Galeni De Placitis Hippocratis et Platonis

references in this volume, was not always accurate and that by the time he contributed the veterinary medicine chapters to Laignel-Lavastine's comprehensive history two years later, he had removed this paragraph from the section on plagues and contagions in the middle ages which otherwise closely follows his previous volume. This was possibly done with a little help from his medical history friends, who earlier in the same volume wrote of the Black Death: "Sous forme de peste bubonique (peste noire) et surtout de peste pulmonaire, elle tuait au troisieme ou quatrieme jour". If finally, unlike Twigg, we were to consult primary sources, one obvious choice would be Guy de Chauliac (c1300-c1370), who actually lived through the outbreak and survived his attendance on the victims. He distinguished, in separate chapters, between what he called "carboncle anthrax" and other "pustules sanguines, mauvaises, et corrompues", and the great plague (peste). And although "carboncle anthrax" was not necessarily in all cases identical with the anthrax of today, his accurate and detailed descriptions spell out his awareness of one important difference ignored by Twigg; the anthrax pustule and other "carboncles" are primary lesions, whereas in the plague of 1348-50 the buboes were a secondary phenomenon appearing after the initial onset of disease. For all its statistics and effort, Twigg's case is less than convincing, especially if anthrax is to be put forward as a viable alternative. Much stronger arguments are needed to dissuade historians from identifying the Black Death as bubonic plague alternating with pneumonic plague, as has been observed in modern outbreaks in Manchuria, Transbaikalia, and the Kirghiz Steppes, where bubonic plague occurs during warm weather followed by pneumonic plague during the winter. Pneumonic plague is known to be highly contagious man-to-man, unlike either bubonic plague or anthrax, and to spread with great rapidity in modem outbreaks. Such an explanation would obviate the need to consider too radical changes in the biological behaviour of the vectors and the organism, and in accepted beliefs. At the end of the book, one is left with the impression that the material here presented might have made for an amusing and stimulating essay but that as a book it is a misplaced effort and hardly justifies the claims of the blurb that it is a "revolutionary new examination" making a "convincing case" for rejecting plague in favour of anthrax as the true identity of the Black Death. Convincing, no. Provocative, yes-vide the length of this review.