ABSTRACT
It was said that the only certain way to survive the plague was to flee quickly, stay long and return slowly (‘cito longe tarde’). This piece of advice was endorsed by even the most qualified of physicians and reproduced in their treatises.1 Indeed, many physicians took this advice themselves and fled from cities during epidemics, a move which could attract criticism.2 The exhortation to escape and the exodus of medical professionals would hardly have inspired confidence in medical treatments to prevent and cure the plague. Given the devastating mortality rates associated with the disease, contemporary criticisms of medicine in the time of plague as misguided at best and non-existent and harmful at worst are understandable. Historians have picked up on these criticisms, which have complemented their own assessments of the false assumptions made by early modern doctors in the face of plague. It would be easy, on the back of these accounts, to characterise the recourse to medical treatments during epidemics as desperate and futile. This chapter will, by contrast, illustrate that genuine attempts were made within the lazaretti to cure the plague. In addition, there was innovation and change in treatment over the course of this period.3 Although early modern contemporaries debated and criticised the use of plague hospitals, the lazaretti continued to be used in Venice and across Europe well beyond the period studied in this book because the cost of using the structures appeared to outweigh those of abandoning them.
