Medieval manuscripts, huh? Those chroniclers loved to line up their ink in neat columns and then scatter marginalia that only a few would notice. The physicians wrote what they believed cured the pestilence—often a mix of bloodletting, herbs, and prayers—then tucked in footnotes about how the symptoms seemed to shift between regions. The inconsistencies you spotted are gold; they tell us the doctors were testing hypotheses the way we do now, just with a lot more wax seals and fewer statistical tables. If you find a recurring phrase or a particular herb mentioned in a handful of scrolls, that’s your clue that someone was tracking an observation across time. Keep a list—those tiny variations are the real puzzles, not the grand narratives.