[Comparative study of the ideas about causes, disease mechanisms and therapies of the plague on the basis of the plague treatises of the Medical Faculty of Paris (1348-1349), of Joannes de Vesalia (after 1454) and of Thomas Montanus (1669)].

The comparison between the consilium of the Faculty of Paris (14th century), and the treatises by Joannes de Vesalia (15th century) and by Thomas Montanus (17th century) shows that the concepts with regard to the causes and the mechanisms of and the proposed preventive and curative measures against the plague did in essence not change for over three centuries. In fact this is not very surprising, since the development of modern physiology and physiopathology only started gradually in the second half of the 19th century. Furthermore, the plague bacillus has only been identified in 1894. However, the preventive and curative measures against plague that are proposed in the three treatises, do not result from an uncontrolled imagination. Most of these measures have a rational basis and are the result of--although erroneous--concepts with regard to the causes and mechanisms of the disease.