God’s Mechanism
Part of the pattern of causal explanation involved not just God’s mechanism (bad air, bad individuals, bad animals), but also the victim’s propensity for the disease. It was perhaps not satisfying enough to say simply that God was scourg- ing the human race; had some individuals made themselves susceptible by their actions or their temperaments? Galenic theory generally viewed plague as a blood disorder, and some physical types seemed prone to diseases related to that humor: fat, florid people, and the sensually hot-blooded, especially women. As in the case of leprosy, the fornicator was a likely victim, perhaps as a sinner who displeased God, perhaps as a fool who sapped his strength; for men espe- cially, sex was thought to weaken the constitution. Some thought revolved around questions of age, social class, or profession. The rich—especially the very rich and powerful—seemed less susceptible; physicians, surgeons, apothe- caries, and members of religious orders were thought vulnerable. Others believed in a “natural predisposition,” or a hereditary propensity for the disease, consistent with some Hippocratic traditions.
