortal. In sum, nineteen manuscripts out of fifty-two (37 percent) have annotation of medical topics.
Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance
Ada Palmer
Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England 2014
Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance
Or maybe the Plague of Justinian-this plague struck in the sixth century and is estimated to have killed between 30 and 50 million people—about half the world's population at that time—as it spread across Asia, North Africa, Arabia, and Europe. Black Death not known for certain how many people died during the Black Death. About 25 million people are estimated to have died in Europe from the plague between 1347 and 1351. World War I claimed an estimated 16 million lives. The influenza epidemic that swept the world in 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people. One fifth of the world's population was attacked by this deadly virus. Within months, it had killed more people than any other illness in recorded history.
That Athenian plague is the genesis of the world that we have now.