XLII. After the governor Demosthenes had gone up to the emperor, he informed him of this calamity; and the emperor gave him no small sum of money to distribute among the poor. And when he came back from his presence to Edessa, he sealed many of them on their necks with leaden seals, and gave each of them a pound of bread a day. Still, however, they were not able to live, because they were tortured by the pangs of hunger, which wasted them away. The pestilence became worse about this time, namely the month of the latter Teshri (November); and still more in the month of the first Kanun (December), when there began to be frost and ice, because they were passing the nights in the porticoes and streets, and the sleep of death came upon them during their natural sleep. Children and babes were crying in every street. Of some the mothers were dead; others their mothers had left, and had run away from them, when they asked for something to eat, because they had nothing to give them. Dead bodies were lying exposed in every street, and the citizens were not able to bury them, because, whilst they were carrying out the first that had died, the moment that they returned, they found others. By the care of Mar Nonnus, the ξενοδόχος, the brethren used afterwards to go about the city, and to collect these dead bodies. And all the people of the city used to assemble at the gate of the ξενοδοχεῖον and go forth and bury them, from morning to morning. The stewards of the (Great) Church, the priest Mar Tewath-il and Mar Stratonicus (who some time afterwards was deemed worthy of the office of bishop in the city of Harran), established an infirmary among the buildings attached to the (Great) Church of Edessa. Those who were very ill used to go in and lie down there; and many dead bodies were found in the infirmary, which they buried along with those at the ξενοδοχεῖον.