“No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its [mark] and its seal – the redness and horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the [symptoms] which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellowmen. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.”
- Edgar Allan Poe
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