The term plague comes from Late Latin plaga, (stroke, wound), used in the Vulgate for pestis/pestilentia (compare ancient Greek loimós). There it denoted any contagious disease, as well as general decline or ruin. In the early modern period, plague or pestilence could still be understood as a “general, quite serious, susceptible, and highly contagious disease,” “accompanied [by] various serious hazards and generally fatal” [1. 757]. Some descriptions of victims after the great plag…