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A proclamation to prevent the entrance of strangers into the city

was not published until the 29th of November. This was too late;

the plague was already in Milan.

It must be difficult, however interesting, to discover the first

cause of a calamity which swept off so many thousands of the

inhabitants of the city; but both Tadino and Ripamonti agree that

it was brought thither by an Italian soldier in the service of

Spain, who had either bought or stolen a quantity of clothes from

the German soldiers. He was on a visit to his parents in Milan,

when he fell sick, and, being carried to the hospital, died on

the fourth day.

The Tribunal of Health condemned the house he had lived in; his

clothes and the bed he had occupied in the hospital were

consigned to the flames. Two servants and a good friar, who had

attended him, fell sick a few days after; but the suspicions from

the first entertained of the nature of the malady, and the

precautions used, prevented its extension for the present.