Jean-Marie Blas De Robles - Where Tigers Are at Home

During those four months when the world seemed sure to end in madness & torment, Kircher did not spare himself. Volunteering to help the sick, despite his age & our superiors’ desire not to have him exposed unnecessarily, from the very beginning he undertook to work alongside his friend, James Alban Gibbs. We therefore spent most of our time in Christ’s Hospital in the Via Triumphalis.

To my great shame I have to admit that I was not exactly pleased at a decision that placed my life in such great danger, but my master’s devoted application to looking after those stricken with the plague & to seeking the causes of the implacable disease, the kindness he tirelessly showed in giving moral support to those who needed it & the example of his own courage, quickly revived more Christian feelings in me. I took Kircher as my model & never had reason to regret it.

Although he admitted such a calamity could sometimes be the result of God’s designs, my master thought that we should see it simply as the result of natural causes, like any other disease. He therefore put all his efforts into seeking out those causes.

He was fascinated by the speed & effectiveness of the disease. The plague found its way everywhere, striking rich & poor without distinction, without sparing those who thought to defy it by isolating themselves completely in their houses.

“Exactly like those ants,” Kircher said to me one day, “that invade even the most enclosed places without us being able to say by which way they came …” Just as he was finishing that sentence I saw his eyes light up, then shine: “And why not?” he went on. “Why should the cause not be even tinier animalcules, so small they cannot be seen with the naked eye. Some species of spider or miniature snake whose poison leads to death as surely as that of the most venomous of asps … We must hurry, Caspar, hurry. Run quickly to the College and bring a microscope, I must check this hypothesis immediately.”

I went immediately. One hour later my master got down to work. Cutting open the most swollen bubo we could find — that was the only operation we could perform to bring some small relief to the dying who flocked to the hospital — he cautiously collected the blood mixed with pus from it. Then he placed a few drops of this foul fluid under the lenses of his instrument.

“I thank Thee, o Lord!” he exclaimed almost immediately. “I was right, Caspar! There’s an infinite number of vermicules so small I can hardly see them, but they’re milling around like ants in an anthill & pullulating to such an extent that even Lynceus himself would not have been able to count them down to the last one … They’re alive, Caspar! Look yourself & tell me if my eyes are deceiving me.”

To my amazement, I could only confirm what my master had just described so excitedly. We repeated the experiment several times & with humors from different abscesses, but the results were always the same. While marveling at their extreme vigor, we made several drawings of these creatures that were invisible to the naked eye. I called Alban Gibbs and he came to observe Kircher’s discovery himself.

“These little worms,” my master told him, “are what propagate the plague. They are so minuscule, so fine and thin, that they can only be seen with the help of a microscope. They are so imperceptible, we could call them ‘atoms,’ but I prefer the Italian word vermicelli , which better describes their nature and their essence. For like shipworms, those dwarf worms that are, however, like elephants beside them, they nibble away from inside with a speed proportionate to their number & once their ravages are complete, they attack another victim, propagating the pestiferum virus like a mold & destroying the substance of the living organism. It is transmitted by breathing & finds refuge in our most intimate clothing. Even the flies are carriers: they suck at the sick and the corpses, contaminate our food with their excrement & transmit the disease to the humans who eat it.”

Gibbs was in a fever of excitement about what he’d seen & heard. But bearing in mind that the microscope showed us things a thousand times bigger than they were in reality, he argued that the use of the instrument should be restricted to those, such as Kircher, who were competent to make proper use of the results, knowledge of which should be reserved solis principibus, et summis Viris, Amicisque . 1

Even if the cause of the contagion could finally be attributed to these vermicelli of the plague — which were certainly produced by the corruption of the air brought about by the corpses & which transmitted their mortiferous power by a sort of magnetism, just as a magnet “infects,” so to speak, any piece of metal with which it comes into contact — there was nothing as yet to suggest anything to counter this pullulating species. We therefore had no choice but to continue to use the old remedies, of which we knew only one thing: they worked for some & not for others, which was as good as saying they were ineffective. Under the direction of Gibbs and Kircher, we used toad poison — on the principle that like should be cured by like — the juice of bugloss & scabious root thinned down with a good theriac & many other preparations recommended by Galen, Discorides or more modern authorities. Unfortunately nothing worked, so that more than once I saw my master so discouraged he was brought to tears.

Dr. Sinibaldus came to work in our hospital at the height of the epidemic. Anxious to atone for his previous errors, he showed admirable zeal in tending the sick & happily God spared him & all his family.

That was not the case with everyone; the plague carried off the volunteers one after the other, so that of all the doctors who came to work with Gibbs, three-quarters did not live to see the end of the epidemic. As for those who survived, they were often left to mourn the loss of their loved ones. An example is what happened to Count Karnice, a physician at the Russian court who was compelled by the situation to stay in Rome & whose pleasure trip ended in distress & affliction.

Once the city had been declared closed, this excellent man left his young wife and their child with some friends & came to offer his services to our hospital, where he displayed unfailing selflessness.

On the evening of August 15, a servant sent by his friends informed him that his wife had died. She had been carried away within a few hours & he would have to hurry if he wanted to see her sweet face one last time. Since there had been an influx of patients & the living took precedence over the dead, Count Karnice, despite his own despair & our advice, decided not to leave immediately. When, two hours later, he reached his friends’ house, his wife was no longer there; she had been put in a coffin — at great expense, coffins having become almost unobtainable —& buried in the nearby graveyard. The young count poured forth his lamentations & was a pitiful sight; he would certainly have killed himself if it hadn’t been for his baby, his sole comfort in his sorrow.

Unfortunately that was only the start of his misfortunes. That very night his dear child showed all the signs of the contagion. His skin became covered in pustules the size of millet seeds, then black buboes rapidly formed in his groin & under his armpits, causing terrible pain. His screams at the bites of the vermicelli infecting his flesh were heartrending. By the early morning they had reached his meninges; he became delirious, while large livid and brown blotches appeared on his skin. Finally, at eight o’clock, God showed mercy & took him to paradise.

There was not enough money for another coffin, but in his distress, Count Karnice did not want his son to be buried in the common grave. Recalling the love his wife bore her child & arguing that they must not be separated in death, he picked up the little corpse, determined to put it in the same coffin as his wife. Abandoned by his friends, who feared the contagion & thought he was out of his mind, he went to the graveyard and got the attendant to show him the still-fresh grave of his beloved wife. Taking a spade he started to disinter her himself, trying to dull his grief by exertion.