• Major epidemics struck across Eurasia many times, but Japan was far enough from the mainland to escape most of them. The first text below is an order issued by the Japanese central government to the provincial governments in 737 after the arrival of a devastating epidemic, probably smallpox. The second text is an account from the Byzantine historian Procopius of a deadly plague that hit Constantinople in 542.

Japanese Proclamation of 737

“One: infection is called “red swellings.” When it first begins, it is similar to autumnal fevers. Suffering in bed lasts for three or four days in some cases, five or six in others, before the blotches appear. For three or four days as the swellings appear, the limbs and internal organs become hot as if on fire. . . .

Two: Wrap the victim’s abdomen and hips thoroughly in hemp cloth or floss silk. Without fail, keep the patient warm. Never let him become chilled.

Three: When there is no floor, do not lie directly on the earth. Spread a straw mat on the ground and lie down to rest.

Four: We recommend the drinking of rice gruel, either thick or thin, and broth made from boiled rice or millet. But do not eat raw fish or fresh fruits and vegetables. Also do not drink water or suck ice. . . .

Five: In general, people with this illness have no appetite. Force the patient to eat. . . .

Six: For twenty days after the illness passes do not carelessly eat raw fish or fresh fruit or vegetables; do not drink water, take a bath, have sex, force yourself to do anything, or walk in wind and rain. If you overdo it, a relapse will begin immediately. . . .

Seven: In general, if you want to bring this illness under control, do not use pills or powders. If a fever arises, take only a little ginseng boiled in water.

Concerning the above, since the 4th month all in the capital and Kinai have been bedridden with this disease. Many have died. We are also aware that people in the provinces have been afflicted with this distress. So we have written up this set of instructions. Each provincial governor should send it along to his neighbor. When it arrives, make a copy and designate one official at the district office who holds the position of secretary or higher to act as the messenger. The messenger should go quickly to the next place without delaying. The provincial office shall make a tour of its jurisdiction and announce these instructions to the people. If they have no rice for gruel, the province shall make an estimate, grant grain relief from government stores, and report to the Council. When the order arrives, carry it out.”

Procopius on the Plague of Justinian

“[542 C.E.] During these times there was a pestilence, by which the whole human race came near to being annihilated. . . . In the second year it reached Byzantium in the middle of spring, where it happened that I was staying at that time. . . .

Those who were attending [the victims] were in a state of constant exhaustion and had a most difficult time of it throughout. . . . [The patients] had also great difficulty in the matter of eating, for they could not easily take food. And many perished through lack of any man to care for them, for they were either overcome by hunger, or threw themselves down from a height. . . . Death came in some cases immediately, in others after many days; and with some the body broke out with black pustules about as large as a lentil and these did not survive even one day, but all succumbed immediately. With many also a vomiting of blood ensued without visible cause and straightway brought death. . . .

And it fell to the lot of the emperor, as was natural, to make provision for the trouble. He therefore detailed soldiers from the palace and distributed money, commanding Theodorus to take charge of this work. . . . Theodorus, by giving out the emperor’s money and by making further expenditures from his own purse, kept burying the bodies which were not cared for. And when it came about that all the tombs which had existed previously were filled with the dead, then they dug up all the places about the city one after the other, laid the dead there, each one as he could, and departed; but later on those who were making these trenches, no longer able to keep up with the number of the dying, mounted the towers of the fortifications in Sycae, and tearing off the roofs threw the bodies in there in complete disorder; and they piled them up just as each one happened to fall, and filled practically all the towers with corpses, and then covered them again with their roofs. . . . Indeed in a city which was simply abounding in all good things starvation almost absolute was running riot.”

Sources: Reprinted by permission of the Harvard Asia Society from William Farris, Population and Epidemic Disease in Early Japan, 645–900 (Harvard University Asia Center, 1985), pp. 60–61. © The President and Fellows of Harvard College, 1985; Procopius, History of the Wars, trans. H. B. Dewing, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1914), pp. 451–473.

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