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                                  THE
                               EPIDEMICS
                                  OF
                           THE MIDDLE AGES.


                          FROM THE GERMAN OF
                         J. F. C. HECKER, M.D.

        PROFESSOR AT FREDERICK WILLIAM’S UNIVERSITY AT BERLIN,
              AND MEMBER OF VARIOUS LEARNED SOCIETIES IN
  ALBANY, BERLIN, BONN, COPENHAGEN, DIJON, DRESDEN, ERLANGEN, HANAU,
     HEIDELBERG, LEIPZIG, LONDON, LYONS, MARSEILLES, METZ, NAPLES,
             NEW YORK, OFFENBURG, PHILADELPHIA, STOCKHOLM,
                     TOULOUSE, WARSAW AND ZURICH.


                             TRANSLATED BY
                     B. G. BABINGTON, M.D. F.R.S.,
                                 ETC.

                                LONDON
                               MDCCCXLIV

                                LONDON:
                       GEORGE WOODFALL AND SON,
                      ANGEL COURT, SKINNER STREET




                           GENERAL PREFACE.


The Council of the SYDENHAM SOCIETY having deemed Hecker’s three
treatises on different Epidemics occurring in the Middle Ages worthy
of being collected into a volume, and laid before its members in an
English dress, I have felt much pleasure in presenting them with the
copyright of the Black Death; in negociating for them, the purchase
of that of the Dancing Mania, whereof I could resign only my share of
a joint interest; and, in preparing for the press these productions,
together with a translation, now for the first time made public, of the
Sweating Sickness. This last work, from its greater length, and from
the immediate relation of its chief subject to our own country, may be
considered the most interesting and important of the series.

Professor Hecker is generally acknowledged to be the most learned
medical historian, and one of the most able medical writers in Germany.
His numerous works suffice to show not only with what zeal he has
laboured, but also how highly his labours have been appreciated by his
countrymen; and when I state that, with one trifling exception, they
have all been translated into other languages, I furnish a fair proof
of the estimation in which they are held in foreign countries; and,
so far at least as regards the originals, a full justification of the
Council of the Sydenham Society in their choice on the present occasion.

The “Schwarze Tod,” or “Black Death,” was published in 1832; and I
was prompted to undertake its translation, from a belief that it
would prove interesting at a moment when another fearful epidemic, the
Cholera, with which it admitted of comparison in several particulars,
was fresh in the memory of men. The “Tanzwuth,” or “Dancing Mania,”
came out shortly afterwards; and, as it appeared to me that, though
relating to a less terrific visitation, it possessed an equal share of
interest, and, holding a kind of middle place between a physical and a
moral pestilence, furnished subject of contemplation for the general
as well as the professional reader, I determined on adding it also to
our common stock of medical literature. When the “Englische Schweiss,”
or “Sweating Sickness,” which contained much collateral matter little
known in England, and which completed the history of the principal
epidemics of the middle ages, appeared in 1834, I proceeded to finish
my task; but failing in the accomplishment of certain arrangements
connected with its publication, I laid aside my translation for the
time under a hope, which has at length been fulfilled, that at some
future more auspicious moment, it might yet see the light.

It must not be supposed that the author, in thus taking up the history
of three of the most important epidemics of the middle ages, although
he has illustrated them by less detailed notices of several others,
considers that he has exhausted his subject; on the contrary, it is his
belief, that, in order to come at the secret springs of these general
morbific influences, a most minute as well as a most extended survey
of them, such as can be made only by the united efforts of many, is
required. He would seem to aim at collecting together such a number of
facts from the medical history of all countries and of all ages, as may
at length enable us to deal with epidemics in the same way as Louis has
dealt with individual diseases; and thus by a numerical arrangement of
data, together with a just consideration of their relative value, to
arrive at the discovery of general laws. The present work, therefore,
is but one stone of an edifice, for the construction of which he
invites medical men in all parts of the world to furnish materials[1].

Whether the information which could be collected even by the most
diligent and extensive research would prove sufficiently copious and
accurate to enable us to pursue this method with complete success,
may be a matter of doubt; but it is at least probable, that many
valuable facts, now buried in oblivion, would thus be brought to
light; and the incidental results, as often occurs in the pursuit of
science, might prove as serviceable as those which were the direct
object of discovery. Of what immense importance, for instance, in the
fourteenth century, would a general knowledge have been of the simple
but universal circumstance, that in all severe epidemics, from the
time of Thucydides[2] to the present day, a false suspicion has been
entertained by the vulgar, that the springs or provisions have been
poisoned, or the air infected by some supposed enemies to the common
weal. How many thousands of innocent lives would thus have been spared,
which were barbarously sacrificed under this absurd notion?

Whether Hecker’s call for aid in his undertaking has, in any instance,
been answered by the physicians of Germany, I know not; but he will
be as much pleased to learn, as I am to inform him, that it was
the perusal of the “Black Death” which suggested to Dr. Simpson of
Edinburgh the idea of collecting materials for a history of the
Leprosy, as it existed in Great Britain during the middle ages; and
that this author’s very learned and interesting antiquarian researches
on that subject, as published in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical
Journal, have been the valuable, and, I trust, will not prove the
solitary result.

As the three treatises, now comprised for the first time under the
title of “The Epidemics of the Middle Ages,” came out at different
periods, I have thought it best to prefix to each the original preface
of the author; and to the two which have already been published in
English, that of the translator also; while Hecker’s Address to the
Physicians of Germany, although written before the publication of the
“Englische Schweiss,” forms an appropriate substitute for an author’s
general preface to the whole volume.

At the end of the “Black Death,” I had originally given, as No. III.
of the Appendix, some copious extracts from Caius’ “Boke or Counseill
against the Disease commonly called the Sweate or Sweatyng Sicknesse;”
but this little treatise is so characteristic of the times in which
it was written, so curious, so short, and so very scarce[3], that I
have thought it worth while, with the permission of the council of our
Society, to reprint it entire, and to add it in its more appropriate
place, as an Appendix to the Sweating Sickness.




                                ADDRESS
                                TO THE
                        PHYSICIANS OF GERMANY.
                          BY J. F. C. HECKER.


It has long been my earnest desire to address my honoured colleagues,
especially those with whom I feel myself connected by congeniality
of sentiment, in order to impress on them a subject in which science
is deeply interested, and which, according to the direct evidence
of Nature herself, is one of the most exalted and important that
can be submitted to the researches of the learned. I allude to the
investigation of Epidemic Diseases, on a scale commensurate with the
extent of our exertions in other departments, and worthy of the age
in which we live. It is, with justice, required of medical men, since
their sole business is with life, that they should regard it in a
right point of view. They are expected to have a perception of life,
as it exists individually and collectively: in the former, to bear in
mind the general system of creation; in the latter, to demonstrate the
connexion and signification of the individual phenomena,—to discern
the one by the aid of the other, and thus to penetrate, with becoming
reverence, into the sanctuary of cosmical and microcosmical science.
This expectation is not extravagant, and the truth of the principles
which the medical explorer of nature deduces from it, is so obvious,
that it seems scarcely possible that any doubts should be entertained
on the subject.

Yet we may ask, Has medical science as it exists in our days, with all
the splendour which surrounds it, with all the perfection of which it
boasts, satisfied this demand? This question we are obliged to answer
in the negative.

Let us consider only the doctrine of diseases, which has been
cultivated since the commencement of scientific study. It has grown
up amid the illumination of knowledge and the gloom of ignorance; it
has been nurtured by the storms of centuries; its monuments of ancient
and modern times cannot be numbered, and it speaks clearly to the
initiated, in the languages of all civilized nations. Yet, hitherto, it
has given an account only of individual diseases, so far as the human
mind can discern their nature. In this it has succeeded admirably, and
its success becomes every year greater and more extensive.

But if we extend our inquiries to the diseases of nations, and of the
whole human race, science is mute; as if it were not her province
to take cognizance of them, and shows us only an immeasurable and
unexplored country, which many suppose to be merely a barren desert,
because no one to whose voice they are wont to listen, gives any
information respecting it. Small is the number of those who have
traversed it; often have they arrested their steps, filled with
admiration at striking phenomena; have beheld inexhaustible mines
waiting only for the hand of the labourer, and, from contemplating the
development of collective organic life, which science nowhere else
displays to them on so magnificent a scale, have experienced all the
sacred joy of the naturalist to whom a higher source of knowledge has
been opened. Yet could they not make themselves heard in the noisy
tumult of the markets, and still less answer the innumerable questions
directed to them by many, as from one mouth, not indeed to inquire
after the truth, but to obtain a confirmation of an anciently received
opinion, which originated in the fifth century before our era.

Hence it is, that the doctrine of epidemics, surrounded by the other
flourishing branches of medicine, remains alone unfruitful—we might
almost say stunted in its growth. For, to the weighty opinions
of Hippocrates, to the doctrines of Fracastoro which contain
the experience of the much-tried Middle Ages, and lastly to the
observations of Sydenham, only trifling and isolated facts have been
added. Beyond these facts there exist, even up to the present times,
only assumptions, which might, long since, have been reduced to their
original nothingness, had that serious spirit of inquiry prevailed
which comprehends space and penetrates ages.

No epidemic ever prevailed during which the need of more accurate
information was not felt, and during which the wish of the learned was
not loudly expressed, to become acquainted with the secret springs
of such stupendous engines of destruction. Was the disease of a new
character?—the spirit of inquiry was roused among physicians; nor were
the most eminent of them ever deficient either in courage or in zeal
for investigation. When the glandular plague first made its appearance
as an universal epidemic, whilst the more pusillanimous, haunted by
visionary fears, shut themselves up in their closets, some physicians
at Constantinople, astonished at the phenomenon, opened the boils of
the deceased. The like has occurred both in ancient and modern times,
not without favourable results for science; nay, more matured views
excited an eager desire to become acquainted with similar or still
greater visitations among the ancients; but as later ages have always
been fond of referring to Grecian antiquity, the learned of those
times, from a partial and meagre predilection, were contented with the
descriptions of Thucydides, even where nature had revealed, in infinite
diversity, the workings of her powers.

These researches, if indeed they deserved that name, were never
scientific or comprehensive. They never seized but upon a part, and
no sooner had the mortality ceased, than the scarcely awakened zeal
relapsed into its former indifference to the interesting phenomena
of nature, in the same way as abstemiousness, which had ever been
practised during epidemics, only as a constrained virtue, gave
place, as soon as the danger was over, to unbridled indulgence. This
inconstancy might almost bring to our mind the pious Byzantines who, on
the shock of an earthquake, in 529, which appeared as the prognostic
of the great epidemic, prostrated themselves before their altars by
thousands, and sought to excel each other in Christian self-denial
and benevolence; but no sooner did they feel the ground firm beneath
their feet, than they again abandoned themselves, without remorse, to
all the vices of the metropolis. May I be pardoned for this comparison
of scientific zeal with other human excitements? Alas! even this is
a virtue which few practise for its own sake, and which, with the
multitude, stands quite as much in need as any other, of the incentives
of fear and reward.

But we are constrained to acknowledge that among our medical
predecessors, these incentives were scarcely ever sufficiently
powerful to induce them to leave us circumstantial and scientific
accounts of contemporary epidemics, which, nevertheless, have, even
in historical times, afflicted, in almost numberless visitations,
the whole human race. Still less did it occur to them to take a
more exalted stand, whence they could comprehend at one view, these
stupendous phenomena of organic collective life, wherein the whole
spirit of humanity powerfully and wonderfully moves, and thus regard
them as one whole, in which higher laws of nature, uniting together the
utmost diversity of individual parts, might be anticipated or perceived.

Here a wide, and almost unfathomable chasm occurs in the science of
medicine, which, in this age of mature judgment and multifarious
learning, cannot, as formerly, be overlooked. History alone can fill
it up; she alone can give to the doctrine of diseases that importance
without which its application is limited to occurrences of the moment;
whereas the development of the phenomena of life, during extensive
periods, is no less a problem of research for the philosopher, who
makes the boundless science of nature his study, than the revolutions
of the planet on which we move. In this region of inquiry the very
stones have a language, and the inscriptions are yet legible which,
before the creation of man, were engraved by organic life, in wondrous
forms on eternal tablets. Exalted ideas of the monuments of primæval
antiquity are here excited, and the forms of the antemundane ways and
creations of nature are conjured up from the inmost bosom of the earth,
in order to throw their bright beaming light upon the surface of the
present.

Medicine extends not so far. The remains of animals make us indeed
acquainted, even now, with diseases to which the brute creation was
subject long ere the waters overflowed, and the mountains sunk; but
the investigation which is our more immediate object, scarcely reaches
to the beginning of human culture. Records of remote and of proximate
eras, lie before us in rich abundance. They speak of the deviations
and destructions of human life, of exterminated and newly-formed
nations; they lay before us stupendous facts, which we are called
upon to recognise and expound in order to solve this exalted problem.
If physicians cannot boast of having unrolled these records with the
avidity of true explorers of Nature, they may find some excuse in the
nature of the inquiry—for the characters are dead, and the spirits of
which they are the magic symbols, manifest themselves only to him
who knows how to adjure them. Epidemics leave no corporeal traces;
whence their history is perhaps more intellectual than the science
of the Geologist, who, on his side, possesses the advantage of
treating on subjects which strike the senses, and are therefore more
attractive,—such as the impressions of plants no longer extant, and the
skeletons of lost races of animals. This, however, does not entirely
exculpate us from the charge of neglecting our science, in a quarter
where the most important facts are to be unveiled. It is high time to
make up for what has been left unaccomplished, if we would not remain
idle and mean-spirited in the rear of other naturalists.

I was animated by these and similar reflections, and excited too by
passing events, when I undertook to write the history of the “Black
Death.” With some anxiety, I sent this book into the world, for it
was scarcely to be expected that it would be everywhere received with
indulgence, since it belonged to an hitherto unknown department of
historical research, the utility of which might not be obvious in our
practical times. Yet I soon received encouragement, not only from
learned friends, but also from other men of distinguished merit, on
whose judgment I placed great reliance; and thus I was led to hope that
it was not in vain, and without some advantage to science, that I had
unveiled the dismal picture of a long departed age.

This work I have followed up by a treatise on a nervous disorder,
which, for the first time, appeared in the same century, as an
epidemic, with symptoms that can be accounted for only by the spirit of
the Middle Ages—symptoms which, in the manner of the diffusion of the
disease among thousands of people, and of its propagation for more than
two centuries, exercised a demoniacal influence over the human race,
yet in close, though uncongenial alliance, with kindlier feelings.
I have prepared materials for various other subjects, so far as the
resources at my disposal extend, and I may hope, if circumstances prove
favourable, to complete by degrees, the history of a more extensive
series of Epidemics on the same plan as the “Black Death,” and the
“Dancing Mania.”

Amid the accumulated materials which past ages afford, the powers and
the life of one individual, even with the aid of previous study, are
insufficient to complete a comprehensive history of Epidemics. The
zealous activity of many must be exerted if we would speedily possess
a work which is so much wanted in order that we may not encounter
new epidemics with culpable ignorance of analogous phenomena. How
often has it appeared on the breaking out of epidemics, as if the
experience of so many centuries had been accumulated in vain. Men gazed
at the phenomena with astonishment, and even before they had a just
perception of their nature, pronounced their opinions, which, as they
were divided into strongly opposed parties, they defended with all the
ardour of zealots, wholly unconscious of the majesty of all-governing
nature. In the descriptive branches of natural history, a person would
infallibly expose himself to the severest censure, who should attempt
to describe some hitherto unknown natural production, whether animal or
vegetable, if he were ignorant of the allied genera and species, and
perhaps neither a botanist nor zoologist; yet an analogous ignorance of
epidemics, in those who nevertheless discussed their nature, but too
frequently occurred, and men were insensible to the justest reproof.
Thus it has ever been, and for this reason we cannot apply to ourselves
in this department, the significant words of Bacon, that we are the
ancients, and our forefathers the moderns, for we are equally remote,
with them, from a scientific and comprehensive knowledge of epidemics.
This might, and ought to be otherwise, in an age which, in other
respects, may, with justice, boast of a rich diversity of knowledge,
and of a rapid progress in the natural sciences.

If in the form of an address to the physicians of Germany, I express
the wish to see such a melancholy state of things remedied, the
nature of the subject requires that, with the exception of the still
prevailing Cholera, remarkable universal epidemics should be selected
for investigation. They form the grand epochs, according to which
those epidemics which are less extensive, but not, on that account,
less worthy of observation, naturally range themselves. Far be it from
me to recommend any fixed series, or even the plan and method to be
pursued in treating the subject. It would, perhaps, be, on the whole,
most advantageous, if my honoured Colleagues, who attend to this
request, were to commence with those epidemics for which they possess
complete materials, and that entirely according to their own plan,
without adopting any model for imitation, for in this manner simple
historical truth will be best elicited. Should it, however, be found
impracticable to furnish historical descriptions of entire epidemics,
a task often attended with difficulties, interesting fragments of all
kinds, for which there are rich treasures in MSS. and scarce works in
various places, would be no less welcome and useful towards the great
object of preparing a collective history of epidemics.

Up to the present moment, it might almost seem that the most
essential preliminaries are wanting for the accomplishment of such
an undertaking. The study of medical history is everywhere at a low
ebb;—in France and England scarcely a trace remains, to the most
serious detriment of the whole domain of medicine; in Germany too,
there are but few who suspect what inexhaustible stores of instructive
truth are lying dormant within their power; they may, perhaps,
class them among theoretical doctrines, and commend the laborious
investigation of them without being willing to recognise their spirit.
None of the Universities of Germany, whose business it ought to be
to provide, in this respect, for the prosperity of the inheritance
committed to their charge, can boast a Professor’s chair for the
History of Medicine; nay, in many, it is so entirely unknown, that it
is not even regarded as an object of secondary importance, so that it
is to be apprehended that the fame of German erudition, may, at least
in medicine, gradually vanish, and our medical knowledge become, as
practical indeed, but at the same time as assuming, as mechanical,
and as defective, as that of France and England. Even those noble
institutions, the Academies, in which the spirit of the eighteenth
century still lingers, and whose more peculiar province it is to
explore the rich pages of science, have not entered upon the history
of Epidemics, and by their silence have encouraged the unfounded and
injurious supposition, that this field is desolate and unfruitful.

All these obstacles are indeed great, but to determined and persevering
exertion they are not insuperable; and, though we cannot conceal them
from ourselves, we should not allow them to daunt our spirit. There is,
in Germany, a sufficiency of intellectual power to overcome them; let
this power be combined, and exert itself in active co-operation. Sooner
or later a new road must be opened for Medical Science. Should the time
not yet have arrived, I have at least endeavoured to discharge my duty,
by attempting to point out its future direction.




                               CONTENTS.


                                                                    PAGE

  GENERAL PREFACE                                                      v
  HECKER’S ADDRESS                                                    ix


                           THE BLACK DEATH.

  TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE                                             xxiii
  PREFACE                                                          xxvii


                              CHAPTER I.

  General Observations                                                 1


                              CHAPTER II.

  The Disease                                                          2


                             CHAPTER III.

  Causes—Spread                                                       11


                              CHAPTER IV.

  Mortality                                                           21


                              CHAPTER V.

  Moral Effects                                                       32


                              CHAPTER VI.

  Physicians                                                          50

  APPENDIX:—
      I. The Ancient Song of the Flagellants                          68
     II. Examination of the Jews accused of poisoning the Wells       74


                          THE DANCING MANIA.

  TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE                                                81
  PREFACE                                                             85


                              CHAPTER I.

             DANCING MANIA IN GERMANY AND THE NETHERLANDS.

  Sect. 1.—St. John’s Dance                                           87
        2.—St. Vitus’s Dance                                          91
        3.—Causes                                                     94
        4.—More ancient Dancing Plagues                               97
        5.—Physicians                                                100
        6.—Decline and Termination of the Dancing Plague             103


                              CHAPTER II.

                        DANCING MANIA IN ITALY.

  Sect. 1.—Tarantism                                                 107
        2.—Most Ancient Traces.—Causes                               110
        3.—Increase                                                  116
        4.—Idiosyncracies.—Music                                     119
        5.—Hysteria                                                  126
        6.—Decrease                                                  129


                             CHAPTER III.

                      DANCING MANIA IN ABYSSINIA.

  Sect. 1.—Tigretier                                                 133


                              CHAPTER IV.

  Sympathy                                                           139

  APPENDIX:—
      I. Extract from “Vita Gregorii XI.,” &c.                       153
     II. From “Chronicon Magnum,” &.c                                154
    III. From “die Limburger Chronik,” &c.                           155
     IV. From “die Chronica van Coellen,” &c.                        156
      V. From “an Account of Convulsive Diseases in Scotland,” &c.   157
     VI. Music for the Dance of the Tarantati, &c.                   167


                        THE SWEATING SICKNESS.

                                                                    PAGE

  PREFACE                                                            177


                              CHAPTER I.

                        FIRST VISITATION. 1485.

  Sect. 1.—Eruption                                                  181
        2.—The Physicians                                            185
        3.—Causes                                                    187
        4.—Other Epidemics                                           188
        5.—Richmond’s Army                                           190
        6.—Nature of the Sweating Sickness.—Preliminary
               Investigation                                         191


                              CHAPTER II.

                       SECOND VISITATION. 1506.

  Sect. 1.—Mercenary Troops                                          193
        2.—New Circumstances                                         196
        3.—Sweating Sickness                                         197
        4.—Accompanying Phenomena                                    198
        5.—Petechial Fever in Italy. 1505                            199
        6.—Other Diseases                                            203
        7.—Blood Spots                                               205


                             CHAPTER III.

                        THIRD VISITATION. 1517.

  Sect. 1.—Poverty                                                   208
        2.—Sweating Sickness                                         209
        3.—Causes                                                    211
        4.—Habits of the English                                     212
        5.—Contagion                                                 215
        6.—Influenzas                                                218
        7.—Epidemics of 1517                                         223


                              CHAPTER IV.

                    FOURTH VISITATION. 1528, 1529.

  Sect. 1.—Destruction of the French Army before Naples, 1528        228
        2.—Trousse-Galant in France, 1528, and the following years   235
        3.—Sweating Sickness in England, 1528                        238
        4.—Natural Occurrences.—Prognostics                          240
        5.—Sweating Sickness in Germany, 1529                        246
        6.————————————————————— the Netherlands                      254
        7.————————————————————— Denmark, Sweden, and Norway          255
        8.—Terror                                                    257
        9.—Moral Consequences                                        261
        10.—The Physicians                                           264
        11.—Pamphlets                                                270
        12.—Form of the Disease                                      278


                              CHAPTER V.

                        FIFTH VISITATION. 1551.

  Sect. 1.—Eruption                                                  290
        2.—Extension and Duration                                    291
        3.—Causes.—Natural Phenomena                                 295
        4.—Diseases                                                  297
        5.—John Kaye                                                 301


                              CHAPTER VI.

                         SWEATING SICKNESSES.

  Sect. 1.—The Cardiac Disease of the Ancients. (Morbus Cardiacus.)  306
        2.—The Picardy Sweat. (Suette des Picards—Suette Miliaire.)  315
        3.—The Roettingen Sweating Sickness                          324
  Chronological Survey                                               330
  Catalogue of Works referred to                                     339

  APPENDIX.—A Boke, or Counseill against the Disease commonly
                called the Sweate, or Sweatyng Sicknesse. By
                Jhon Caius                                           353

  LIST OF OFFICERS AND MEMBERS                                       381




                           THE BLACK DEATH.

                         TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.


In reading Dr. Hecker’s account of the Black Death which destroyed so
large a portion of the human race in the fourteenth century, I was
struck, not only with the peculiarity of the Author’s views, but also
with the interesting nature of the facts which he has collected. Some
of these have never before been made generally known, while others
have passed out of mind, being effaced from our memories by subsequent
events of a similar kind, which, though really of less magnitude and
importance, have, in the perspective of time, appeared greater, because
they have occurred nearer to our own days.

Dreadful as was the pestilence here described, and in few countries
more so than in England, our modern historians only slightly allude to
its visitation:—Hume deems a single paragraph sufficient to devote to
its notice, and Henry and Rapin are equally brief.

It may not then be unacceptable to the medical, or even to the general
reader, to receive an authentic and somewhat detailed account of one of
the greatest natural calamities that ever afflicted the human race.

My chief motive, however, for translating this small work, and at
this particular period, has been a desire that, in the study of the
causes which have produced and propagated general pestilences, and of
the moral effects by which they have been followed, the most enlarged
views should be taken. The contagionist and the anti-contagionist may
each find ample support for his belief in particular cases; but in
the construction of a theory sufficiently comprehensive to explain
throughout, the origin and dissemination of universal disease, we
shall not only perceive the insufficiency of either doctrine, taken
singly, but after admitting the combined influence of both, shall even
then find our views too narrow, and be compelled, in our endeavours
to explain the facts, to acknowledge the existence of unknown powers,
wholly unconnected either with communication by contact or atmospheric
contamination.

I by no means wish it to be understood, that I have adopted the
author’s views respecting astral and telluric influences, the former of
which, at least, I had supposed to have been, with alchemy and magic,
long since consigned to oblivion; much less am I prepared to accede
to his notion, or rather an ancient notion derived from the East and
revived by him, of an organic life in the system of the universe. We
are constantly furnished with proofs, that that which affects life is
not itself alive; and whether we look to the earth for exhalations,
to the air for electrical phenomena, to the heavenly bodies for an
influence over our planet, or to all these causes combined, for the
formation of some unknown principle noxious to animal existence, still,
if we found our reasoning on ascertained facts, we can perceive nothing
throughout this vast field for physical research which is not evidently
governed by the laws of inert matter—nothing which resembles the
regular succession of birth, growth, decay, death, and regeneration,
observable in organized beings. To assume, therefore, causes of whose
existence we have no proof, in order to account for effects which,
after all, they do not explain, is making no real advance in knowledge,
and can scarcely be considered otherwise than an indirect method of
confessing our ignorance.

Still, however, I regard the author’s opinions, illustrated as they are
by a series of interesting facts diligently collected from authentic
sources, as, at least, worthy of examination before we reject them, and
valuable, as furnishing extensive data on which to build new theories.

I have another, perhaps I may be allowed to say a better, motive for
laying before my countrymen this narrative of the sufferings of past
ages,—that by comparing them with those of our own time, we may be made
the more sensible how lightly the chastening hand of Providence has
fallen on the present generation, and how much reason, therefore, we
have to feel grateful for the mercy shown us.

The publication has, with this view, been purposely somewhat delayed,
in order that it might appear at a moment when it is to be presumed
that men’s thoughts will be especially directed to the approaching
hour of public thanksgiving, and when a knowledge of that which they
have escaped, as well as of that which they have suffered, may tend to
heighten their devotional feelings on that solemn occasion.

When we learn that, in the fourteenth century, one quarter, at least,
of the population of the old world was swept away in the short space of
four years, and that some countries, England among the rest, lost more
than double that proportion of their inhabitants in the course of a few
months, we may well congratulate ourselves that our visitation has not
been like theirs, and shall not justly merit ridicule, if we offer our
humble thanks to the “Creator and Preserver of all mankind” for our
deliverance.

Nor would it disgrace our feelings, if, in expiation of the abuse
and obloquy not long since so lavishly bestowed by the public on the
medical profession, we should entertain some slight sense of gratitude
towards those members of the community, who were engaged, at the risk
of their lives and the sacrifice of their personal interests, in
endeavouring to arrest the progress of the evil, and to mitigate the
sufferings of their fellow men.

I have added, at the close of the Appendix, some extracts from a scarce
little work in black letter, called “A Boke or Counseill against the
Disease commonly called the Sweate or Sweatyng Sicknesse,” published
by Caius in 1552. This was written three years before his Latin
treatise on the same subject, and is so quaint, and, at the same time,
so illustrative of the opinions of his day, and even of those of the
fourteenth century, on the causes of universal diseases, that the
passages which I have quoted will not fail to afford some amusement as
well as instruction. If I have been tempted to reprint more of this
curious production than was necessary to my primary object, it has been
from a belief that it would be generally acceptable to the reader to
gather some particulars regarding the mode of living in the sixteenth
century, and to observe the author’s animadversions on the degeneracy
and credulity of the age in which he lived. His advice on the choice of
a medical attendant cannot be too strongly recommended, at least _by a
physician_; and his warning against quackery, particularly the quackery
of _painters_, who “scorne (_quære_ score?) you behind your backs with
their medicines, so filthy that I am ashamed to name them,” seems quite
prophetic.

In conclusion, I beg to acknowledge the obligation which I owe to my
friend Mr. H. E. Lloyd, whose intimate acquaintance with the German
language and literature will, I hope, be received as a sufficient
pledge that no very important errors remain in a translation which he
has kindly revised.

  London, 1833.




                               PREFACE.


We here find an important page of the history of the world laid open
to our view. It treats of a convulsion of the human race, unequalled
in violence and extent. It speaks of incredible disasters, of despair
and unbridled demoniacal passions. It shews us the abyss of general
licentiousness, in consequence of an universal pestilence, which
extended from China to Iceland and Greenland.

The inducement to unveil this image of an age, long since gone by, is
evident. A new pestilence has attained almost an equal extent, and
though less formidable, has partly produced, partly indicated, similar
phenomena. Its causes and its diffusion over Asia and Europe, call on
us to take a comprehensive view of it, because it leads to an insight
into the organism of the world, in which the sum of organic life is
subject to the great powers of Nature. Now, human knowledge is not yet
sufficiently advanced, to discover the connexion between the processes
which occur above, and those which occur below, the surface of the
earth, or even fully to explore those laws of nature, an acquaintance
with which would be required; far less to apply them to great
phenomena, in which one spring sets a thousand others in motion.

On this side, therefore, such a point of view is not to be found, if
we would not lose ourselves in the wilderness of conjectures, of which
the world is already too full: but it may be found in the ample and
productive field of historical research.

History—that mirror of human life in all its bearings, offers, even for
general pestilences, an inexhaustible, though scarcely explored, mine
of facts; here too it asserts its dignity, as the philosophy of reality
delighting in truth.

It is conformable to its spirit to conceive general pestilences as
events affecting the whole world—to explain their phenomena by the
comparison of what is similar. Thus the facts speak for themselves,
because they appear to have proceeded from those higher laws which
govern the progression of the existence of mankind. A cosmical
origin and convulsive excitement, productive of the most important
consequences among the nations subject to them, are the most striking
features to which history points in all general pestilences. These,
however, assume very different forms, as well in their attacks on
the general organism, as in their diffusion; and in this respect a
development from form to form, in the course of centuries, is manifest,
so that the history of the world is divided into grand periods in which
positively defined pestilences prevailed. As far as our chronicles
extend, more or less certain information can be obtained respecting
them.

But this part of medical history, which has such a manifold and
powerful influence over the history of the world, is yet in its
infancy. For the honour of that science which should everywhere guide
the actions of mankind, we are induced to express a wish, that it may
find room to flourish amidst the rank vegetation with which the field
of German medical science is unhappily encumbered.




                           THE BLACK DEATH.

                              CHAPTER I.

                         GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.


That Omnipotence which has called the world with all its living
creatures into one animated being, especially reveals himself in
the desolation of great pestilences. The powers of creation come
into violent collision; the sultry dryness of the atmosphere; the
subterraneous thunders; the mist of overflowing waters, are the
harbingers of destruction. Nature is not satisfied with the ordinary
alternations of life and death, and the destroying angel waves over man
and beast his flaming sword.

These revolutions are performed in vast cycles, which the spirit of
man, limited, as it is, to a narrow circle of perception, is unable
to explore. They are, however, greater terrestrial events than any of
those which proceed from the discord, the distress, or the passions of
nations. By annihilations they awaken new life; and when the tumult
above and below the earth is past, nature is renovated, and the
mind awakens from torpor and depression to the consciousness of an
intellectual existence.

Were it in any degree within the power of human research to draw up,
in a vivid and connected form, an historical sketch of such mighty
events, after the manner of the historians of wars and battles, and the
migrations of nations, we might then arrive at clear views with respect
to the mental development of the human race, and the ways of Providence
would be more plainly discernible. It would then be demonstrable, that
the mind of nations is deeply affected by the destructive conflict of
the powers of nature, and that great disasters lead to striking changes
in general civilization. For all that exists in man, whether good or
evil, is rendered conspicuous by the presence of great danger. His
inmost feelings are roused—the thought of self-preservation masters
his spirit—self-denial is put to severe proof, and wherever darkness
and barbarism prevail, there the affrighted mortal flies to the idols
of his superstition, and all laws, human and divine, are criminally
violated.

In conformity with a general law of nature, such a state of excitement
brings about a change, beneficial or detrimental, according to
circumstances, so that nations either attain a higher degree of moral
worth, or sink deeper in ignorance and vice. All this, however, takes
place upon a much grander scale than through the ordinary vicissitudes
of war and peace, or the rise and fall of empires, because the powers
of nature themselves produce plagues, and subjugate the human will,
which, in the contentions of nations, alone predominates.




                              CHAPTER II.

                             THE DISEASE.


The most memorable example of what has been advanced, is afforded
by a great pestilence of the fourteenth century, which desolated
Asia, Europe, and Africa, and of which the people yet preserve the
remembrance in gloomy traditions. It was an oriental plague, marked by
inflammatory boils and tumours of the glands, such as break out in no
other febrile disease. On account of these inflammatory boils, and from
the black spots, indicatory of a putrid decomposition, which appeared
upon the skin, it was called in Germany and in the northern kingdoms
of Europe, _the Black Death_, and in Italy, la Mortalega Grande, _the
Great Mortality_[4].

Few testimonies are presented to us respecting its symptoms and its
course, yet these are sufficient to throw light upon the form of the
malady, and they are worthy of credence, from their coincidence with
the signs of the same disease in modern times.

The imperial writer, Kantakusenos[5], whose own son, Andronikus, died
of this plague in Constantinople, notices great imposthumes[6] of
the thighs and arms of those affected, which, when opened, afforded
relief by the discharge of an offensive matter. Buboes, which are the
infallible signs of the oriental plague, are thus plainly indicated,
for he makes separate mention of smaller boils on the arms and in the
face, as also in other parts of the body, and clearly distinguishes
these from the blisters[7], which are no less produced by plague in all
its forms. In many cases, black spots[8] broke out all over the body,
either single, or united and confluent.

These symptoms were not all found in every case. In many, one alone was
sufficient to cause death, while some patients recovered, contrary to
expectation, though afflicted with all. Symptoms of cephalic affection
were frequent; many patients became stupified and fell into a deep
sleep, losing also their speech from palsy of the tongue; others
remained sleepless and without rest. The fauces and tongue were black,
and as if suffused with blood; no beverage would assuage their burning
thirst, so that their sufferings continued without alleviation until
terminated by death, which many in their despair accelerated with their
own hands. Contagion was evident, for attendants caught the disease of
their relations and friends, and many houses in the capital were bereft
even of their last inhabitant. Thus far the ordinary circumstances only
of the oriental plague occurred. Still deeper sufferings, however,
were connected with this pestilence, such as have not been felt at
other times; the organs of respiration were seized with a putrid
inflammation; a violent pain in the chest attacked the patient; blood
was expectorated, and the breath diffused a pestiferous odour.

In the West, the following were the predominating symptoms on the
eruption of this disease[9]. An ardent fever, accompanied by an
evacuation of blood, proved fatal in the first three days. It appears
that buboes and inflammatory boils did not at first come out at all,
but that the disease, in the form of carbuncular (_anthraxartigen_)
affection of the lungs, effected the destruction of life before the
other symptoms were developed.

Thus did the plague rage in Avignon for six or eight weeks, and the
pestilential breath of the sick, who expectorated blood, caused a
terrible contagion far and near; for even the vicinity of those who
had fallen ill of plague was certain death[10]; so that parents
abandoned their infected children, and all the ties of kindred were
dissolved. After this period, buboes in the axilla and in the groin,
and inflammatory boils all over the body, made their appearance; but it
was not until seven months afterwards that some patients recovered with
matured buboes, as in the ordinary milder form of plague.

Such is the report of the courageous Guy de Chauliac, who vindicated
the honour of medicine, by bidding defiance to danger; boldly and
constantly assisting the affected, and disdaining the excuse of
his colleagues, who held the Arabian notion, that medical aid was
unavailing, and that the contagion justified flight. He saw the plague
twice in Avignon, first in the year 1348, from January to August, and
then twelve years later, in the autumn, when it returned from Germany,
and for nine months spread general distress and terror. The first time
it raged chiefly among the poor, but in the year 1360, more among the
higher classes. It now also destroyed a great many children, whom it
had formerly spared, and but few women.

The like was seen in Egypt[11]. Here also inflammation of the lungs was
predominant, and destroyed quickly and infallibly, with burning heat
and expectoration of blood. Here too the breath of the sick spread a
deadly contagion, and human aid was as vain as it was destructive to
those who approached the infected.

Boccacio, who was an eye-witness of its incredible fatality in
Florence, the seat of the revival of science, gives a more lively
description of the attack of the disease than his non-medical
contemporaries[12].

It commenced here, not as in the East, with bleeding at the nose, a
sure sign of inevitable death; but there took place at the beginning,
both in men and women, tumours in the groin and in the axilla, varying
in circumference up to the size of an apple or an egg, and called
by the people, pest-boils (gavoccioli). Then there appeared similar
tumours indiscriminately over all parts of the body, and black or blue
spots came out on the arms or thighs, or on other parts, either single
and large, or small and thickly studded. These spots proved equally
fatal with the pest-boils, which had been from the first regarded as
a sure sign of death[13]. No power of medicine brought relief—almost
all died within the first three days, some sooner, some later, after
the appearance of these signs, and for the most part entirely without
fever[14] or other symptoms. The plague spread itself with the greater
fury, as it communicated from the sick to the healthy, like fire among
dry and oily fuel, and even contact with the clothes and other articles
which had been used by the infected, seemed to induce the disease. As
it advanced, not only men, but animals fell sick and shortly expired,
if they had touched things belonging to the diseased or dead. Thus
Boccacio himself saw two hogs on the rags of a person who had died of
plague, after staggering about for a short time, fall down dead, as
if they had taken poison. In other places multitudes of dogs, cats,
fowls and other animals, fell victims to the contagion[15]; and it is
to be presumed that other epizootes among animals likewise took place,
although the ignorant writers of the fourteenth century are silent on
this point.

In Germany there was a repetition in every respect of the same
phenomena. The infallible signs of the oriental bubo-plague with its
inevitable contagion were found there as everywhere else; but the
mortality was not nearly so great as in the other parts of Europe[16].
The accounts do not all make mention of the spitting of blood, the
diagnostic symptom of this fatal pestilence; we are not, however,
thence to conclude that there was any considerable mitigation or
modification of the disease, for we must not only take into account
the defectiveness of the chronicles, but that isolated testimonies are
often contradicted by many others. Thus, the chronicles of Strasburg,
which only take notice of boils and glandular swellings in the axillæ
and groins[17], are opposed by another account, according to which the
mortal spitting of blood was met with in Germany[18]; but this again is
rendered suspicious, as the narrator postpones the death of those who
were thus affected, to the sixth, and (even the) eighth day, whereas,
no other author sanctions so long a course of the disease; and even in
Strasburg, where a mitigation of the plague may, with most probability,
be assumed, since in the year 1349, only 16,000 people were carried
off, the generality expired by the third or fourth day[19]. In
Austria, and especially in Vienna, the plague was fully as malignant
as anywhere, so that the patients who had red spots and black boils,
as well as those afflicted with tumid glands, died about the third
day[20]; and lastly, very frequent sudden deaths occurred on the coasts
of the North Sea and in Westphalia, without any further development of
the malady[21].

To France, this plague came in a northern direction from Avignon, and
was there more destructive than in Germany, so that in many places not
more than two in twenty of the inhabitants survived. Many were struck,
as if by lightning, and died on the spot, and this more frequently
among the young and strong than the old; patients with enlarged glands
in the axillæ and groins scarcely survived two or three days: and no
sooner did these fatal signs appear, than they bid adieu to the world,
and sought consolation only in the absolution which Pope Clement VI.
promised them in the hour of death[22].

In England the malady appeared, as at Avignon, with spitting of blood,
and with the same fatality, so that the sick who were afflicted either
with this symptom or with vomiting of blood, died in some cases
immediately, in others within twelve hours, or at the latest, in two
days[23]. The inflammatory boils and buboes in the groins and axillæ
were recognised at once as prognosticating a fatal issue, and those
were past all hope of recovery in whom they arose in numbers all over
the body. It was not till towards the close of the plague that they
ventured to open, by incision, these hard and dry boils, when matter
flowed from them in small quantity, and thus, by compelling nature to
a critical suppuration, many patients were saved. Every spot which the
sick had touched, their breath, their clothes, spread the contagion;
and, as in all other places, the attendants and friends who were either
blind to their danger or heroically despised it, fell a sacrifice
to their sympathy. Even the eyes of the patient were considered as
sources of contagion[24], which had the power of acting at a distance,
whether on account of their unwonted lustre or the distortion which
they always suffer in plague, or whether in conformity with an ancient
notion, according to which the sight was considered as the bearer of a
demoniacal enchantment. Flight from infected cities seldom availed the
fearful, for the germ of the disease adhered to them, and they fell
sick, remote from assistance, in the solitude of their country houses.

Thus did the plague spread over England with unexampled rapidity,
after it had first broken out in the county of Dorset, whence it
advanced through the counties of Devon and Somerset, to Bristol, and
thence reached Gloucester, Oxford and London. Probably few places
escaped, perhaps not any; for the annals of contemporaries report that
throughout the land only a tenth part of the inhabitants remained
alive[25].

From England the contagion was carried by a ship to Bergen, the capital
of Norway, where the plague then broke out in its most frightful form,
with vomiting of blood; and throughout the whole country, spared not
more than a third of the inhabitants. The sailors found no refuge in
their ships; and vessels were often seen driving about on the ocean and
drifting on shore, whose crews had perished to the last man[26].

In Poland the infected were attacked with spitting of blood, and died
in a few days in such vast numbers, that, as it has been affirmed,
scarcely a fourth of the inhabitants were left[27].

Finally, in Russia the plague appeared two years later than in Southern
Europe; yet here again, with the same symptoms as elsewhere. Russian
contemporaries have recorded that it began with rigor, heat, and
darting pain in the shoulders and back; that it was accompanied by
spitting of blood, and terminated fatally in two, or at most, three
days. It is not till the year 1360, that we find buboes mentioned as
occurring in the neck, in the axillæ and in the groins, which are
stated to have broken out when the spitting of blood had continued some
time. According to the experience of Western Europe, however, it cannot
be assumed that these symptoms did not appear at an earlier period[28].

Thus much, from authentic sources, on the nature of the Black Death.
The descriptions which have been communicated contain, with a few
unimportant exceptions, all the symptoms of the oriental plague which
have been observed in more modern times. No doubt can obtain on this
point. The facts are placed clearly before our eyes. We must, however,
bear in mind that this violent disease does not always appear in the
same form, and that while the essence of the poison which it produces,
and which is separated so abundantly from the body of the patient,
remains unchanged, it is proteiform in its varieties, from the almost
imperceptible vesicle, unaccompanied by fever, which exists for some
time before it extends its poison inwardly, and then excites fever and
buboes, to the fatal form in which carbuncular inflammations fall upon
the most important viscera.

Such was the form which the plague assumed in the 14th century, for
the accompanying chest affection which appeared in all the countries
whereof we have received any account, cannot, on a comparison with
similar and familiar symptoms, be considered as any other than the
inflammation of the lungs of modern medicine[29], a disease which at
present only appears sporadically, and, owing to a putrid decomposition
of the fluids, is probably combined with hemorrhages from the vessels
of the lungs. Now, as every carbuncle, whether it be cutaneous or
internal, generates in abundance the matter of contagion which has
given rise to it, so, therefore, must the breath of the affected
have been poisonous in this plague, and on this account its power
of contagion wonderfully increased; wherefore the opinion appears
incontrovertible, that owing to the accumulated numbers of the
diseased, not only individual chambers and houses, but whole cities
were infected, which, moreover, in the middle ages, were, with few
exceptions, narrowly built, kept in a filthy state, and surrounded with
stagnant ditches[30]. Flight was, in consequence, of no avail to the
timid; for even though they had sedulously avoided all communication
with the diseased and the suspected, yet their clothes were saturated
with the pestiferous atmosphere, and every inspiration imparted to
them the seeds of the destructive malady, which, in the greater number
of cases, germinated with but too much fertility. Add to which, the
usual propagation of the plague through clothes, beds, and a thousand
other things to which the pestilential poison adheres,—a propagation,
which, from want of caution, must have been infinitely multiplied;
and since articles of this kind, removed from the access of air, not
only retain the matter of contagion for an indefinite period, but also
increase its activity and engender it like a living being, frightful
ill consequences followed for many years after the first fury of the
pestilence was past.

The affection of the stomach, often mentioned in vague terms, and
occasionally as a vomiting of blood, was doubtless only a subordinate
symptom, even if it be admitted that actual hematemesis did occur. For
the difficulty of distinguishing a flow of blood from the stomach, from
a pulmonic expectoration of that fluid, is, to non-medical men, even in
common cases, not inconsiderable. How much greater then must it have
been in so terrible a disease, where assistants could not venture to
approach the sick without exposing themselves to certain death? Only
two medical descriptions of the malady have reached us, the one by the
brave _Guy de Chauliac_, the other by _Raymond Chalin de Vinario_, a
very experienced scholar, who was well versed in the learning of his
time. The former takes notice only of fatal coughing of blood; the
latter, besides this, notices epistaxis, hematuria and fluxes of blood
from the bowels, as symptoms of such decided and speedy mortality, that
those patients in whom they were observed, usually died on the same or
the following day[31].

That a vomiting of blood may not, here and there, have taken
place, perhaps have been even prevalent in many places, is, from a
consideration of the nature of the disease, by no means to be denied;
for every putrid decomposition of the fluids begets a tendency to
hemorrhages of all kinds. Here, however, it is a question of historical
certainty, which, after these doubts, is by no means established. Had
not so speedy a death followed the expectoration of blood, we should
certainly have received more detailed intelligence respecting other
hemorrhages; but the malady had no time to extend its effects further
over the extremities of the vessels. After its first fury, however,
was spent, the pestilence passed into the usual febrile form of the
oriental plague. Internal carbuncular inflammations no longer took
place, and hemorrhages became phenomena, no more essential in this
than they are in any other febrile disorders. Chalin, who observed
not only the _great mortality_ of 1348, and the plague of 1360, but
also that of 1373 and 1382, speaks moreover of _affections of the
throat_, and describes the _black spots_ of plague patients more
satisfactorily than any of his contemporaries. The former appeared but
in few cases, and consisted in carbuncular inflammation of the gullet,
with a difficulty of swallowing, even to suffocation, to which, in
some instances, was added inflammation of the ceruminous glands of
the ears, with tumours, producing great deformity. Such patients, as
well as others, were affected with expectoration of blood; but they
did not usually die before the sixth, and sometimes, even so late as
the fourteenth day[32]. The same occurrence, it is well known, is not
uncommon in other pestilences; as also blisters on the surface of the
body, in different places, in the vicinity of which, tumid glands and
inflammatory boils, surrounded by discoloured and black streaks, arose,
and thus indicated the reception of the poison. These streaked spots
were called, by an apt comparison, _the girdle_, and this appearance
was justly considered extremely dangerous[33].




                             CHAPTER III.

                            CAUSES.—SPREAD.


An inquiry into the causes of the Black Death, will not be without
important results in the study of the plagues which have visited
the world, although it cannot advance beyond generalization without
entering upon a field hitherto uncultivated, and, to this hour,
entirely unknown. Mighty revolutions in the organism of the earth, of
which we have credible information, had preceded it. From China to the
Atlantic, the foundations of the earth were shaken,—throughout Asia and
Europe the atmosphere was in commotion, and endangered, by its baneful
influence, both vegetable and animal life.

The series of these great events began in the year 1333, fifteen years
before the plague broke out in Europe: they first appeared in China.
Here a parching drought, accompanied by famine, commenced in the tract
of country watered by the rivers Kiang and Hoai. This was followed
by such violent torrents of rain, in and about Kingsai, at that time
the capital of the empire, that, according to tradition, more than
400,000 people perished in the floods. Finally the mountain Tsincheou
fell in, and vast clefts were formed in the earth. In the succeeding
year (1334), passing over fabulous traditions, the neighbourhood of
Canton was visited by inundations; whilst in Tche, after an unexampled
drought, a plague arose, which is said to have carried off about
5,000,000 of people. A few months afterwards an earthquake followed,
at and near Kingsai; and subsequent to the falling in of the mountains
of Ki-ming-chan, a lake was formed of more than a hundred leagues in
circumference, where, again, thousands found their grave. In Hou-kouang
and Ho-nan, a drought prevailed for five months; and innumerable swarms
of locusts destroyed the vegetation; while famine and pestilence, as
usual, followed in their train. Connected accounts of the condition
of Europe before this great catastrophe, are not to be expected from
the writers of the fourteenth century. It is remarkable, however,
that simultaneously with a drought and renewed floods in China, in
1336, many uncommon atmospheric phenomena, and in the winter, frequent
thunder storms, were observed in the north of France; and so early
as the eventful year of 1333, an eruption of Etna took place[34].
According to the Chinese annals, about 4,000,000 of people perished by
famine in the neighbourhood of Kiang in 1337: and deluges, swarms of
locusts, and an earthquake which lasted six days, caused incredible
devastation. In the same year, the first swarms of locusts appeared in
Franconia, which were succeeded in the following year by myriads of
these insects. In 1338, Kingsai was visited by an earthquake of ten
days’ duration; at the same time France suffered from a failure in the
harvest; and thenceforth, till the year 1342, there was in China, a
constant succession of inundations, earthquakes, and famines. In the
same year great floods occurred in the vicinity of the Rhine and in
France, which could not be attributed to rain alone; for, everywhere,
even on the tops of mountains, springs were seen to burst forth, and
dry tracts were laid under water in an inexplicable manner. In the
following year, the mountain Hong-tchang, in China, fell in, and caused
a destructive deluge; and in Pien-tcheou and Leang-tcheou, after three
months’ rain, there followed unheard-of inundations, which destroyed
seven cities. In Egypt and Syria, violent earthquakes took place; and
in China they became, from this time, more and more frequent; for
they recurred, in 1344, in Ven-tcheou, where the sea overflowed in
consequence; in 1345, in Ki-tcheou, and in both the following years
in Canton, with subterraneous thunder. Meanwhile, floods and famine
devastated various districts, until 1347, when the fury of the elements
subsided in China[35].

The signs of terrestrial commotions commenced in Europe in the year
1348, after the intervening districts of country in Asia had probably
been visited in the same manner.

On the island of Cyprus, the plague from the East had already broken
out; when an earthquake shook the foundations of the island, and was
accompanied by so frightful a hurricane, that the inhabitants who had
slain their Mahometan slaves, in order that they might not themselves
be subjugated by them, fled in dismay, in all directions. The sea
overflowed—the ships were dashed to pieces on the rocks, and few
outlived the terrific event, whereby this fertile and blooming island
was converted into a desert. Before the earthquake, a pestiferous wind
spread so poisonous an odour, that many, being overpowered by it, fell
down suddenly and expired in dreadful agonies[36].

This phenomenon is one of the rarest that has ever been observed, for
nothing is more constant than the composition of the air; and in no
respect has nature been more careful in the preservation of organic
life. Never have naturalists discovered in the atmosphere foreign
elements, which, evident to the senses, and borne by the winds, spread
from land to land, carrying disease over whole portions of the earth,
as is recounted to have taken place in the year 1348. It is, therefore,
the more to be regretted, that in this extraordinary period, which,
owing to the low condition of science, was very deficient in accurate
observers, so little that can be depended on respecting those uncommon
occurrences in the air, should have been recorded. Yet, German accounts
say expressly, that a thick, stinking mist advanced from the East, and
spread itself over Italy[37]; and there could be no deception in so
palpable a phenomenon[38]. The credibility of unadorned traditions,
however little they may satisfy physical research, can scarcely be
called in question when we consider the connexion of events; for just
at this time earthquakes were more general than they had been within
the range of history. In thousands of places chasms were formed, from
whence arose noxious vapours; and as at that time natural occurrences
were transformed into miracles, it was reported, that a fiery meteor,
which descended on the earth far in the East, had destroyed every
thing within a circumference of more than a hundred leagues, infecting
the air far and wide[39]. The consequences of innumerable floods
contributed to the same effect; vast river districts had been converted
into swamps; foul vapours arose everywhere, increased by the odour of
putrified locusts, which had never perhaps darkened the sun in thicker
swarms[40], and of countless corpses, which, even in the well regulated
countries of Europe, they knew not how to remove quickly enough out of
the sight of the living. It is probable, therefore, that the atmosphere
contained foreign, and sensibly perceptible, admixtures to a great
extent, which, at least in the lower regions, could not be decomposed,
or rendered ineffective by separation.

Now, if we go back to the symptoms of the disease, the ardent
inflammation of the lungs points out, that the organs of respiration
yielded to the attack of an atmospheric poison—a poison, which, if we
admit the independent origin of the Black Plague at any one place on
the globe, which, under such extraordinary circumstances, it would
be difficult to doubt, attacked the course of the circulation in as
hostile a manner as that which produces inflammation of the spleen, and
other animal contagions that cause swelling and inflammation of the
lymphatic glands.

Pursuing the course of these grand revolutions further, we find notice
of an unexampled earthquake, which, on the 25th of January, 1348, shook
Greece, Italy, and the neighbouring countries. Naples, Rome, Pisa,
Bologna, Padua, Venice and many other cities suffered considerably:
whole villages were swallowed up. Castles, houses and churches were
overthrown, and hundreds of people were buried beneath their ruins[41].
In Carinthia, thirty villages, together with all the churches, were
demolished; more than a thousand corpses were drawn out of the rubbish;
the city of Villach was so completely destroyed, that very few of
its inhabitants were saved; and when the earth ceased to tremble, it
was found that mountains had been moved from their positions, and
that many hamlets were left in ruins[42]. It is recorded that, during
this earthquake, the wine in the casks became turbid, a statement
which may be considered as furnishing a proof, that changes causing a
decomposition of the atmosphere had taken place; but if we had no other
information from which the excitement of conflicting powers of nature
during these commotions might be inferred, yet scientific observations
in modern times have shewn, that the relation of the atmosphere to the
earth is changed by volcanic influences. Why then, may we not, from
this fact, draw retrospective inferences respecting those extraordinary
phenomena?

Independently of this, however, we know that during this earthquake,
the duration of which is stated by some to have been a week, and by
others a fortnight, people experienced an unusual stupor and headache,
and that many fainted away[43].

These destructive earthquakes extended as far as the neighbourhood
of Basle[44], and recurred until the year 1360, throughout Germany,
France, Silesia, Poland, England and Denmark, and much further
north[45].

Great and extraordinary meteors appeared in many places, and were
regarded with superstitious horror. A pillar of fire, which on the 20th
of December, 1348, remained for an hour at sunrise over the pope’s
palace in Avignon[46]; a fireball, which in August of the same year
was seen at sunset over Paris, and was distinguished from similar
phenomena, by its longer duration[47], not to mention other instances
mixed up with wonderful prophecies and omens, are recorded in the
chronicles of that age.

The order of the seasons seemed to be inverted,—rains, floods and
failures in crops were so general, that few places were exempt from
them; and though an historian of this century assures us, that there
was an abundance in the granaries and storehouses[48], all his
contemporaries, with one voice, contradict him. The consequences of
failure in the crops were soon felt, especially in Italy and the
surrounding countries, where, in this year, a rain which continued for
four months, had destroyed the seed. In the larger cities, they were
compelled, in the spring of 1347, to have recourse to a distribution
of bread among the poor, particularly at Florence, where they erected
large bake-houses, from which, in April, ninety-four thousand loaves of
bread, each of twelve ounces in weight, were daily dispensed[49]. It is
plain, however, that humanity could only partially mitigate the general
distress, not altogether obviate it.

Diseases, the invariable consequence of famine, broke out in the
country, as well as in cities; children died of hunger in their
mothers’ arms,—want, misery and despair, were general throughout
Christendom[50].

Such are the events which took place before the eruption of the
Black Plague in Europe. Contemporaries have explained them after
their own manner, and have thus, like their posterity, under similar
circumstances, given a proof, that mortals possess neither senses nor
intellectual powers sufficiently acute to comprehend the phenomena
produced by the earth’s organism, much less scientifically to
understand their effects. Superstition, selfishness in a thousand
forms, the presumption of the schools, laid hold of unconnected facts.
They vainly thought to comprehend the whole in the individual, and
perceived not the universal spirit which, in intimate union with the
mighty powers of nature, animates the movements of all existence,
and permits not any phenomenon to originate from isolated causes. To
attempt, five centuries after that age of desolation, to point out the
causes of a cosmical commotion, which has never recurred to an equal
extent,—to indicate scientifically the influences which called forth so
terrific a poison in the bodies of men and animals, exceeds the limits
of human understanding. If we are even now unable, with all the varied
resources of an extended knowledge of nature, to define that condition
of the atmosphere by which pestilences are generated, still less can we
pretend to reason retrospectively from the nineteenth to the fourteenth
century; but if we take a general view of the occurrences, that century
will give us copious information, and, as applicable to all succeeding
times, of high importance.

In the progress of connected natural phenomena, from East to West,
that great law of nature is plainly revealed which has so often and
evidently manifested itself in the earth’s organism, as well as in
the state of nations dependent upon it. In the inmost depths of the
globe, that impulse was given in the year 1333, which in uninterrupted
succession for six-and-twenty years shook the surface of the earth,
even to the western shores of Europe. From the very beginning the
air partook of the terrestrial concussion, atmospherical waters
overflowed the land, or its plants and animals perished under the
scorching heat. The insect tribe was wonderfully called into life, as
if animated beings were destined to complete the destruction which
astral and telluric powers had begun. Thus did this dreadful work of
nature advance from year to year; it was a progressive infection of the
Zones, which exerted a powerful influence both above and beneath the
surface of the earth; and after having been perceptible in slighter
indications, at the commencement of the terrestrial commotions in
China, convulsed the whole earth.

The nature of the first plague in China is unknown. We have no certain
intelligence of the disease, until it entered the western countries of
Asia. Here it shewed itself as the oriental plague with inflammation
of the lungs; in which form it probably also may have begun in China,
that is to say, as a malady which spreads, more than any other,
by contagion—a contagion, that, in ordinary pestilences, requires
immediate contact, and only under unfavourable circumstances of rare
occurrence is communicated by the mere approach to the sick. The share
which this cause had in the spreading of the plague over the whole
earth, was certainly very great: and the opinion that the Black Death
might have been excluded from Western Europe, by good regulations,
similar to those which are now in use, would have all the support of
modern experience, provided it could be proved that this plague had
been actually imported from the East; or that the oriental plague in
general, whenever it appears in Europe, has its origin in Asia or
Egypt. Such a proof, however, can by no means be produced so as to
enforce conviction; for it would involve the impossible assumption,
either that there is no essential difference between the degree of
civilization of the European nations, in the most ancient and in modern
times, or that detrimental circumstances, which have yielded only to
the civilization of human society and the regular cultivation of
countries, could not formerly keep up the glandular plague.

The plague was, however, known in Europe before nations were united
by the bonds of commerce and social intercourse[51]; hence there is
ground for supposing that it sprung up spontaneously, in consequence
of the rude manner of living and the uncultivated state of the earth;
influences which peculiarly favour the origin of severe diseases. Now,
we need not go back to the earlier centuries, for the 14th itself,
before it had half expired, was visited by five or six pestilences[52].

If, therefore, we consider the peculiar property of the plague, that,
in countries which it has once visited, it remains for a long time
in a milder form, and that the epidemic influences of 1342, when it
had appeared for the last time, were particularly favourable to its
unperceived continuance, till 1348, we come to the notion, that in
this eventful year also, the germs of plague existed in Southern
Europe, which might be vivified by atmospherical deteriorations; and
that thus, at least in part, the Black Plague may have originated in
Europe itself. The corruption of the atmosphere came from the East; but
the disease itself came not upon the wings of the wind, but was only
excited and increased by the atmosphere where it had previously existed.

This source of the Black Plague was not, however, the only one; for,
far more powerful than the excitement of the latent elements of the
plague by atmospheric influences, was the effect of the contagion
communicated from one people to another, on the great roads, and
in the harbours of the Mediterranean. From China, the route of the
caravans lay to the north of the Caspian Sea, through Central Asia,
to Tauris. Here ships were ready to take the produce of the East to
Constantinople, the capital of commerce, and the medium of connexion
between Asia, Europe and Africa[53]. Other caravans went from India
to Asia Minor, and touched at the cities south of the Caspian Sea,
and lastly from Bagdad, through Arabia to Egypt; also the maritime
communication on the Red Sea, from India to Arabia and Egypt, was
not inconsiderable. In all these directions contagion made its way;
and doubtless, Constantinople and the harbours of Asia Minor, are to
be regarded as the foci of infection; whence it radiated to the most
distant seaports and islands.

To Constantinople, the plague had been brought from the northern coast
of the Black Sea[54], after it had depopulated the countries between
those routes of commerce; and appeared as early as 1347, in Cyprus,
Sicily, Marseilles and some of the seaports of Italy. The remaining
islands of the Mediterranean, particularly Sardinia, Corsica and
Majorca, were visited in succession. Foci of contagion existed also
in full activity along the whole southern coast of Europe; when, in
January 1348, the plague appeared in Avignon[55], and in other cities
in the south of France and north of Italy, as well as in Spain.

The precise days of its eruption in the individual towns, are no longer
to be ascertained; but it was not simultaneous; for in Florence, the
disease appeared in the beginning of April[56]; in Cesena, the 1st
of June[57]; and place after place was attacked throughout the whole
year; so that the plague, after it had passed through the whole of
France and Germany, where, however, it did not make its ravages until
the following year, did not break out till August, in England; where
it advanced so gradually, that a period of three months elapsed before
it reached London[58]. The northern kingdoms were attacked by it in
1349. Sweden, indeed, not until November of that year: almost two years
after its eruption in Avignon[59]. Poland received the plague in 1349,
probably from Germany[60], if not from the northern countries; but in
Russia, it did not make its appearance until 1351, more than three
years after it had broken out in Constantinople. Instead of advancing
in a north-westerly direction from Tauris and from the Caspian Sea,
it had thus made the great circuit of the Black Sea, by way of
Constantinople, Southern and Central Europe, England, the northern
kingdoms and Poland, before it reached the Russian territories; a
phenomenon which has not again occurred with respect to more recent
pestilences originating in Asia.

Whether any difference existed between the indigenous plague, excited
by the influence of the atmosphere, and that which was imported
by contagion, can no longer be ascertained from facts; for the
contemporaries, who in general were not competent to make accurate
researches of this kind, have left no data on the subject. A milder
and a more malignant form certainly existed, and the former was
not always derived from the latter, as is to be supposed from this
circumstance—that the spitting of blood, the infallible diagnostic of
the latter, on the first breaking out of the plague, is not similarly
mentioned in all the reports; and it is therefore probable, that the
milder form belonged to the native plague,—the more malignant, to that
introduced by contagion. Contagion was, however, in itself, only one of
many causes which gave rise to the Black Plague.

This disease was a consequence of violent commotions in the earth’s
organism—if any disease of cosmical origin can be so considered. One
spring set a thousand others in motion for the annihilation of living
beings, transient or permanent, of mediate or immediate effect. The
most powerful of all was contagion; for in the most distant countries
which had scarcely yet heard the echo of the first concussion, the
people fell a sacrifice to organic poison,—the untimely offspring of
vital energies thrown into violent commotion.




                              CHAPTER IV.

                              MORTALITY.


We have no certain measure by which to estimate the ravages of the
Black Plague, if numerical statements were wanted, as in modern times.
Let us go back for a moment to the 14th century. The people were yet
but little civilized. The church had indeed subdued them; but they
all suffered from the ill consequences of their original rudeness. The
dominion of the law was not yet confirmed. Sovereigns had everywhere
to combat powerful enemies to internal tranquillity and security.
The cities were fortresses for their own defence. Marauders encamped
on the roads.—The husbandman was a feodal slave, without possessions
of his own.—Rudeness was general.—Humanity, as yet unknown to the
people.—Witches and heretics were burned alive.—Gentle rulers were
contemned as weak;—wild passions, severity and cruelty, everywhere
predominated.—Human life was little regarded.—Governments concerned
not themselves about the numbers of their subjects, for whose welfare
it was incumbent on them to provide. Thus, the first requisite for
estimating the loss of human life, namely, a knowledge of the amount of
the population, is altogether wanting; and, moreover, the traditional
statements of the amount of this loss, are so vague, that from this
source likewise, there is only room for probable conjecture.

Kairo lost daily, when the plague was raging with its greatest
violence, from 10 to 15,000; being as many as, in modern times,
great plagues have carried off during their whole course. In China,
more than thirteen millions are said to have died; and this is in
correspondence with the certainly exaggerated accounts from the rest of
Asia. India was depopulated. Tartary, the Tartar kingdom of Kaptschak,
Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, were covered with dead bodies—the Kurds
fled in vain to the mountains. In Caramania and Cæsarea, none were
left alive. On the roads,—in the camps,—in the caravansaries,—unburied
bodies alone were seen; and a few cities only (Arabian historians name
Maara el nooman, Schisur and Harem) remained, in an unaccountable
manner, free. In Aleppo, 500 died daily; 22,000 people, and most of
the animals, were carried off in Gaza, within six weeks. Cyprus lost
almost all its inhabitants[61]; and ships without crews were often
seen in the Mediterranean; as afterwards in the North Sea, driving
about, and spreading the plague wherever they went on shore[62]. It
was reported to Pope Clement, at Avignon, that throughout the East,
probably with the exception of China, 23,840,000 people had fallen
victims to the plague[63]. Considering the occurrences of the 14th
and 15th centuries, we might, on first view, suspect the accuracy of
this statement. How (it might be asked) could such great wars have been
carried on—such powerful efforts have been made; how could the Greek
empire, only a hundred years later, have been overthrown, if the people
really had been so utterly destroyed?

This account is nevertheless rendered credible by the ascertained fact,
that the palaces of princes are less accessible to contagious diseases
than the dwellings of the multitude; and that in places of importance,
the influx from those districts which have suffered least, soon repairs
even the heaviest losses. We must remember, also, that we do not gather
much from mere numbers without an intimate knowledge of the state of
society. We will, therefore, confine ourselves to exhibiting some of
the more credible accounts relative to European cities.

  In Florence there died of the Black Plague     60,000[64]
  In Venice                                     100,000[65]
  In Marseilles, in one month                    16,000[66]
  In Siena                                       70,000[67]
  In Paris                                       50,000[68]
  In St. Denys                                   14,000[69]
  In Avignon                                     60,000[70]
  In Strasburg                                   16,000[71]
  In Lübeck                                       9,000[72]
  In Basle                                       14,000
  In Erfurt, at least                            16,000
  In Weimar                                       5,000[73]
  In Limburg                                      2,500[74]
  In London, at least                           100,000[75]
  In Norwich                                     51,100[76]
    To which may be added—
  Franciscan Friars in Germany                  124,434[77]
  Minorites in Italy                             30,000[78]

This short catalogue might, by a laborious and uncertain calculation,
deduced from other sources, be easily further multiplied, but would
still fail to give a true picture of the depopulation which took
place. Lübeck, at that time the Venice of the North, which could no
longer contain the multitudes that flocked to it, was thrown into
such consternation on the eruption of the plague, that the citizens
destroyed themselves as if in frenzy.

Merchants whose earnings and possessions were unbounded, coldly and
willingly renounced their earthly goods. They carried their treasures
to monasteries and churches, and laid them at the foot of the altar;
but gold had no charms for the monks, for it brought them death. They
shut their gates; yet, still it was cast to them over the convent
walls. People would brook no impediment to the last pious work to which
they were driven by despair. When the plague ceased, men thought they
were still wandering among the dead, so appalling was the livid aspect
of the survivors, in consequence of the anxiety they had undergone,
and the unavoidable infection of the air[79]. Many other cities
probably presented a similar appearance; and it is ascertained that
a great number of small country towns and villages which have been
estimated, and not too highly, at 200,000[80], were bereft of all their
inhabitants.

In many places in France not more than two out of twenty of the
inhabitants were left alive[81], and the capital felt the fury of the
plague, alike in the palace and the cot.

Two queens[82], one bishop[83], and great numbers of other
distinguished persons, fell a sacrifice to it, and more than 500 a
day died in the Hôtel-Dieu, under the faithful care of the sisters of
charity, whose disinterested courage, in this age of horror, displayed
the most beautiful traits of human virtue. For although they lost their
lives, evidently from contagion, and their numbers were several times
renewed, there was still no want of fresh candidates, who, strangers to
the unchristian fear of death, piously devoted themselves to their holy
calling.

The churchyards were soon unable to contain the dead[84], and many
houses, left without inhabitants, fell to ruins.

In Avignon, the pope found it necessary to consecrate the Rhone, that
bodies might be thrown into the river without delay, as the churchyards
would no longer hold them[85]; so likewise, in all populous cities,
extraordinary measures were adopted, in order speedily to dispose
of the dead. In Vienna, where for some time 1200 inhabitants died
daily[86], the interment of corpses in the churchyards and within the
churches, was forthwith prohibited; and the dead were then arranged in
layers, by thousands, in six large pits outside the city[87], as had
already been done in Cairo, and Paris. Yet, still many were secretly
buried; for at all times, the people are attached to the consecrated
cemeteries of their dead, and will not renounce the customary mode of
interment.

In many places, it was rumoured that plague patients were buried
alive[88], as may sometimes happen through senseless alarm and indecent
haste; and thus the horror of the distressed people was everywhere
increased. In Erfurt, after the churchyards were filled, 12,000 corpses
were thrown into eleven great pits; and the like might, more or less
exactly, be stated with respect to all the larger cities[89]. Funeral
ceremonies, the last consolation of the survivors, were everywhere
impracticable.

In all Germany, according to a probable calculation, there seem to have
died only 1,244,434[90] inhabitants; this country, however, was more
spared than others: Italy, on the contrary, was most severely visited.
It is said to have lost half its inhabitants[91]; and this account is
rendered credible from the immense losses of individual cities and
provinces: for in Sardinia and Corsica, according to the account of the
distinguished Florentine, John Villani, who was himself carried off by
the Black Plague[92], scarcely a third part of the population remained
alive; and it is related of the Venetians, that they engaged ships at
a high rate to retreat to the islands; so that after the plague had
carried off three fourths of her inhabitants, that proud city was left
forlorn and desolate[93]. In Padua, after the cessation of the plague,
two thirds of the inhabitants were wanting; and in Florence it was
prohibited to publish the numbers of the dead, and to toll the bells at
their funerals, in order that the living might not abandon themselves
to despair[94].

We have more exact accounts of England; most of the great cities
suffered incredible losses; above all, Yarmouth, in which, 7052 died:
Bristol, Oxford, Norwich, Leicester, York and London where, in one
burial ground alone, there were interred upwards of 50,000 corpses,
arranged in layers, in large pits[95]. It is said, that in the whole
country, scarcely a tenth part remained alive[96]; but this estimate
is evidently too high. Smaller losses were sufficient to cause those
convulsions, whose consequences were felt for some centuries, in a
false impulse given to civil life, and whose indirect influence,
unknown to the English, has, perhaps, extended even to modern times.

Morals were deteriorated everywhere, and the service of God was, in
a great measure, laid aside; for, in many places, the churches were
deserted, being bereft of their priests. The instruction of the people
was impeded[97]; covetousness became general; and when tranquillity
was restored, the great increase of lawyers was astonishing, to whom
the endless disputes regarding inheritances, offered a rich harvest.
The want of priests too, throughout the country, operated very
detrimentally upon the people, (the lower classes being most exposed
to the ravages of the plague, whilst the houses of the nobility
were, in proportion, much more spared,) and it was no compensation
that whole bands of ignorant laymen, who had lost their wives during
the pestilence, crowded into the monastic orders, that they might
participate in the respectability of the priesthood, and in the rich
heritages which fell in to the church from all quarters. The sittings
of Parliament, of the King’s Bench, and of most of the other courts,
were suspended as long as the malady raged. The laws of peace availed
not during the dominion of death. Pope Clement took advantage of this
state of disorder, to adjust the bloody quarrel between Edward III.
and Philip VI.; yet he only succeeded during the period that the
plague commanded peace. Philip’s death (1350) annulled all treaties;
and it is related, that Edward, with other troops indeed, but with
the same leaders and knights, again took the field. Ireland was much
less heavily visited than England. The disease seems to have scarcely
reached the mountainous districts of that kingdom; and Scotland
too would, perhaps, have remained free, had not the Scots availed
themselves of the discomfiture of the English, to make an irruption
into their territory, which terminated in the destruction of their
army, by the plague and by the sword, and the extension of the
pestilence, through those who escaped, over the whole country.

At the commencement, there was in England a superabundance of all the
necessaries of life; but the plague, which seemed then to be the sole
disease, was soon accompanied by a fatal murrain among the cattle.
Wandering about without herdsmen, they fell by thousands; and, as
has likewise been observed in Africa, the birds and beasts of prey
are said not to have touched them. Of what nature this murrain may
have been, can no more be determined, than whether it originated from
communication with plague patients, or from other causes; but thus much
is certain, that it did not break out until after the commencement of
the Black Death. In consequence of this murrain, and the impossibility
of removing the corn from the fields, there was everywhere a great
rise in the price of food which to many was inexplicable, because the
harvest had been plentiful; by others it was attributed to the wicked
designs of the labourers and dealers; but it really had its foundation
in the actual deficiency arising from circumstances by which individual
classes at all times endeavour to profit. For a whole year, until
it terminated in August, 1349, the Black Plague prevailed in this
beautiful island, and everywhere poisoned the springs of comfort and
prosperity[98].

In other countries, it generally lasted only half a year, but returned
frequently in individual places; on which account, some, without
sufficient proof, assigned to it a period of seven years[99].

Spain was uninterruptedly ravaged by the Black Plague till after the
year 1350, to which the frequent internal feuds and the wars with the
Moors not a little contributed. Alphonso XI., whose passion for war
carried him too far, died of it at the siege of Gibraltar, on the 26th
of March, 1350. He was the only king in Europe who fell a sacrifice to
it; but even before this period, innumerable families had been thrown
into affliction[100]. The mortality seems otherwise to have been
smaller in Spain than in Italy, and about as considerable as in France.

The whole period during which the Black Plague raged with destructive
violence in Europe, was, with the exception of Russia, from the year
1347 to 1350. The plagues, which in the sequel often returned until
the year 1383[101], we do not consider as belonging to “the Great
Mortality.” They were rather common pestilences, without inflammation
of the lungs, such as in former times, and in the following centuries,
were excited by the matter of contagion everywhere existing, and which,
on every favourable occasion, gained ground anew, as is usually the
case with this frightful disease.

The concourse of large bodies of people was especially dangerous; and
thus, the premature celebration of the Jubilee, to which Clement VI.
cited the faithful to Rome, (1350,) during the great epidemic, caused a
new eruption of the plague, from which it is said, that scarcely one in
an hundred of the pilgrims escaped[102].

Italy was, in consequence, depopulated anew; and those who returned,
spread poison and corruption of morals in all directions[103]. It is,
therefore, the less apparent, how that Pope, who was in general so wise
and considerate, and who knew how to pursue the path of reason and
humanity, under the most difficult circumstances, should have been led
to adopt a measure so injurious; since he, himself, was so convinced of
the salutary effect of seclusion, that during the plague in Avignon, he
kept up constant fires, and suffered no one to approach him[104]; and,
in other respects, gave such orders as averted, or alleviated, much
misery.

The changes which occurred about this period in the north of Europe,
are sufficiently memorable to claim a few moments’ attention. In Sweden
two princes died—Håken and Knut, half-brothers of King Magnus; and in
Westgothland alone, 466 priests[105]. The inhabitants of Iceland and
Greenland, found in the coldness of their inhospitable climate, no
protection against the southern enemy who had penetrated to them from
happier countries. The plague caused great havoc among them. Nature
made no allowance for their constant warfare with the elements, and
the parsimony with which she had meted out to them the enjoyments of
life[106]. In Denmark and Norway, however, people were so occupied
with their own misery, that the accustomed voyages to Greenland
ceased. Towering icebergs formed at the same time on the coast of East
Greenland, in consequence of the general concussion of the earth’s
organism; and no mortal, from that time forward, has ever seen that
shore or its inhabitants[107].

It has been observed above, that in Russia, the Black Plague did
not break out until 1351, after it had already passed through the
south and north of Europe. In this country also, the mortality was
extraordinarily great; and the same scenes of affliction and despair
were exhibited, as had occurred in those nations which had already
passed the ordeal. The same mode of burial—the same horrible certainty
of death—the same torpor and depression of spirits. The wealthy
abandoned their treasures, and gave their villages and estates to
the churches and monasteries; this being, according to the notions
of the age, the surest way of securing the favour of Heaven and the
forgiveness of past sins. In Russia too, the voice of nature was
silenced by fear and horror. In the hour of danger, fathers and mothers
deserted their children, and children their parents[108].

Of all the estimates of the number of lives lost in Europe, the most
probable is, that altogether, a fourth part of the inhabitants were
carried off. Now, if Europe at present contain 210,000,000 inhabitants,
the population, not to take a higher estimate, which might easily be
justified, amounted to at least 105,000,000 in the 16th century.

It may, therefore, be assumed, without exaggeration, that Europe lost
during the Black Death, 25,000,000 of inhabitants.

That her nations could so quickly overcome such a fearful concussion
in their external circumstances, and, in general, without retrograding
more than they actually did, could so develope their energies in the
following century, is a most convincing proof of the indestructibility
of human society as a whole. To assume, however, that it did not
suffer any essential change internally, because in appearance every
thing remained as before, is inconsistent with a just view of cause
and effect. Many historians seem to have adopted such an opinion;
accustomed, as usual, to judge of the moral condition of the people
solely according to the vicissitudes of earthly power, the events
of battles, and the influence of religion, but to pass over with
indifference, the great phenomena of nature, which modify, not only the
surface of the earth, but also the human mind. Hence, most of them have
touched but superficially on the “great mortality” of the 14th century.
We, for our parts, are convinced, that in the history of the world, the
Black Death is one of the most important events which have prepared the
way for the present state of Europe.

He who studies the human mind with attention, and forms a deliberate
judgment on the intellectual powers which set people and states in
motion, may, perhaps, find some proofs of this assertion in the
following observations:—at that time, the advancement of the hierarchy
was, in most countries, extraordinary; for the church acquired
treasures and large properties in land, even to a greater extent than
after the crusades; but experience has demonstrated, that such a state
of things is ruinous to the people, and causes them to retrograde, as
was evinced on this occasion.

After the cessation of the Black Plague, a greater fecundity in
women was everywhere remarkable—a grand phenomenon, which, from its
occurrence after every destructive pestilence, proves to conviction,
if any occurrence can do so, the prevalence of a higher power in the
direction of general organic life. Marriages were, almost without
exception, prolific; and double and treble births were more frequent
than at other times; under which head, we should remember the strange
remark, that after the “great mortality” the children were said to have
got fewer teeth than before; at which contemporaries were mightily
shocked, and even later writers have felt surprise.

If we examine the grounds of this oft-repeated assertion, we shall
find that they were astonished to see children cut twenty, or at most,
twenty-two teeth, under the supposition that a greater number had
formerly fallen to their share[109]. Some writers of authority, as,
for example, the physician Savonarola[110], at Ferrara, who probably
looked for twenty-eight teeth in children, published their opinions on
this subject. Others copied from them, without seeing for themselves,
as often happens in other matters which are equally evident; and thus
the world believed in the miracle of an imperfection in the human body
which had been caused by the Black Plague.

The people gradually consoled themselves after the sufferings which
they had undergone; the dead were lamented and forgotten; and in
the stirring vicissitudes of existence, the world belonged to the
living[111].




                              CHAPTER V.

                            MORAL EFFECTS.


The mental shock sustained by all nations during the prevalence of the
Black Plague, is without parallel and beyond description. In the eyes
of the timorous, danger was the certain harbinger of death; many fell
victims to fear, on the first appearance of the distemper[112], and
the most stout-hearted lost their confidence. Thus, after reliance on
the future had died away, the spiritual union which binds man to his
family and his fellow creatures, was gradually dissolved. The pious
closed their accounts with the world,—eternity presented itself to
their view,—their only remaining desire, was for a participation in
the consolations of religion, because to them death was disarmed of
its sting.

Repentance seized the transgressor, admonishing him to consecrate his
remaining hours to the exercise of Christian virtues. All minds were
directed to the contemplation of futurity; and children, who manifest
the more elevated feelings of the soul without alloy, were frequently
seen, while labouring under the plague, breathing out their spirit with
prayer and songs of thanksgiving[113].

An awful sense of contrition seized Christians of every communion; they
resolved to forsake their vices, to make restitution for past offences,
before they were summoned hence, to seek reconciliation with their
Maker, and to avert, by self-chastisement, the punishment due to their
former sins. Human nature would be exalted, could the countless noble
actions, which, in times of most imminent danger, were performed in
secret, be recorded for the instruction of future generations. They,
however, have no influence on the course of worldly events. They are
known only to silent eye-witnesses, and soon fall into oblivion. But
hypocrisy, illusion and bigotry, stalk abroad undaunted; they desecrate
what is noble, they pervert what is divine, to the unholy purposes
of selfishness; which hurries along every good feeling in the false
excitement of the age. Thus it was in the years of this plague. In the
14th century, the monastic system was still in its full vigour, the
power of the ecclesiastical orders and brotherhoods was revered by the
people, and the hierarchy was still formidable to the temporal power.
It was, therefore, in the natural constitution of society that bigoted
zeal, which in such times makes a show of public acts of penance,
should avail itself of the semblance of religion. But this took place
in such a manner, that unbridled, self-willed penitence, degenerated
into lukewarmness, renounced obedience to the hierarchy, and prepared
a fearful opposition to the church, paralysed as it was by antiquated
forms.

While all countries were filled with lamentations and woe, there first
arose in Hungary[114], and afterwards in Germany, the Brotherhood
of the Flagellants, called also the Brethren of the Cross, or
Cross-bearers, who took upon themselves the repentance of the people,
for the sins they had committed, and offered prayers and supplications
for the averting of this plague. This Order consisted chiefly of
persons of the lower class, who were either actuated by sincere
contrition, or, who joyfully availed themselves of this pretext for
idleness, and were hurried along with the tide of distracting frenzy.
But as these brotherhoods gained in repute, and were welcomed by the
people, with veneration and enthusiasm, many nobles and ecclesiastics
ranged themselves under their standard; and their bands were not
unfrequently augmented by children, honourable women and nuns; so
powerfully were minds of the most opposite temperaments enslaved
by this infatuation[115]. They marched through the cities, in well
organized processions, with leaders and singers; their heads covered as
far as the eyes; their look fixed on the ground, accompanied by every
token of the deepest contrition and mourning. They were robed in sombre
garments, with red crosses on the breast, back, and cap, and bore
triple scourges, tied in three or four knots, in which points of iron
were fixed[116]. Tapers and magnificent banners of velvet and cloth of
gold, were carried before them; wherever they made their appearance,
they were welcomed by the ringing of the bells; and the people flocked
from all quarters, to listen to their hymns and to witness their
penance, with devotion and tears.

In the year 1349, two hundred Flagellants first entered Strasburg,
where they were received with great joy, and hospitably lodged by the
citizens. Above a thousand joined the brotherhood, which now assumed
the appearance of a wandering tribe, and separated into two bodies, for
the purpose of journeying to the north and to the south. For more than
half a year, new parties arrived weekly; and, on each arrival, adults
and children left their families to accompany them; till, at length,
their sanctity was questioned, and the doors of houses and churches
were closed against them[117]. At Spires, two hundred boys, of twelve
years of age and under, constituted themselves into a Brotherhood of
the Cross, in imitation of the children, who, about a hundred years
before, had united, at the instigation of some fanatic monks, for the
purpose of recovering the Holy Sepulchre. All the inhabitants of this
town were carried away by the illusion; they conducted the strangers to
their houses with songs of thanksgiving, to regale them for the night.
The women embroidered banners for them, and all were anxious to augment
their pomp; and at every succeeding pilgrimage, their influence and
reputation increased[118].

It was not merely some individual parts of the country that fostered
them: all Germany, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, Silesia, and Flanders,
did homage to the mania; and they at length became as formidable
to the secular, as they were to the ecclesiastical power. The
influence of this fanaticism was great and threatening; resembling
the excitement which called all the inhabitants of Europe into the
deserts of Syria and Palestine, about two hundred and fifty years
before. The appearance, in itself, was not novel. As far back as the
11th century, many believers, in Asia and Southern Europe, afflicted
themselves with the punishment of flagellation. Dominicus Loricatus,
a monk of St. Croce d’Avellano, is mentioned as the master and model
of this species of mortification of the flesh; which, according to
the primitive notions of the Asiatic Anchorites, was deemed eminently
Christian. The author of the solemn processions of the Flagellants, is
said to have been St. Anthony; for even in his time (1231), this kind
of penance was so much in vogue, that it is recorded as an eventful
circumstance in the history of the world. In 1260, the Flagellants
appeared in Italy as _Devoti_. “When the land was polluted by vices
and crimes[119], an unexampled spirit of remorse suddenly seized the
minds of the Italians. The fear of Christ fell upon all: noble and
ignoble, old and young, and even children of five years of age, marched
through the streets with no covering but a scarf round the waist. They
each carried a scourge of leathern thongs, which they applied to their
limbs, amid sighs and tears, with such violence, that the blood flowed
from the wounds. Not only during the day, but even by night, and in the
severest winter, they traversed the cities with burning torches and
banners, in thousands and tens of thousands, headed by their priests,
and prostrated themselves before the altars. They proceeded in the same
manner in the villages: and the woods and mountains resounded with the
voices of those whose cries were raised to God. The melancholy chaunt
of the penitent alone was heard. Enemies were reconciled; men and
women vied with each other in splendid works of charity, as if they
dreaded, that Divine Omnipotence would pronounce on them the doom of
annihilation.”

The pilgrimages of the Flagellants extended throughout all the
provinces of Southern Germany, as far as Saxony, Bohemia and
Poland, and even further; but at length, the priests resisted this
dangerous fanaticism, without being able to extirpate the illusion,
which was advantageous to the hierarchy, as long as it submitted to
its sway. Regnier, a hermit of Perugia, is recorded as a fanatic
preacher of penitence, with whom the extravagance originated[120].
In the year 1296, there was a great procession of the Flagellants in
Strasburg[121]; and in 1334, fourteen years before the great mortality,
the sermon of Venturinus, a Dominican friar, of Bergamo, induced
above 10,000 persons to undertake a new pilgrimage. They scourged
themselves in the churches, and were entertained in the market-places,
at the public expense. At Rome, Venturinus was derided, and banished
by the Pope to the mountains of Ricondona. He patiently endured
all—went to the Holy Land, and died at Smyrna, 1346[122]. Hence we
see that this fanaticism was a mania of the middle ages, which, in
the year 1349, on so fearful an occasion, and while still so fresh in
remembrance, needed no new founder; of whom, indeed, all the records
are silent. It probably arose in many places at the same time; for
the terror of death, which pervaded all nations and suddenly set such
powerful impulses in motion, might easily conjure up the fanaticism of
exaggerated and overpowering repentance.

The manner and proceedings of the Flagellants of the 13th and 14th
centuries, exactly resemble each other. But, if during the Black
Plague, simple credulity came to their aid, which seized, as a
consolation, the grossest delusion of religious enthusiasm, yet it is
evident that the leaders must have been intimately united, and have
exercised the power of a secret association. Besides, the rude band
was generally under the control of men of learning, some of whom at
least, certainly had other objects in view, independent of those which
ostensibly appeared. Whoever was desirous of joining the brotherhood,
was bound to remain in it thirty-four days, and to have four pence per
day at his own disposal, so that he might not be burthensome to any
one; if married, he was obliged to have the sanction of his wife, and
give the assurance that he was reconciled to all men. The Brothers
of the Cross, were not permitted to seek for free quarters, or even
to enter a house without having been invited; they were forbidden to
converse with females; and if they transgressed these rules, or acted
without discretion, they were obliged to confess to the Superior, who
sentenced them to several lashes of the scourge, by way of penance.
Ecclesiastics had not, as such, any pre-eminence among them; according
to their original law, which, however, was often transgressed, they
could not become Masters, or take part in the _Secret Councils_.
Penance was performed twice every day: in the morning and evening, they
went abroad in pairs, singing psalms, amid the ringing of the bells;
and when they arrived at the place of flagellation, they stripped the
upper part of their bodies and put off their shoes, keeping on only a
linen dress, reaching from the waist to the ancles. They then lay down
in a large circle, in different positions, according to the nature of
their crime: the adulterer with his face to the ground; the perjurer
on one side, holding up three of his fingers, &c., and were then
castigated, some more and some less, by the Master, who ordered them to
rise in the words of a prescribed form[123]. Upon this, they scourged
themselves, amid the singing of psalms and loud supplications for
the averting of the plague, with genuflexions, and other ceremonies,
of which contemporary writers give various accounts; and at the same
time constantly boasted of their penance, that the blood of their
wounds was mingled with that of the Saviour[124]. One of them, in
conclusion, stood up to read a letter, which it was pretended an angel
had brought from heaven, to St. Peter’s church, at Jerusalem, stating
that Christ, who was sore displeased at the sins of man, had granted,
at the intercession of the Holy Virgin and of the angels, that all who
should wander about for thirty-four days and scourge themselves, should
be partakers of the Divine grace[125]. This scene caused as great a
commotion among the believers as the finding of the holy spear once did
at Antioch; and if any among the clergy inquired who had sealed the
letter? he was boldly answered, the same who had sealed the Gospel!

All this had so powerful an effect, that the church was in considerable
danger; for the Flagellants gained more credit than the priests, from
whom they so entirely withdrew themselves, that they even absolved
each other. Besides, they everywhere took possession of the churches,
and their new songs, which went from mouth to mouth, operated strongly
on the minds of the people. Great enthusiasm and originally pious
feelings, are clearly distinguishable in these hymns, and especially in
the chief psalm of the Cross-bearers, which is still extant, and which
was sung all over Germany, in different dialects, and is probably of
a more ancient date[126]. Degeneracy, however, soon crept in; crimes
were everywhere committed; and there was no energetic man capable of
directing the individual excitement to purer objects, even had an
effectual resistance to the tottering church been at that early period
seasonable, and had it been possible to restrain the fanaticism.
The Flagellants sometimes undertook to make trial of their power of
working miracles; as in Strasburg, where they attempted, in their own
circle, to resuscitate a dead child: they however failed, and their
unskilfulness did them much harm, though they succeeded here and there
in maintaining some confidence in their holy calling, by pretending to
have the power of casting out evil spirits[127].

The Brotherhood of the Cross announced that the pilgrimage of the
Flagellants was to continue for a space of thirty-four years; and many
of the Masters had, doubtless, determined to form a lasting league
against the church; but they had gone too far. So early as the first
year of their establishment, the general indignation set bounds to
their intrigues; so that the strict measures adopted by the Emperor
Charles IV., and Pope Clement[128], who, throughout the whole of this
fearful period, manifested prudence and noble-mindedness, and conducted
himself in a manner every way worthy of his high station, were easily
put into execution[129].

The Sorbonne, at Paris, and the Emperor Charles, had already applied
to the Holy See, for assistance against these formidable and heretical
excesses, which had well nigh destroyed the influence of the clergy in
every place; when a hundred of the Brotherhood of the Cross arrived
at Avignon from Basle, and desired admission. The Pope, regardless
of the intercession of several cardinals, interdicted their public
penance, which he had not authorized; and, on pain of excommunication,
prohibited throughout Christendom the continuance of these
pilgrimages[130]. Philip VI., supported by the condemnatory judgment
of the Sorbonne, forbad their reception in France[131]. Manfred, King
of Sicily, at the same time threatened them with punishment by death:
and in the East, they were withstood by several bishops, among whom was
Janussius, of Gnesen[132], and Preczlaw, of Breslaw, who condemned to
death one of their Masters, formerly a deacon; and, in conformity with
the barbarity of the times, had him publicly burnt[133]. In Westphalia,
where so shortly before they had venerated the Brothers of the Cross,
they now persecuted them with relentless severity[134]; and in the
Mark, as well as in all the other countries of Germany, they pursued
them, as if they had been the authors of every misfortune[135].

The processions of the Brotherhood of the Cross undoubtedly promoted
the spreading of the plague; and it is evident, that the gloomy
fanaticism which gave rise to them, would infuse a new poison into the
already desponding minds of the people.

Still, however, all this was within the bounds of barbarous enthusiasm;
but horrible were the persecutions of the Jews, which were committed
in most countries, with even greater exasperation than in the 12th
century, during the first Crusades. In every destructive pestilence,
the common people at first attribute the mortality to poison. No
instruction avails; the supposed testimony of their eyesight, is to
them a proof, and they authoritatively demand the victims of their
rage. On whom then was it so likely to fall, as on the Jews, the
usurers and the strangers who lived at enmity with the Christians? They
were everywhere suspected of having poisoned the wells or infected the
air[136]. They alone were considered as having brought this fearful
mortality upon the Christians[137]. They were, in consequence, pursued
with merciless cruelty; and either indiscriminately given up to the
fury of the populace, or sentenced by sanguinary tribunals, which,
with all the forms of law, ordered them to be burnt alive. In times
like these, much is indeed said of guilt and innocence; but hatred and
revenge bear down all discrimination, and the smallest probability,
magnifies suspicion into certainty. These bloody scenes, which
disgraced Europe in the 14th century, are a counterpart to a similar
mania of the age, which was manifested in the persecutions of witches
and sorcerers; and, like these they prove, that enthusiasm, associated
with hatred, and leagued with the baser passions, may work more
powerfully upon whole nations, than religion and legal order; nay, that
it even knows how to profit by the authority of both, in order the more
surely to satiate with blood, the sword of long suppressed revenge.

The persecution of the Jews commenced in September and October,
1348[138], at Chillon, on the Lake of Geneva, where the first criminal
proceedings were instituted against them, after they had long before
been accused by the people of poisoning the wells; similar scenes
followed in Bern and Freyburg, in January, 1349. Under the influence of
excruciating suffering, the tortured Jews confessed themselves guilty
of the crime imputed to them; and it being affirmed that poison had in
fact been found in a well at Zoffingen, this was deemed a sufficient
proof to convince the world; and the persecution of the abhorred
culprits, thus appeared justifiable. Now, though we can take as little
exception at these proceedings, as at the multifarious confessions of
witches, because the interrogatories of the fanatical and sanguinary
tribunals, were so complicated, that by means of the rack, the required
answer must inevitably be obtained; and it is besides conformable
to human nature, that crimes which are in every body’s mouth, may,
in the end, be actually committed by some, either from wantonness,
revenge, or desperate exasperation: yet crimes and accusations are,
under circumstances like these, merely the offspring of a revengeful,
frenzied spirit in the people; and the accusers, according to the
fundamental principles of morality, which are the same in every age,
are the more guilty transgressors.

Already in the autumn of 1348, a dreadful panic, caused by this
supposed empoisonment, seized all nations; in Germany especially, the
springs and wells were built over, that nobody might drink of them, or
employ their contents for culinary purposes: and for a long time, the
inhabitants of numerous towns and villages, used only river and rain
water[139]. The city gates were also guarded with the greatest caution:
only confidential persons were admitted; and if medicine, or any other
article, which might be supposed to be poisonous, was found in the
possession of a stranger,—and it was natural that some should have
these things by them for their private use,—they were forced to swallow
a portion of it[140]. By this trying state of privation, distrust and
suspicion, the hatred against the supposed poisoners became greatly
increased, and often broke out in popular commotions, which only served
still further to infuriate the wildest passions. The noble and the
mean, fearlessly bound themselves by an oath, to extirpate the Jews
by fire and sword, and to snatch them from their protectors, of whom
the number was so small, that throughout all Germany, but few places
can be mentioned where these unfortunate people were not regarded as
outlaws and martyred and burnt[141]. Solemn summonses were issued from
Bern to the towns of Basle, Freyburg in the Breisgau, and Strasburg, to
pursue the Jews as poisoners. The Burgomasters and Senators, indeed,
opposed this requisition; but in Basle the populace obliged them to
bind themselves by an oath, to burn the Jews, and to forbid persons of
that community from entering their city, for the space of two hundred
years. Upon this, all the Jews in Basle, whose number could not have
been inconsiderable, were inclosed in a wooden building, constructed
for the purpose, and burnt together with it, upon the mere outcry of
the people, without sentence or trial, which indeed would have availed
them nothing. Soon after, the same thing took place at Freyburg. A
regular Diet was held at Bennefeld, in Alsace, where the bishops, lords
and barons, as also deputies of the counties and towns, consulted how
they should proceed with regard to the Jews; and when the deputies of
Strasburg —not indeed the bishop of this town, who proved himself a
violent fanatic—spoke in favour of the persecuted, as nothing criminal
was substantiated against them; a great outcry was raised, and it was
vehemently asked, why, if so, they had covered their wells and removed
their buckets? A sanguinary decree was resolved upon, of which the
populace, who obeyed the call of the nobles and superior clergy, became
but the too willing executioners[142]. Wherever the Jews were not
burnt, they were at least banished; and so being compelled to wander
about, they fell into the hands of the country people, who without
humanity, and regardless of all laws, persecuted them with fire and
sword. At Spires, the Jews, driven to despair, assembled in their own
habitations, which they set on fire, and thus consumed themselves
with their families. The few that remained were forced to submit to
baptism; while the dead bodies of the murdered, which lay about the
streets, were put into empty wine casks, and rolled into the Rhine,
lest they should infect the air. The mob was forbidden to enter the
ruins of the habitations that were burnt in the Jewish quarter; for the
senate itself caused search to be made for the treasure, which is said
to have been very considerable. At Strasburg, two thousand Jews were
burnt alive in their own burial ground, where a large scaffold had been
erected: a few who promised to embrace Christianity, were spared, and
their children taken from the pile. The youth and beauty of several
females also excited some commiseration; and they were snatched from
death against their will: many, however, who forcibly made their escape
from the flames, were murdered in the streets.

The senate ordered all pledges and bonds to be returned to the debtors,
and divided the money among the work-people[143]. Many, however,
refused to accept the base price of blood, and, indignant at the
scenes of blood-thirsty avarice, which made the infuriated multitude
forget[144] that the plague was raging around them, presented it to
monasteries, in conformity with the advice of their confessors. In all
the countries on the Rhine, these cruelties continued to be perpetrated
during the succeeding months; and after quiet was in some degree
restored, the people thought to render an acceptable service to God, by
taking the bricks of the destroyed dwellings, and the tombstones of the
Jews, to repair churches and to erect belfries[145].

In Mayence alone, 12,000 Jews are said to have been put to a cruel
death. The Flagellants entered that place in August; the Jews, on
this occasion, fell out with the Christians, and killed several; but
when they saw their inability to withstand the increasing superiority
of their enemies, and that nothing could save them from destruction,
they consumed themselves and their families, by setting fire to their
dwellings. Thus also, in other places, the entry of the Flagellants
gave rise to scenes of slaughter; and as thirst for blood was
everywhere combined with an unbridled spirit of proselytism, a fanatic
zeal arose among the Jews, to perish as martyrs to their ancient
religion. And how was it possible, that they could from the heart
embrace Christianity, when its precepts were never more outrageously
violated? At Eslingen, the whole Jewish community burned themselves
in their synagogue[146]; and mothers were often seen throwing their
children on the pile, to prevent their being baptized, and then
precipitating themselves into the flames[147]. In short, whatever
deeds, fanaticism, revenge, avarice and desperation, in fearful
combination, could instigate mankind to perform,—and where in such a
case is the limit?—were executed in the year 1349, throughout Germany,
Italy and France, with impunity, and in the eyes of all the world.
It seemed as if the plague gave rise to scandalous acts and frantic
tumults, not to mourning and grief: and the greater part of those who,
by their education and rank, were called upon to raise the voice of
reason, themselves led on the savage mob to murder and to plunder.
Almost all the Jews who saved their lives by baptism, were afterwards
burnt at different times; for they continued to be accused of poisoning
the water and the air. Christians also, whom philanthropy or gain had
induced to offer them protection, were put on the rack and executed
with them[148]. Many Jews who had embraced Christianity, repented of
their apostacy,—and, returning to their former faith, sealed it with
their death[149].

The humanity and prudence of Clement VI., must, on this occasion,
also be mentioned to his honour; but even the highest ecclesiastical
power was insufficient to restrain the unbridled fury of the people.
He not only protected the Jews at Avignon, as far as lay in his power,
but also issued two bulls, in which he declared them innocent; and
admonished all Christians, though without success, to cease from
such groundless persecutions[150]. The Emperor Charles IV. was also
favourable to them, and sought to avert their destruction, wherever
he could; but he dared not draw the sword of justice, and even found
himself obliged to yield to the selfishness of the Bohemian nobles,
who were unwilling to forego so favourable an opportunity of releasing
themselves from their Jewish creditors, under favour of an imperial
mandate[151]. Duke Albert of Austria burned and pillaged those of his
cities, which had persecuted the Jews,—a vain and inhuman proceeding,
which, moreover, is not exempt from the suspicion of covetousness; yet
he was unable, in his own fortress of Kyberg, to protect some hundreds
of Jews, who had been received there, from being barbarously burnt by
the inhabitants[152]. Several other princes and counts, among whom
was Ruprecht von der Pfalz, took the Jews under their protection on
the payment of large sums: in consequence of which they were called
“Jew-masters,” and were in danger of being attacked by the populace
and by their powerful neighbours[153]. These persecuted and ill-used
people, except indeed where humane individuals took compassion on them
at their own peril, or when they could command riches to purchase
protection, had no place of refuge left but the distant country
of Lithuania, where Boleslav V., Duke of Poland (1227–1279), had
before granted them liberty of conscience; and King Casimir the Great
(1333–1370), yielding to the entreaties of Esther, a favourite Jewess,
received them, and granted them further protection[154]: on which
account, that country is still inhabited by a great number of Jews,
who by their secluded habits, have, more than any people in Europe,
retained the manners of the middle ages.

But to return to the fearful accusations against the Jews; it was
reported in all Europe, that they were in connexion with secret
superiors in Toledo, to whose decrees they were subject, and from
whom they had received commands respecting the coining of base money,
poisoning, the murder of Christian children, &c.[155]; that they
received the poison by sea from remote parts, and also prepared it
themselves from spiders, owls and other venomous animals; but, in
order that their secret might not be discovered, that it was known
only to the Rabbis and rich men[156]. Apparently there were but few
who did not consider this extravagant accusation well founded; indeed,
in many writings of the 14th century, we find great acrimony with
regard to the suspected poison mixers, which plainly demonstrates the
prejudice existing against them. Unhappily, after the confessions of
the first victims in Switzerland, the rack extorted similar ones in
various places. Some even acknowledged having received poisonous powder
in bags, and injunctions from Toledo, by secret messengers. Bags of
this description were also often found in wells, though it was not
unfrequently discovered that the Christians themselves had thrown them
in; probably to give occasion to murder and pillage; similar instances
of which may be found in the persecutions of the witches[157].

This picture needs no additions. A lively image of the Black Plague,
and of the moral evil which followed in its train, will vividly
represent itself to him who is acquainted with nature and the
constitution of society. Almost the only credible accounts of the
manner of living, and of the ruin which occurred in private life,
during this pestilence, are from Italy; and these may enable us to form
a just estimate of the general state of families in Europe, taking into
consideration what is peculiar in the manners of each country.

“When the evil had become universal,” (speaking of Florence,) “the
hearts of all the inhabitants were closed to feelings of humanity.
They fled from the sick and all that belonged to them, hoping by these
means to save themselves. Others shut themselves up in their houses,
with their wives, their children and households, living on the most
costly food, but carefully avoiding all excess. None were allowed
access to them; no intelligence of death or sickness was permitted
to reach their ears; and they spent their time in singing and music,
and other pastimes. Others, on the contrary, considered eating and
drinking to excess, amusements of all descriptions, the indulgence of
every gratification, and an indifference to what was passing around
them, as the best medicine, and acted accordingly. They wandered day
and night, from one tavern to another, and feasted without moderation
or bounds. In this way they endeavoured to avoid all contact with the
sick, and abandoned their houses and property to chance, like men whose
death-knell had already tolled.

“Amid this general lamentation and woe, the influence and authority
of every law, human and divine, vanished. Most of those who were in
office, had been carried off by the plague, or lay sick, or had lost
so many members of their families, that they were unable to attend
to their duties; so that thenceforth every one acted as he thought
proper. Others, in their mode of living, chose a middle course.
They ate and drank what they pleased, and walked abroad, carrying
odoriferous flowers, herbs or spices, which they smelt to from time
to time, in order to invigorate the brain, and to avert the baneful
influence of the air, infected by the sick, and by the innumerable
corpses of those who had died of the plague. Others carried their
precaution still further, and thought the surest way to escape death
was by flight. They therefore left the city; women as well as men
abandoning their dwellings and their relations, and retiring into the
country. But of these also, many were carried off, most of them alone
and deserted by all the world, themselves having previously set the
example. Thus it was, that one citizen fled from another—a neighbour
from his neighbours—a relation from his relations; and in the end, so
completely had terror extinguished every kindlier feeling, that the
brother forsook the brother—the sister the sister—the wife her husband;
and at last, even the parent his own offspring, and abandoned them,
unvisited and unsoothed, to their fate. Those, therefore, that stood
in need of assistance fell a prey to greedy attendants; who for an
exorbitant recompense, merely handed the sick their food and medicine,
remained with them in their last moments, and then not unfrequently,
became themselves victims to their avarice and lived not to enjoy
their extorted gain. Propriety and decorum were extinguished among
the helpless sick. Females of rank seemed to forget their natural
bashfulness, and committed the care of their persons, indiscriminately,
to men and women of the lowest order. No longer were women, relatives
or friends, found in the house of mourning, to share the grief of
the survivors—no longer was the corpse accompanied to the grave by
neighbours and a numerous train of priests, carrying wax tapers and
singing psalms, nor was it borne along by other citizens of equal rank.
Many breathed their last without a friend to sooth their dying pillow;
and few indeed were they who departed amid the lamentations and tears
of their friends and kindred. Instead of sorrow and mourning, appeared
indifference, frivolity and mirth; this being considered, especially
by the females, as conducive to health. Seldom was the body followed
by even ten or twelve attendants; and instead of the usual bearers and
sextons, mercenaries of the lowest of the populace undertook the office
for the sake of gain; and accompanied by only a few priests, and often
without a single taper, it was borne to the very nearest church, and
lowered into the first grave that was not already too full to receive
it. Among the middling classes, and especially among the poor, the
misery was still greater. Poverty or negligence induced most of these
to remain in their dwellings, or in the immediate neighbourhood; and
thus they fell by thousands: and many ended their lives in the streets,
by day and by night. The stench of putrefying corpses was often the
first indication to their neighbours that more deaths had occurred. The
survivors, to preserve themselves from infection, generally had the
bodies taken out of the houses, and laid before the doors; where the
early morn found them in heaps, exposed to the affrighted gaze of the
passing stranger. It was no longer possible to have a bier for every
corpse,—three or four were generally laid together—husband and wife,
father and mother, with two or three children, were frequently borne
to the grave on the same bier; and it often happened that two priests
would accompany a coffin, bearing the cross before it, and be joined on
the way by several other funerals; so that instead of one, there were
five or six bodies for interment.”

Thus far Boccacio. On the conduct of the priests, another contemporary
observes[158]: “In large and small towns, they had withdrawn themselves
through fear, leaving the performance of ecclesiastical duties to the
few who were found courageous and faithful enough to undertake them.”
But we ought not on that account to throw more blame on them than on
others; for we find proofs of the same timidity and heartlessness in
every class. During the prevalence of the Black Plague, the charitable
orders conducted themselves admirably, and did as much good as can be
done by individual bodies, in times of great misery and destruction;
when compassion, courage, and the nobler feelings, are found but in the
few, while cowardice, selfishness and ill-will, with the baser passions
in their train, assert the supremacy. In place of virtue, which had
been driven from the earth, wickedness everywhere reared her rebellious
standard, and succeeding generations were consigned to the dominion of
her baleful tyranny.




                              CHAPTER VI.

                              PHYSICIANS.


If we now turn to the medical talent which encountered the “_Great
Mortality_,” the middle ages must stand excused, since even the
moderns are of opinion that the art of medicine is not able to cope
with the Oriental plague, and can afford deliverance from it only
under particularly favourable circumstances[159]. We must bear in mind
also, that human science and art appear particularly weak in great
pestilences, because they have to contend with the powers of nature, of
which they have no knowledge; and which, if they had been, or could be
comprehended in their collective effects, would remain uncontrollable
by them, principally on account of the disordered condition of human
society. Moreover, every new plague has its peculiarities, which are
the less easily discovered on first view, because, during its ravages,
fear and consternation humble the proud spirit.

The physicians of the 14th century, during the Black Death, did what
human intellect could do in the actual condition of the healing art;
and their knowledge of the disease was by no means despicable. They,
like the rest of mankind, have indulged in prejudices, and defended
them, perhaps, with too much obstinacy; some of these, however, were
founded on the mode of thinking of the age, and passed current in those
days, as established truths: others continue to exist to the present
hour.

Their successors in the 19th century, ought not therefore to vaunt
too highly the pre-eminence of their knowledge, for they too will be
subjected to the severe judgment of posterity—they too, will, with
reason, be accused of human weakness and want of foresight.

The medical faculty of Paris, the most celebrated of the 14th century,
were commissioned to deliver their opinion on the causes of the Black
Plague, and to furnish some appropriate regulations with regard to
living, during its prevalence. This document is sufficiently remarkable
to find a place here.

“We, the Members of the College of Physicians of Paris, have, after
mature consideration and consultation on the present mortality,
collected the advice of our old masters in the art, and intend to make
known the causes of this pestilence, more clearly than could be done
according to the rules and principles of astrology and natural science;
we, therefore, declare as follows:—

“It is known that in India, and the vicinity of the Great Sea, the
constellations which combated the rays of the sun, and the warmth of
the heavenly fire, exerted their power especially against that sea, and
struggled violently with its waters. (Hence, vapours often originate
which envelope the sun, and convert his light into darkness.) These
vapours alternately rose and fell for twenty-eight days; but at last,
sun and fire acted so powerfully upon the sea, that they attracted a
great portion of it to themselves, and the waters of the ocean arose
in the form of vapour; thereby the waters were, in some parts, so
corrupted, that the fish which they contained, died. These corrupted
waters, however, the heat of the sun could not consume, neither could
other wholesome water, hail or snow, and dew, originate therefrom. On
the contrary, this vapour spread itself through the air in many places
on the earth, and enveloped them in fog.

“Such was the case all over Arabia, in a part of India; in Crete; in
the plains and valleys of Macedonia; in Hungary, Albania and Sicily.
Should the same thing occur in Sardinia, not a man will be left alive;
and the like will continue, so long as the sun remains in the sign
of Leo, on all the islands and adjoining countries to which this
corrupted sea-wind extends, or has already extended from India. If the
inhabitants of those parts do not employ and adhere to the following,
or similar means and precepts, we announce to them inevitable
death—except the grace of Christ preserve their lives.

“We are of opinion, that the constellations, with the aid of Nature,
strive, by virtue of their divine might, to protect and heal the human
race; and to this end, in union with the rays of the sun, acting
through the power of fire, endeavour to break through the mist.
Accordingly, within the next ten days, and until the 17th of the
ensuing month of July, this mist will be converted into a stinking
deleterious rain, whereby the air will be much purified. Now, as soon
as this rain shall announce itself, by thunder or hail, every one of
you should protect himself from the air; and, as well before as after
the rain, kindle a large fire of vine-wood, green laurel, or other
green wood; wormwood and chamomile should also be burnt in great
quantity in the market-places, in other densely inhabited localities,
and in the houses. Until the earth is again completely dry, and for
three days afterwards, no one ought to go abroad in the fields. During
this time the diet should be simple, and people should be cautious
in avoiding exposure in the cool of the evening, at night, and in
the morning. Poultry and water-fowl, young pork, old beef, and fat
meat, in general, should not be eaten; but on the contrary, meat of
a proper age, of a warm and dry, but on no account of a heating and
exciting nature. Broth should be taken, seasoned with ground pepper,
ginger and cloves, especially by those who are accustomed to live
temperately, and are yet choice in their diet. Sleep in the day-time
is detrimental; it should be taken at night until sunrise, or somewhat
longer. At breakfast, one should drink little; supper should be taken
an hour before sunset, when more may be drunk than in the morning.
Clear light wine, mixed with a fifth or sixth part of water, should
be used as a beverage. Dried or fresh fruits, with wine, are not
injurious; but highly so without it. Beet-root and other vegetables,
whether eaten pickled or fresh, are hurtful; on the contrary, spicy
pot-herbs, as sage or rosemary, are wholesome. Cold, moist, watery
food is in general prejudicial. Going out at night, and even until
three o’clock in the morning, is dangerous, on account of the dew. Only
small river fish should be used. Too much exercise is hurtful. The body
should be kept warmer than usual, and thus protected from moisture
and cold. Rain-water must not be employed in cooking, and every one
should guard against exposure to wet weather. If it rain, a little fine
treacle should be taken after dinner. Fat people should not sit in the
sunshine. Good clear wine should be selected and drunk often, but in
small quantities, by day. Olive oil as an article of food, is fatal.
Equally injurious are fasting and excessive abstemiousness, anxiety
of mind, anger, and immoderate drinking. Young people, in autumn
especially, must abstain from all these things, if they do not wish to
run a risk of dying of dysentery. In order to keep the body properly
open, an enema, or some other simple means, should be employed, when
necessary. Bathing is injurious. Men must preserve chastity as they
value their lives. Every one should impress this on his recollection,
but especially those who reside on the coast, or upon an island into
which the noxious wind has penetrated.”[160]

On what occasion these strange precepts were delivered can no longer
be ascertained, even if it were an object to know it. It must be
acknowledged, however, that they do not redound to the credit either
of the faculty of Paris, or of the 14th century in general. This
famous faculty found themselves under the painful necessity of being
wise at command, and of firing a point blank shot of erudition at an
enemy who enveloped himself in a dark mist, of the nature of which
they had no conception. In concealing their ignorance by authoritative
assertions, they suffered themselves, therefore, to be misled; and
while endeavouring to appear to the world with eclat, only betrayed to
the intelligent their lamentable weakness. Now some might suppose, that
in the condition of the sciences of the 14th century, no intelligent
physicians existed; but this is altogether at variance with the laws of
human advancement, and is contradicted by history. The real knowledge
of an age is shewn only in the archives of its literature. Here alone
the genius of truth speaks audibly:—here alone men of talent deposit
the results of their experience and reflection, without vanity or a
selfish object. There is no ground for believing that, in the 14th
century, men of this kind were publicly questioned regarding their
views; and it is, therefore, the more necessary that impartial history
should take up their cause and do justice to their merits.

The first notice on this subject is due to a very celebrated teacher
in Perugia, Gentilis of Foligno, who, on the 18th of June, 1348,
fell a sacrifice to the plague, in the faithful discharge of his
duty[161]. Attached to Arabian doctrines, and to the universally
respected Galen, he, in common with all his contemporaries, believed
in a putrid corruption of the blood in the lungs and in the heart,
which was occasioned by the pestilential atmosphere, and was forthwith
communicated to the whole body. He thought, therefore, that every thing
depended upon a sufficient purification of the air, by means of large
blazing fires of odoriferous wood, in the vicinity of the healthy, as
well as of the sick, and also upon an appropriate manner of living;
so that the putridity might not overpower the diseased. In conformity
with notions derived from the ancients, he depended upon bleeding
and purging, at the commencement of the attack, for the purpose of
purification; ordered the healthy to wash themselves frequently with
vinegar or wine, to sprinkle their dwellings with vinegar, and to
smell often to camphor, or other volatile substances. Hereupon he
gave, after the Arabian fashion, detailed rules, with an abundance of
different medicines, of whose healing powers wonderful things were
believed. He laid little stress upon super-lunar influences, so far as
respected the malady itself; on which account, he did not enter into
the great controversies of the astrologers, but always kept in view,
as an object of medical attention, the corruption of the blood in the
lungs and heart. He believed in a progressive infection from country
to country, according to the notions of the present day; and the
contagious power of the disease, even in the vicinity of those affected
by plague, was, in his opinion, beyond all doubt[162]. On this point,
intelligent contemporaries were all agreed; and in truth, it required
no great genius to be convinced of so palpable a fact. Besides,
correct notions of contagion have descended from remote antiquity,
and were maintained unchanged in the 14th century[163]. So far back
as the age of Plato, a knowledge of the contagious power of malignant
inflammations of the eye, of which also no physician of the middle ages
entertained a doubt[164], was general among the people[165]; yet, in
modern times, surgeons have filled volumes with partial controversies
on this subject. The whole language of antiquity has adapted itself to
the notions of the people, respecting the contagion of pestilential
diseases; and their terms were, beyond comparison, more expressive than
those in use among the moderns[166].

Arrangements for the protection of the healthy against contagious
diseases, the necessity of which is shewn from these notions, were
regarded by the ancients as useful; and by many, whose circumstances
permitted it, were carried into effect in their houses. Even a total
separation of the sick from the healthy, that indispensable means of
protection against infection by contact, was proposed by physicians
of the 2nd century after Christ, in order to check the spreading of
leprosy. But it was decidedly opposed, because, as it was alleged,
the healing art ought not to be guilty of such harshness[167]. This
mildness of the ancients, in whose manner of thinking inhumanity was
so often and so undisguisedly conspicuous, might excite surprise, if
it were any thing more than apparent. The true ground of the neglect
of public protection against pestilential diseases, lay in the general
notion and constitution of human society,—it lay in the disregard of
human life, of which the great nations of antiquity have given proofs
in every page of their history. Let it not be supposed that they wanted
knowledge respecting the propagation of contagious diseases. On the
contrary, they were as well informed on this subject as the moderns;
but this was shewn where individual property, not where human life, on
the grand scale, was to be protected. Hence the ancients made a general
practice of arresting the progress of murrains among cattle, by a
separation of the diseased from the healthy. Their herds alone enjoyed
that protection which they held it impracticable to extend to human
society, because they had no wish to do so[168]. That the governments
in the 14th century, were not yet so far advanced, as to put into
practice general regulations for checking the plague, needs no especial
proof. Physicians could, therefore, only advise public purifications of
the air by means of large fires, as had often been practised in ancient
times; and they were obliged to leave it to individual families,
either to seek safety in flight, or to shut themselves up in their
dwellings[169], a method which answers in common plagues, but which
here afforded no complete security, because such was the fury of the
disease when it was at its height, that the atmosphere of whole cities
was penetrated by the infection.

Of the astral influence which was considered to have originated the
“_Great Mortality_,” physicians and learned men were as completely
convinced as of the fact of its reality. A grand conjunction of the
three superior planets, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, in the sign of
Aquarius, which took place, according to Guy de Chauliac, on the 24th
of March, 1345, was generally received as its principal cause. In
fixing the day, this physician, who was deeply versed in astrology,
did not agree with others; whereupon there arose various disputations,
of weight in that age, but of none in ours; people, however, agreed
in this—that conjunctions of the planets infallibly prognosticated
great events; great revolutions of kingdoms, new prophets, destructive
plagues, and other occurrences which bring distress and horror on
mankind. No medical author of the 14th and 15th centuries omits an
opportunity of representing them as among the general prognostics
of great plagues; nor can we, for our parts, regard the astrology
of the middle ages, as a mere offspring of superstition. It has not
only, in common with all ideas which inspire and guide mankind, a
high historical importance, entirely independent of its error or
truth—for the influence of both is equally powerful—but there are also
contained in it, as in alchymy, grand thoughts of antiquity, of which
modern natural philosophy is so little ashamed that she claims them as
her property. Foremost among these, is the idea of the general life
which diffuses itself throughout the whole universe, expressed by the
greatest Greek sages, and transmitted to the middle ages, through the
new Platonic natural philosophy. To this impression of an universal
organism, the assumption of a reciprocal influence of terrestrial
bodies could not be foreign[170], nor did this cease to correspond with
a higher view of nature, until astrologers overstepped the limits of
human knowledge with frivolous and mystical calculations.

Guy de Chauliac, considers the influence of the conjunction, which was
held to be all-potent, as the chief general cause of the Black Plague;
and the diseased state of bodies, the corruption of the fluids,
debility, obstruction, and so forth, as the especial subordinate
causes[171]. By these, according to his opinion, the quality of
the air, and of the other elements, was so altered, that they set
poisonous fluids in motion towards the inward parts of the body, in
the same manner as the magnet attracts iron; whence there arose in the
commencement fever and the spitting of blood; afterwards, however, a
deposition in the form of glandular swellings and inflammatory boils.
Herein the notion of an epidemic constitution was set forth clearly,
and conformably to the spirit of the age. Of contagion, Guy de Chauliac
was completely convinced. He sought to protect himself against it by
the usual means[172]; and it was probably he who advised Pope Clement
VI. to shut himself up while the plague lasted. The preservation of
this pope’s life, however, was most beneficial to the city of Avignon,
for he loaded the poor with judicious acts of kindness, took care to
have proper attendants provided, and paid physicians himself to afford
assistance wherever human aid could avail—an advantage which, perhaps,
no other city enjoyed[173]. Nor was the treatment of plague-patients
in Avignon by any means objectionable; for, after the usual depletions
by bleeding and aperients, where circumstances required them, they
endeavoured to bring the buboes to suppuration; they made incisions
into the inflammatory boils, or burned them with a red-hot iron, a
practice which at all times proves salutary, and in the Black Plague
saved many lives. In this city, the Jews, who lived in a state of the
greatest filth, were most severely visited, as also the Spaniards, whom
Chalin accuses of great intemperance[174].

Still more distinct notions on the causes of the plague were stated
to his contemporaries in the 14th century, by Galeazzo di Santa
Sofia, a learned man, a native of Padua, who likewise treated
plague-patients at Vienna[175], though in what year is undetermined.
He distinguishes carefully _pestilence_ from _epidemy_ and _endemy_.
The common notion of the two first accords exactly with that of an
epidemic constitution, for both consist, according to him, in an
unknown change or corruption of the air; with this difference, that
_pestilence_ calls forth diseases of different kinds; _epidemy_, on
the contrary, always the same disease. As an example of an _epidemy_,
he adduces a cough (influenza) which was observed in all climates
at the same time, without perceptible cause; but he recognised the
approach of a _pestilence_, independently of unusual natural phenomena,
by the more frequent occurrence of various kinds of fever, to which
the modern physicians would assign a nervous and putrid character.
The _endemy_ originates, according to him, only in local telluric
changes—in deleterious influences which develop themselves in the
earth and in the water, without a corruption of the air. These notions
were variously jumbled together in his time, like every thing which
human understanding separates by too fine a line of limitation.
The estimation of cosmical influences, however, in the _epidemy_
and _pestilence_, is well worthy of commendation; and Santa Sofia,
in this respect, not only agrees with the most intelligent persons
of the 14th and 15th centuries, but he has also promulgated an
opinion which must, even now, serve as a foundation for our scarcely
commenced investigations into cosmical influences[176]. _Pestilence_
and _epidemy_, consist not in alterations of the four primary
qualities[177], but in a corruption of the air, powerful, though quite
immaterial, and not cognoscible by the senses:—(corruptio aëris non
substantialis, sed qualitativa) in a disproportion of the imponderables
in the atmosphere, as it would be expressed by the moderns[178]. The
causes of the _pestilence_ and _epidemy_ are, first of all, astral
influences, especially on occasion of planetary conjunctions; then
extensive putrefaction of animal and vegetable bodies, and terrestrial
corruptions (corruptio in terra); to which also, bad diet and want may
contribute. Santa Sofia considers the putrefaction of locusts, that had
perished in the sea, and were again thrown up, combined with astral and
terrestrial influences, as the cause of the pestilence in the eventful
year of the “_Great Mortality_.”

All the fevers which were called forth by the _pestilence_, are,
according to him, of the putrid kind; for they originate principally
from putridity of the heart’s blood, which inevitably follows the
inhalation of infected air. The Oriental Plague is, sometimes, but by
no means always, occasioned by _pestilence_ (?), which imparts to it
a character (qualitas occulta) hostile to human nature. It originates
frequently from other causes, among which, this physician was aware
that contagion was to be reckoned; and it deserves to be remarked, that
he held epidemic small-pox and measles to be infallible forerunners of
the plague, as do the physicians and people of the East[179], at the
present day.

In the exposition of his therapeutical views of the plague, a clearness
of intellect is again shewn by Santa Sofia, which reflects credit on
the age. It seemed to him to depend, 1st, on an evacuation of putrid
matters, by purgatives and bleeding: yet he did not sanction the
employment of these means indiscriminately, and without consideration;
least of all where the condition of the blood was healthy. He also
declared himself decidedly against bleeding ad deliquium (venæ sectio
eradicativa). 2d, Strengthening of the heart and prevention of
putrescence. 3d, Appropriate regimen. 4th, Improvement of the air.
5th, Appropriate treatment of tumid glands and inflammatory boils,
with emollient, or even stimulating poultices (mustard, lily-bulbs),
as well as with red-hot gold and iron. Lastly, 6th, Attention to
prominent symptoms. The stores of the Arabian pharmacy, which he
brought into action to meet all these indications, were indeed very
considerable; it is to be observed, however, that, for the most part,
gentle means were accumulated, which, in case of abuse, would do no
harm; for the character of the Arabian system of medicine, whose
principles were everywhere followed at this time, was mildness and
caution. On this account too, we cannot believe that a very prolix
treatise by Marsigli di Santa Sofia[180], a contemporary relative of
Galeazzo, on the prevention and treatment of plague, can have caused
much harm, although, perhaps, even in the 14th century, an agreeable
latitude and confident assertions respecting things which no mortal
has investigated, or which it is quite a matter of indifference to
distinguish, were considered as proofs of a valuable practical talent.

The agreement of contemporary and later writers, shews that the
published views of the most celebrated physicians of the 14th century,
were those generally adopted. Among these, Chalin de Vinario is
the most experienced. Though devoted to astrology, still more than
his distinguished contemporary, he acknowledges the great power of
terrestrial influences, and expresses himself very sensibly on the
indisputable doctrine of contagion, endeavouring thereby to apologize
for many surgeons and physicians of his time, who neglected their
duty[181]. He asserted boldly, and with truth, “_that all epidemic
diseases might become contagious[182], and all fevers epidemic_,” which
attentive observers of all subsequent ages have confirmed.

He delivered his sentiments on blood-letting with sagacity, as an
experienced physician; yet he was unable, as may be imagined, to
moderate the desire for bleeding shewn by the ignorant monks. He was
averse to draw blood from the veins of patients under fourteen years
of age; but counteracted inflammatory excitement in them by cupping;
and endeavoured to moderate the inflammation of the tumid glands by
leeches[183]. Most of those who were bled, died; he therefore reserved
this remedy for the plethoric; especially for the papal courtiers,
and the hypocritical priests, whom he saw gratifying their sensual
desires, and imitating Epicurus, whilst they pompously pretended to
follow Christ[184]. He recommended burning the boils with a red-hot
iron, only in the plague without fever, which occurred in single
cases[185]; and was always ready to correct those over-hasty surgeons,
who, with fire and violent remedies, did irremediable injury to their
patients[186]. Michael Savonarola, professor in Ferrara (1462),
reasoning on the susceptibility of the human frame to the influence of
pestilential infection, as the cause of such various modifications of
disease, expresses himself as a modern physician would on this point;
and an adoption of the principle of contagion was the foundation of
his definition of the plague[187]. No less worthy of observation are
the views of the celebrated Valescus of Taranta, who, during the final
visitation of the Black Death, in 1382, practised as a physician at
Montpellier, and handed down to posterity what has been repeated in
innumerable treatises on plague, which were written during the 15th and
16th centuries[188].

Of all these notions and views regarding the plague, whose development
we have represented, there are two especially, which are prominent in
historical importance:—1st, The opinion of learned physicians, that the
_pestilence_, or epidemic constitution, is the _parent of various kinds
of disease_; that the plague sometimes, indeed, but by no means always,
originates from it: that, to speak in the language of the moderns, _the
pestilence_ bears the same relation to contagion, that a predisposing
cause does to an occasional cause: and 2dly, the universal conviction
of the contagious power of that disease.

Contagion gradually attracted more notice: it was thought that in it,
the most powerful occasional cause might be avoided; the possibility of
protecting whole cities by separation, became gradually more evident;
and so horrifying was the recollection of the eventful year of the
“_Great Mortality_,” that before the close of the 14th century, ere
the ill effects of the Black Plague had ceased, nations endeavoured to
guard against the return of this enemy, by an earnest and effectual
defence.

The first regulation which was issued for this purpose, originated
with Viscount Bernabo, and is dated the 17th Jan. 1374. “Every
plague-patient was to be taken out of the city into the fields, there
to die or to recover. Those who attended upon a plague-patient, were
to remain apart for ten days, before they again associated with
any body. The priests were to examine the diseased, and point out
to special commissioners the persons infected; under punishment of
the confiscation of their goods, and of being burned alive. Whoever
imported the plague, the state condemned his goods to confiscation.
Finally, none except those who were appointed for that purpose, were to
attend plague-patients, under penalty of death and confiscation[189].”

These orders, in correspondence with the spirit of the 14th century,
are sufficiently decided to indicate a recollection of the good effects
of confinement, and of keeping at a distance those suspected of having
plague. It was said that Milan itself, by a rigorous barricado of three
houses in which the plague had broken out, maintained itself free from
the “_Great Mortality_,” for a considerable time[190]; and examples
of the preservation of individual families, by means of a strict
separation, were certainly very frequent. That these orders must have
caused universal affliction from their uncommon severity, as we know
to have been especially the case in the city of Reggio, may be easily
conceived; but Bernabo did not suffer himself to be deterred from his
purpose by fear—on the contrary, when the plague returned in the year
1383, he forbad the admission of people from infected places into his
territories, on pain of death[191]. We have now, it is true, no account
how far he succeeded; yet it is to be supposed that he arrested the
disease, for it had long lost the property of the Black Death, to
spread abroad in the air the contagious matter which proceeded from the
lungs, charged with putridity, and to taint the atmosphere of whole
cities by the vast numbers of the sick. Now that it had resumed its
milder form, so that it infected only by contact, it admitted being
confined within individual dwellings, as easily as in modern times.

Bernabo’s example was imitated; nor was there any century more
appropriate for recommending to governments strong regulations against
the plague, than the 14th; for when it broke out in Italy, in the year
1399, and still demanded new victims, it was for the 16th time; without
reckoning frequent visitations of measles and small-pox. In this same
year, Viscount John, in milder terms than his predecessor, ordered that
no stranger should be admitted from infected places, and that the city
gates should be strictly guarded. Infected houses were to be ventilated
for at least eight or ten days, and purified from noxious vapours
by fires, and by fumigations with balsamic and aromatic substances.
Straw, rags, and the like, were to be burned; and the bedsteads which
had been used, set out for four days in the rain or the sunshine, so
that, by means of the one or the other, the morbific vapour might be
destroyed. No one was to venture to make use of clothes or beds out of
infected dwellings, unless they had been previously washed and dried
either at the fire or in the sun. People were, likewise, to avoid,
as long as possible, occupying houses which had been frequented by
plague-patients[192].

We cannot precisely perceive in these an advance towards general
regulations; and perhaps people were convinced of the insurmountable
impediments which opposed the separation of open inland countries,
where bodies of people connected together could not be brought, even
by the most obdurate severity, to renounce the habit of a profitable
intercourse.

Doubtless it is nature which has done the most to banish the Oriental
plague from western Europe, where the increasing cultivation of the
earth, and the advancing order in civilized society, have prevented it
from remaining domesticated; which it most probably was in the more
ancient times.

In the 15th century, during which it broke out seventeen times in
different places in Europe[193], it was of the more consequence to
oppose a barrier to its entrance from Asia, Africa, and Greece (which
had become Turkish); for it would have been difficult for it to
maintain itself indigenously any longer. Among the southern commercial
states, however, which were called on to make the greatest exertions to
this end, it was principally Venice, formerly so severely attacked by
the Black Plague, that put the necessary restraint upon the perilous
profits of the merchant. Until towards the end of the 15th century, the
very considerable intercourse with the East was free and unimpeded.
Ships of commercial cities had often brought over the plague: nay, the
former irruption of the “_Great Mortality_” itself had been occasioned
by navigators. For, as in the latter end of Autumn, 1347, four ships
full of plague-patients returned from the Levant to Genoa, the disease
spread itself there with astonishing rapidity. On this account, in the
following year, the Genoese forbad the entrance of suspected ships into
their port. These sailed to Pisa and other cities on the coast, where
already nature had made such mighty preparations for the reception of
the Black Plague, and what we have already described took place in
consequence[194].

In the year 1485, when, among the cities of northern Italy, Milan
especially felt the scourge of the plague, a special council of
health, consisting of three nobles, was established at Venice, who
probably tried every thing in their power to prevent the entrance of
this disease, and gradually called into activity all those regulations
which have served in later times as a pattern for the other southern
states of Europe. Their endeavours were, however, not crowned with
complete success; on which account their powers were increased, in the
year 1504, by granting them the right of life and death over those who
violated the regulations[195]. Bills of health were probably first
introduced in the year 1527, during a fatal plague[196] which visited
Italy for five years (1525–30), and called forth redoubled caution.

The first lazarettos were established upon islands at some distance
from the city, seemingly as early as the year 1485. Here all strangers
coming from places where the existence of plague was suspected were
detained. If it appeared in the city itself, the sick were despatched
with their families to what was called the Old Lazaretto, were there
furnished with provisions and medicines, and, when they were cured,
were detained, together with all those who had had intercourse with
them, still forty days longer in the New Lazaretto, situated on another
island. All these regulations were every year improved, and their
needful rigour was increased, so that from the year 1585 onwards, no
appeal was allowed from the sentence of the Council of Health; and
the other commercial nations gradually came to the support of the
Venetians, by adopting corresponding regulations[197]. Bills of health,
however, were not general until the year 1665[198].

The appointment of a forty days’ detention, whence quarantines derive
their name, was not dictated by caprice, but probably had a medical
origin, which is derivable in part from the doctrine of critical
days; for the fortieth day, according to the most ancient notions,
has been always regarded as the last of ardent diseases, and the
limit of separation between these and those which are chronic. It was
the custom to subject lying-in women for forty days to a more exact
superintendence. There was a good deal also said in medical works of
forty day epochs in the formation of the fœtus, not to mention that
the alchymists expected more durable revolutions in forty days, which
period they called the philosophical month.

This period being generally held to prevail in natural processes, it
appeared reasonable to assume, and legally to establish it, as that
required for the development of latent principles of contagion, since
public regulations cannot dispense with decisions of this kind, even
though they should not be wholly justified by the nature of the case.
Great stress has likewise been laid on theological and legal grounds,
which were certainly of greater weight in the fifteenth century than in
more modern times[199].

On this matter, however, we cannot decide, since our only object here
is to point out the origin of a political means of protection against a
disease, which has been the greatest impediment to civilization within
the memory of man; a means, that, like Jenner’s vaccine, after the
small-pox had ravaged Europe for twelve hundred years, has diminished
the check which mortality puts on the progress of civilization, and
thus given to the life and manners of the nations of this part of the
world a new direction, the result of which we cannot foretell.




                               APPENDIX.



                                  I.

                         Das alte Geisslerlied

     NACH MASSMANN’S AUSGABE VON HERRN PROFESSOR LACHMANN MIT DER
                        HANDSCHRIFT VERGLICHEN.

    Sve siner sele wille pleghen
    De sal gelden unde weder geuen
    So wert siner sele raed
    Des help uns leue herre goed
      Nu tredet here we botsen wille             5
    Vle wi io de hetsen helle
    Lucifer is en bose geselle
    Sven her hauet
    Mit peke he en lauet
    Datz vle wi ef wir hauen sin                10
    Des help uns maria koninghin
    Das wir dines kindes hulde win
      Jesus crist de wart ge vanghen
    An en cruce wart he ge hanghen
    Dat cruce wart des blodes rod               15
    Wer klaghen sin marter unde sin dod
    Sunder war mide wilt tu mi lonen
    Dre negele unde en dornet crone
    Das cruce vrone en sper en stich
    Sunder datz leyd ich dor dich               20
    Was wltu nu liden dor mich
    So rope wir herre mit luden done
    Unsen denst den nem to lone
    Be hode uns vor der helle nod
    Des bidde wi dich dor dinen dod             25
    Dor god vor gete wi unse blot
    Dat is uns tho den suden guot
      Maria muoter koninginghe
    Dor dines leuen kindes minne
    Al unse nod si dir ghe klaghet              30
    Des help uns moter maghet reyne.
    De erde beuet och kleuen de steyne
    Lebe hertze du salt weyne
    Wir wenen trene mit den oghen
    Unde hebben des so guden louen              35
    Mit unsen sinnen unde mit hertzen
    Dor uns leyd crist vil manighen smertzen
      Nu slaed w sere
    Dor cristus ere.
    Dor god nu latet de sunde mere              40
    Dor god nu latet de sunde varen
    Se wil sich god ouer uns en barmen
      Maria stund in grotzen noden
    Do se ire leue kint sa doden
    En svert dor ire sele snet                  45
    Sunder dat la di wesen led
      In korter vrist
    God tornich ist
    Jesus wart gelauet mid gallen
    Des sole wi an en cruce vallen              50
    Er heuet uch mit uwen armen
    Dat sic god ouer uns en barme
    Jesus dorch dine namen dry
    Nu make uns hir van sunde vry
    Jesus dor dine wnden rod                    55
    Be hod uns vor den gehen dod
    Dat he sende sinen geist
    Und uns dat kortelike leist
      De vrowe unde man ir e tobreken
    Dat wil god selven an en wreken             60
    Sveuel pik und och de galle
    Dat gutet de duuel in se alle
    Vor war sint se des duuels spot
    Dor vor behode uns herre god
    De e de ist en reyne leuen                  65
    De had uns god selven gheuen
      Ich rade uch vrowen unde mannen
    Dor god gy solen houard annen
    Des biddet uch de arme sele
    Dorch god nu latet houard mere              70
    Dor god nu latet houard varen
    So wil sich god ouer uns en barmen
      Cristus rep in hemelrike
    Sinen engelen al gelike
    De cristenheit wil mi ent wichen            75
    Des wil lan och se vor gaen
    Marie bat ire kint so sere
    Leue kint la se di boten
    Dat wil ich sceppen dat se moten
    Bekeren sich.                               80
    Des bidde ich dich
      Gi logenere
    Gy meynen ed sverer
    Gi bichten reyne und lan de sunde uch ruwen
    So wil sich god in uch vor nuwen            85
    Owe du arme wokerere
    Du bringest en lod up en punt
    Dat senket din an der helle grunt
      Ir morder und ir straten rouere
    Ir sint dem leuen gode un mere              90
    Ir ne wilt uch ouer nemende barmen
    Des sin gy eweliken vor loren
      Were dusse bote nicht ge worden
    De cristenheit wer gar vorsunden
    De leyde duuel had se ge bunden             95
    Maria had lost unsen bant
      Sunder ich saghe di leue mere
    Sunte peter is portenere
    Wende dich an en he letset dich in
    He bringhet dich vor de koninghin          100
      Leue herre sunte Michahel
    Du bist en plegher aller sel
    Be hode uns vor der helle nod
    Dat do dor dines sceppers dod.


                 The Ancient Song of the Flagellants.

           ACCORDING TO MASSMANN’S EDITION COMPARED WITH THE
                      MS. BY PROFESSOR LACHMANN.

                           (_Translation._)

    Whoe’er to save his soul is fain,
    Must pay and render back again.
    His safety so shall he consult:
    Help us, good Lord, to this result.
    Ye that repent your crimes, draw nigh.       5
    From the burning hell we fly,
    From Satan’s wicked company.
    Whom he leads
    With pitch he feeds.
    If we be wise we this shall flee.           10
    Maria! Queen! we trust in thee,
    To move thy Son to sympathy.
    Jesus Christ was captive led,
    And to the cross was riveted.
    The cross was reddened with his gore        15
    And we his martyrdom deplore.
    “Sinner, canst thou to me atone.
    Three pointed nails, a thorny crown,
    The holy cross, a spear, a wound,
    These are the cruel pangs I found.          20
    What wilt thou, sinner, bear for me?”
    Lord, with loud voice we answer thee,
    Accept our service in return,
    And save us lest in hell we burn.
    We, through thy death, to thee have sued.   25
    For God in heaven we shed our blood:
    This for our sins will work to good.
    Blessed Maria! Mother! Queen!
    Through thy loved Son’s redeeming mean
    Be all our wants to thee portrayed.         30
    Aid us, Mother! spotless maid!
    Trembles the earth, the rocks are rent[200],
    Fond heart of mine, thou must relent.
    Tears from our sorrowing eyes we weep;
    Therefore so firm our faith we keep         35
    With all our hearts—with all our senses.
    Christ bore his pangs for our offences.
    Ply well the scourge for Jesus’ sake,
    And God through Christ your sins shall take.
    For love of God abandon sin,                40
    To mend your vicious lives begin,
    So shall we his mercy win.
    Direful was Maria’s pain
    When she beheld her dear One slain.
    Pierced was her soul as with a dart:        45
    Sinner, let this affect thy heart.
    The time draws near
    When God in anger shall appear.
    Jesus was refreshed with gall:
    Prostrate crosswise let us fall,            50
    Then with uplifted arms arise,
    That God with us may sympathize.
    Jesus, by thy titles three[201],
    From our bondage set us free.
    Jesus, by thy precious blood,               55
    Save us from the fiery flood.
    Lord, our helplessness defend,
    And to our aid thy Spirit send.
    If man and wife their vows should break
    God will on such his vengeance wreak.       60
    Brimstone and pitch, and mingled gall,
    Satan pours on such sinners all.
    Truly, the devil’s scorn are they:
    Therefore, O Lord, thine aid we pray.
    Wedlock’s an honourable tie                 65
    Which God himself doth sanctify.
    By this warning, man, abide,
    God shall surely punish pride.
    Let your precious soul entreat you,
    Lay down pride lest vengeance meet you.     70
    I do beseech ye, pride forsake,
    So God on us shall pity take.
      Christ in heaven, where he commands,
    Thus addressed his angel bands:—
    “Christendom dishonours me,                 75
    Therefore her ruin I decree.”
    Then Mary thus implored her Son:—
    “Penance to thee, loved Child, be done;
    That she repent be mine the care;
    Stay then thy wrath, and hear my prayer.”   80
              Ye liars!
    Ye that break your sacrament,
    Shrive ye throughly and repent.
    Your heinous sins sincerely rue,
    So shall the Lord your hearts renew.        85
      Woe! usurer, though thy wealth abound,
    For every ounce thou mak’st a pound
    Shall sink thee to the hell profound.
    Ye murd’rers, and ye robbers all,
    The wrath of God on you shall fall,         90
    Mercy ye ne’er to others shew,
    None shall ye find; but endless woe.
    Had it not been for our contrition,
    All Christendom had met perdition.
    Satan had bound her in his chain;           95
    Mary hath loosed her bonds again.
    Glad news I bring thee, sinful mortal,
    In heaven Saint Peter keeps the portal,
    Apply to him with suppliant mien,
    He bringeth thee before thy Queen.         100
    Benignant Michael, blessed saint,
    Guardian of souls, receive our plaint.
    Through thy Almighty Maker’s death,
    Preserve us from the hell beneath.




                                  II.

     Examination of the Jews accused of poisoning the Wells[202].

  _Answer from the Castellan of Chillon to the City of Strasburg,
    together with a Copy of the Inquisition and Confession of
    several Jews confined in the Castle of Chillon on suspicion of
    poisoning. Anno 1348._

To the Honorable the Mayor, Senate and Citizens of the City of
Strasburg, the Castellan of Chillon, Deputy of the Bailiff of Chablais,
sendeth greeting with all due submission and respect.

                   •       •       •       •       •

Understanding that you desire to be made acquainted with the confession
of the Jews, and the proofs brought forward against them, I certify, by
these presents, to you, and each of you that desires to be informed,
that they of Berne have had a copy of the inquisition and confession
of the Jews who lately resided in the places specified, and who were
accused of putting poison into the wells and several other places: as
also the most conclusive evidence of the truth of the charge preferred
against them. Many Jews were put to the question, others being excused
from it, because they confessed, and were brought to trial and burnt.
Several Christians, also, who had poison given them by the Jews for
the purpose of destroying the Christians, were put on the wheel and
tortured. This burning of the Jews and torturing of the said Christians
took place in many parts of the county of Savoy.

                                                       Fare you well.

                   •       •       •       •       •

  _The Confession made on the 15th day of September, in the
    year of our Lord 1348, in the Castle of Chillon, by the Jews
    arrested in Neustadt, on the Charge of Poisoning the Wells,
    Springs and other places; also Food, &c., with the design of
    destroying and extirpating all Christians._

I. Balavignus, a Jewish physician, inhabitant of Thonon, was arrested
at Chillon in consequence of being found in the neighbourhood. He was
put for a short time to the rack, and on being taken down, confessed,
after much hesitation, that, about ten weeks before, the Rabbi Jacob
of Toledo, who, because of a citation, had resided at Chamberi since
Easter, sent him, by a Jewish boy, some poison in the mummy of an
egg: it was a powder sewed up in a thin leathern pouch accompanied by
a letter, commanding him, on penalty of excommunication, and by his
required obedience to the law, to throw this poison into the larger
and more frequented wells of the town of Thonon, to poison those
who drew water there. He was further enjoined not to communicate
the circumstance to any person whatever, under the same penalty. In
conformity with this command of the Jewish rabbis and doctors of the
law, he, Balavignus, distributed the poison in several places, and
acknowledged having one evening placed a certain portion under a stone
in a spring on the shore at Thonon. He further confessed that the said
boy brought various letters of a similar import, addressed to others
of his nation, and particularly specified some directed severally to
Mossoiet, Banditon, and Samoleto of Neustadt; to Musseo Abramo and
Aquetus of Montreantz, Jews residing at Thurn in Vivey; to Benetonus
and his son at St. Moritz; to Vivianus Jacobus, Aquetus and Sonetus,
Jews at Aquani. Several letters of a like nature were sent to Abram
and Musset, Jews at Moncheoli; and the boy told him that he had taken
many others to different and distant places, but he did not recollect
to whom they were addressed. Balavignus further confessed that, after
having put the poison into the spring at Thonon, he had positively
forbidden his wife and children to drink the water, but had not thought
fit to assign a reason. He avowed the truth of this statement, and, in
the presence of several credible witnesses, swore by his law, and the
Five Books of Moses, to every item of his deposition.

On the day following, Balavignus, voluntarily and without torture,
ratified the above confession verbatim before many persons of
character, and, of his own accord, acknowledged that, on returning one
day from Tour near Vivey, he had thrown into a well below Mustruez,
namely that of La Conerayde, a quantity of the poison tied up in a rag,
given to him for the purpose by Aquetus of Montreantz, an inhabitant of
the said Tour: that he had acquainted Manssiono, and his son Delosaz,
residents of Neustadt, with the circumstance of his having done so, and
advertised them not to drink of the water. He described the colour of
the poison as being red and black.

On the nineteenth day of September, the above-named Balavignus
confessed, without torture, that about three weeks after Whitsuntide,
a Jew named Mussus told him that he had thrown poison into the well,
in the custom-house of that place, the property of the Borneller
family; and that he no longer drank the water of this well, but that
of the lake. He further deposed that Mussus informed him that he had
also laid some of the poison under the stones in the custom-house at
Chillon. Search was accordingly made in this well, and the poison
found: some of it was given to a Jew by way of trial, and he died
in consequence. He also stated that the rabbis had ordered him and
other Jews to refrain from drinking of the water for nine days after
the poison was infused into it; and immediately on having poisoned
the waters, he communicated the circumstance to the other Jews. He,
Balavignus, confessed that about two months previously, being at Evian,
he had some conversation on the subject with a Jew called Jacob, and,
among other things, asked him whether he also had received writings
and poison, and was answered in the affirmative; he then questioned
him whether he had obeyed the command, and Jacob replied that he had
not, but had given the poison to Savetus, a Jew, who had thrown it
into the Well de Morer at Evian. Jacob also desired him, Balavignus,
to execute the command imposed on him with due caution. He confessed
that Aquetus of Montreantz had informed him that he had thrown some of
the poison into the well above Tour, the water of which he sometimes
drank. He confessed that Samolet had told him that he had laid the
poison which he had received, in a well, which, however, he refused to
name to him. Balavignus, as a physician, further deposed that a person
infected by such poison coming in contact with another while in a state
of perspiration, infection would be the almost inevitable result; as
might also happen from the breath of an infected person. This fact
he believed to be correct, and was confirmed in his opinion by the
attestation of many experienced physicians. He also declared that none
of his community could exculpate themselves from this accusation, as
the plot was communicated to all; and that all were guilty of the above
charges. Balavignus was conveyed over the lake from Chillon to Clarens,
to point out the well into which he confessed having thrown the powder.
On landing, he was conducted to the spot; and, having seen the well,
acknowledged that to be the place, saying, “This is the well into which
I put the poison.” The well was examined in his presence, and the linen
cloth in which the poison had been wrapped was found in the wastepipe
by a notary-public named Heinrich Gerhard, in the presence of many
persons, and was shewn to the said Jew. He acknowledged this to be the
linen which had contained the poison, which he described as being of
two colours, red and black, but said that he had thrown it into the
open well. The linen cloth was taken away and is preserved.

Balavignus, in conclusion, attests the truth of all and every thing
as above related. He believes this poison to contain a portion of the
basilisk, because he had heard, and felt assured, that the above poison
could not be prepared without it.

                   •       •       •       •       •

II. Banditono, a Jew of Neustadt, was, on the fifteenth day of
September, subjected for a short time to the torture. After a long
interval, he confessed having cast a quantity of poison, about the size
of a large nut, given him by Musseus, a Jew, at Tour, near Vivey, into
the well of Carutet, in order to poison those who drank of it.

The following day, Banditono, voluntarily and without torture, attested
the truth of the aforesaid deposition; and also confessed that the
Rabbi Jacob von Pasche, who came from Toledo and had settled at
Chamberi, sent him, at Pilliex, by a Jewish servant, some poison about
the size of a large nut, together with a letter directing him to throw
the powder into the wells on pain of excommunication. He had therefore
thrown the poison, which was sown up in a leathern bag, into the well
of Cercliti de Roch; further, also, that he saw many other letters in
the hands of the servant addressed to different Jews; that he had also
seen the said servant deliver one, on the outside of the upper gate,
to Samuletus, the Jew, at Neustadt. He stated, also, that the Jew,
Massolet, had informed him that he had put poison into the well near
the bridge at Vivey.

                   •       •       •       •       •

III. The said Manssiono, Jew of Neustadt, was put upon the rack on
the fifteenth day of the same month, but refused to admit the above
charge, protesting his entire ignorance of the whole matter; but the
day following, he, voluntarily and without any torture, confessed,
in the presence of many persons, that he came from Mancheolo one day
in last Whitsun-week, in company with a Jew named Provenzal, and, on
reaching the well of Chabloz Crüez between Vyona and Mura, the latter
said, “You must put some of the poison which I will give you into that
well, or woe betide you!” He therefore took a portion of the powder
about the bigness of a nut, and did as he was directed. He believed
that the Jews in the neighbourhood of Evian had convened a council
among themselves relative to this plot, before Whitsuntide. He further
said that Balavignus had informed him of his having poisoned the well
de la Conerayde below Mustruez. He also affirmed his conviction of the
culpability of the Jews in this affair, stating that they were fully
acquainted with all the particulars, and guilty of the alleged crime.

On the third day of the October following, Manssiono was brought before
the commissioners, and did not in the least vary from his former
deposition, or deny having put the poison into the said wells.

The above-named Jews, prior to their execution, solemnly swore by
their Law to the truth of their several depositions, and declared that
all Jews whatsoever, from seven years old and upwards, could not be
exempted from the charge of guilt, as all of them were acquainted with
the plot, and more or less participators in the crime.

[_The seven other examinations scarcely differ from the above, except
in the names of the accused, and afford but little variety. We will,
therefore, only add a characteristic passage at the conclusion of this
document. The whole speaks for itself._]

There still remain numerous proofs and accusations against the
above-mentioned Jews: also against Jews and Christians in different
parts of the county of Savoy, who have already received the punishment
due to their heinous crime; which, however, I have not at hand, and
cannot therefore send you. I must add, that all the Jews of Neustadt
were burnt according to the just sentence of the law. At Augst, I was
present when three Christians were flayed on account of being accessory
to the plot of poisoning. Very many Christians were arrested for this
crime in various places in this country, especially at Evian, Gebenne,
Krusilien and Hochstett, who at last and in their dying moments were
brought to confess and acknowledge that they had received the poison
from the Jews. Of these Christians some have been quartered; others
flayed and afterwards hanged. Certain commissioners have been appointed
by the magistrates to enforce judgment against all the Jews; and I
believe that none will escape.


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                             FOOTNOTES:                               |
|                                                                      |
| [1] I might here enlarge on the general importance of the study of   |
| epidemics; but this has been so fully set forth in the author’s      |
| Address to the Physicians of Germany, which immediately follows, as  |
| well as in the Preface to the Sweating Sickness, at p. 177, that     |
| any further observations on this subject would be superfluous on my  |
| part.                                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [2] στε καὶ ἐλέχθη ὑπ’ αὐτῶν ὡς οἱ Πελοποννήσιοι φάρμακα             |
| ἐσβεβλήκοιεν ἐς τὰ φρέατα. _Thucyd. Hist._ B. ii. 49. “The disease   |
| was attributed by the people to poison, and nothing apparently       |
| could be more authentic than the reports that were spread of         |
| miscreants taken in the act of putting poisonous drugs into the      |
| food and drink of the common people.” Observations on the Cholera    |
| in St. Petersburg, p. 9. by G. W. Lefevre, M.D. 8vo. 1831.           |
|                                                                      |
| [3] Only two copies are known to exist, one in the British Museum,   |
| and one in the library of the College of Physicians.                 |
|                                                                      |
| [4] La Mortalega Grande. _Matth. de Griffonibus._ _Muratori._        |
| Script. rer. Italicar. T. XVIII. p. 167. D. They were called by      |
| others _Anguinalgia_. _Andr. Gratiol._ Discorso di Peste. Venet.     |
| 1576. 4to. Swedish: _Diger-döden._ _Loccenii_ Histor. Suecan. L.     |
| III. p. 104.—Danish: _den sorte Dod._ _Pontan._ Rer. Danicar.        |
| Histor. L. VIII. p. 476.—Amstelod. 1631, fol. Icelandic: _Svatur     |
| Daudi._ _Saabye_, Tagebuch in Grönland. Introduction XVIII.          |
| _Mansa_, de Epidemiis maxime memorabilibus, quæ in Dania grassatæ    |
| sunt, &c. Part I. p. 12. Havniæ, 1831, 8.—In Westphalia the name of  |
| _de groete Doet_ was prevalent. _Meibom._                            |
|                                                                      |
| [5] _Joann. Cantacuzen._ Historiar. L. IV. c. 8. Ed. Paris. p. 730.  |
| 5. The ex-emperor has indeed copied some passages from Thucydides,   |
| as _Sprengel_ justly observes, (Appendix to the Geschichte der       |
| Medicin. Vol. I. H. I. S. 73,) though this was most probably only    |
| for the sake of rounding a period. This is no detriment to his       |
| credibility, because his statements accord with the other accounts.  |
|                                                                      |
| [6] Ἀποστάσεις μεγάλαι.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [7] Μελαίναι φλυκτίδες.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [8] ὥσπερ στίγματα μέλανα.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [9] _Guidon. de Cauliaco_ Chirurgia. Tract 11. c. 5. p. 113. Ed.     |
| Lugdun. 1572.                                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [10] Et fuit tantæ contagiositatis specialiter quæ fuit cum          |
| sputo sanguinis, quod non solum morando, sed etiam inspiciendo       |
| unus recipiebat ab alio: intantum quod gentes moriebantur sine       |
| servitoribus, et sepeliebantur sine sacerdotibus, pater non          |
| visitabat filium, nec filius patrem: charitas erat mortua, spes      |
| prostrata.                                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [11] _Deguignes_, Histoire générale des Huns, des Turcs, des         |
| Mogols, &c. Tom. IV. Paris, 1758. 4to. p. 226.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [12] Decameron. Giorn. I. Introd.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [13] From this period black petechiæ have always been considered as  |
| fatal in the plague.                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [14] A very usual circumstance in plague epidemics.                  |
|                                                                      |
| [15] _Auger. de Biterris_, Vitæ Romanor. pontificum, _Muratori_      |
| Scriptor. rer. Italic. Vol. III. Pt. II. p. 556.                     |
|                                                                      |
| [16] Contin. altera Chronici _Guillelmi de Nangis_ in _d’Acher_,     |
| Spicilegium sive Collectio Veterum Scriptorum, &c. Ed. de la         |
| _Barre_, Tom. III. p. 110.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [17] “The people all died of boils and inflamed glands which         |
| appeared under the arms and in the groins.” _Jac. v. Königshoven_,   |
| the oldest Chronicle of Alsace and Strasburg, and indeed of all      |
| Germany. Strasburg, 1698. 4. cap. 5, § 86. p. 301.                   |
|                                                                      |
| [18] _Hainr. Rebdorff_, Annales, _Marq. Freher_. Germanicarum rerum  |
| Scriptores. Francof. 1624. fol. p. 439.                              |
|                                                                      |
| [19] _Königshoven_, in loc. cit.                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [20] Anonym. Leobiens. Chron. L. VI. in _Hier. Pez_, Scriptor.       |
| rer. Austriac. Lips. 1721. fol. Tom. I. p. 970. The above named      |
| appearances are here called, _rote sprinkel, swarcze erhubenn_ und   |
| _druesz under den üchsen und ze den gemüchten_.                      |
|                                                                      |
| [21] _Ubb. Emmiie_ rer. Frisiacar. histor. L. XIV. p. 203. Lugd.     |
| Bat. 1616. fol.                                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [22] _Guillelmus de Nangis_, loc. cit.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [23] _Ant. Wood_, Historia et Antiquitates Universit. Oxoniens.      |
| Oxon. 1764. fol. L. l. p. 172.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [24] _Mezeray_, Histoire de France. Paris, 1685. fol. T. II. p. 418. |
|                                                                      |
| [25] _Barnes_, who has given a lively picture of the black plague,   |
| in England, taken from the Registers of the 14th century, describes  |
| the external symptoms in the following terms: knobs or swellings     |
| in the groin or under the armpits, called kernels, biles, blains,    |
| blisters, pimples, wheals or plague-sores. The Hist. of Edw. III.    |
| Cambridge, 1688, fol. p. 432.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [26] _Torfæus_, Historia rerum Norvegicarum. Hafn. 1711. fol.        |
| L. ix. c. 8. p. 478. This author has followed _Pontanus_ (Rerum      |
| Danicar. Historia. Amstelod. 1631. fol.) who has given only a        |
| general account of the plague in Denmark, and nothing respecting     |
| its symptoms.                                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [27] _Dlugoss_, vide Longini Histor. polonic. L. xii. Lips. 1711.    |
| fol. T. I. p. 1086.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [28] _W. M. Richter_, Geschichte der Medicin in Russland. Moskwa,    |
| 1813, 8. p. 215. _Richter_ has taken his information on the black    |
| plague in Russia, from authentic Russian MSS.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [29] Compare on this point, _Balling’s_ treatise “Zur Diagnostik     |
| der Lungenerweichung.” Vol XVI. ii. 3. p. 257 of litt. Annalen der   |
| ges. Heilkunde.                                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [30] It is expressly ascertained with respect to Avignon and         |
| Paris, that uncleanliness of the streets increased the plague        |
| considerably. _Raim. Chalin de Vinario._                             |
|                                                                      |
| [31] _De Peste_ Libri tres, opera _Jacobi Dalechampii_ in lucem      |
| editi. Lugduni, 1552. 16. p. 35. _Dalechamp_ has only improved the   |
| language of this work, adding nothing to it but a preface in the     |
| form of two letters. _Raymond Chalin de Vinario_ was contemporary    |
| with _Guy de Chauliac_ at Avignon. He enjoyed a high reputation,     |
| and was in very affluent circumstances. He often makes mention       |
| of cardinals and high officers of the papal court, whom he had       |
| treated; and it is even probable, though not certain, that he was    |
| physician to Clement VI. (1342–1352), Innocent VI. (1352–1362), and  |
| Urban V. (1362–1370). He and _Guy de Chauliac_ never mention each    |
| other.                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [32] _Dalechamp_, p. 205—where, and at pp. 32–36, the                |
| plague-eruptions are mentioned in the usual indefinite terms:        |
| Exanthemata viridia, cærulea, nigra, rubra, lata, diffusa, velut     |
| signata punctis, &c.                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [33] “Pestilentis morbi gravissimum symptoma est, quod zonam vulgo   |
| nuncupant. Ea sic fit: Pustulæ nonnunquam per febres pestilentes     |
| fuscæ, nigræ, lividæ existunt, in partibus corporis a glandularum    |
| emissariis sejunctis, ut in femore, tibia, capite, brachio,          |
| humeris, quarum fervore et caliditate succi corporis attracti,       |
| glandulas in trajectione replent, et attollunt, unde bubones fiunt   |
| atque carbunculi. _Ab iis tanquam solidus quidam nervus in partem    |
| vicinam distentam ac veluti convulsione rigentem producitur, puta    |
| brachium vel tibiam, nunc rubens, nunc fuscus, nunc obscurior, nunc  |
| virens, nunc iridis colore, duos vel quatuor digitos latus._ Hujus   |
| summo, qua desinit in emissarium, plerumque tuberculum pestilens     |
| visitur, altero vero extremo, qua in propinquum membrum porrigitur,  |
| carbunculus. Hoc scilicet malum vulgus zonam cinctumve nominat,      |
| periculosum minus, cum hic tuberculo, illic carbunculo terminatur,   |
| quam si tuberculum in capite solum emineat.” p. 198.                 |
|                                                                      |
| [34] _V. Hoff._ Geschichte der natürlichen Veränderungen der         |
| Erdoberfläche, T. II. p. 264. Gotha, 1824. This eruption was not     |
| succeeded by any other in the same century, either of Etna or of     |
| Vesuvius.                                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [35] _Deguignes_, loc. cit. p. 226, from Chinese sources.            |
|                                                                      |
| [36] Ibid. p. 225.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [37] There were also many locusts which had been blown into the      |
| sea by a hurricane, and afterwards cast dead upon the shore, and     |
| produced a noxious exhalation; and _a dense and awful fog was        |
| seen in the heavens, rising in the East, and descending upon         |
| Italy_. Mansfeld Chronicle, in M. _Cyriac Spangenberg_, chap.        |
| 287, fol. 336. b. Eisleben, 1572. Compare _Staind._ Chron. (?)       |
| in _Schnurrer_, (“Ingens vapor magnitudine horribili boreali         |
| movens, regionem, magno adspicientium terrore dilabitur,”) and       |
| _Ad. von Lebenwaldt_, Land-Stadt-und Hausarzney-Buch. fol. p. 15.    |
| Nuremberg, 1695, who mentions a dark, thick mist which covered the   |
| earth. _Chalin_ expresses himself on this subject in the following   |
| terms:—“Cœlum ingravescit, _aër impurus sentitur: nubes crassæ ac    |
| multæ luminibus cœli obstruunt, immundus ac ignavus tepor hominum    |
| emollit corpora, exoriens sol pallescit_.” p. 50.                    |
|                                                                      |
| [38] See Caius’ account of the causes of the sweating sickness, in   |
| the Appendix.—_Transl. note._                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [39] _Mezeray_, Histoire de France, Tom. II. 418. Paris, 1685.       |
| Compare _Oudegheerst’s_ Chroniques de Flandres. Antwerp, 1571, 4to.  |
| Chap. 175, f. 297.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [40] They spread in a direction from East to West, over most of      |
| the countries from which we have received intelligence. Anonym.      |
| Leobiens, Chron. loc. cit.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [41] _Giov. Villani_ Istorie Fiorentine, L. XII. chap. 121, 122. in  |
| _Muratori_, T. XIII. pp. 1001, 1002. Compare Barnes, loc. cit. p.    |
| 430.                                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [42] _J. Vitoduran._ Chronicon, in _Füssli. Thesaurus_ Histor.       |
| Helvet. Tigur. 1735. fol. p. 84.                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [43] _Albert. Argentiniens._ Chronic. in _Urstis._ Scriptor. rer.    |
| Germanic. Francof. 1585. fol. P. II. p. 147. Compare _Chalin_, loc.  |
| cit.                                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [44] _Petrarch._ Opera. Basil. 1554. fol. p. 210. _Barnes_, loc.     |
| cit. p. 431.                                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [45] “Un tremblement de terre universel, mesme en France et aux      |
| pays septentrionaux, renversoit les villes toutes entières,          |
| déracinoit les arbres et les montagnes, et remplissoit les           |
| campagnes d’abysmes si profondes, qu’il semblait que l’enfer eût     |
| voulu engloutir le genre humain.” _Mezeray_, loc. cit. p. 418.       |
| _Barnes_, p. 431.                                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [46] _Villani_, loc. cit. c. 119. p. 1000.                           |
|                                                                      |
| [47] _Guillelm. de Nangis_, Cont. alt. Chron. loc. cit. p. 109.      |
|                                                                      |
| [48] Ibid. p. 110.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [49] _Villani_, loc. cit. c. 72. p. 954.                             |
|                                                                      |
| [50] Anonym. Istorie Pistolesi, in _Muratori_, T. XI. p. 524. “Ne    |
| gli anni di Chr. 1346 et 1357, fu grandissima carestia in tutta la   |
| Christianità, in tanto, che molta gente moria di fame, e fu grande   |
| mortalità in ogni paese del mondo.”                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [51] According to _Papon_, its origin is quite lost in the           |
| obscurity of remote ages; and even before the Christian Era, we are  |
| able to trace many references to former pestilences. De la peste,    |
| ou époques mémorables de ce fléau, et les moyens de s’en préserver.  |
| T. II. Paris, An VIII. de la rép. 8.                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [52] 1301, in the South of France; 1311, in Italy; 1316, in Italy,   |
| Burgundy and Northern Europe; 1335, the locust year, in the middle   |
| of Europe; 1340, in Upper Italy; 1342, in France; and 1347, in       |
| Marseilles and most of the larger islands of the Mediterranean.      |
| Ibid. T. II. p. 273.                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [53] Compare _Deguignes_, loc. cit. p. 288.                          |
|                                                                      |
| [54] According to the general Byzantine designation, “from the       |
| country of the hyperborean Scythians.” _Kantakuzen_, loc. cit.       |
|                                                                      |
| [55] _Guid. Cauliac_, loc. cit.                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [56] _Matt. Villani_, Istorie, in _Muratori_, T. XIV. p. 14.         |
|                                                                      |
| [57] Annal. Cæsenat, _Ibid._ p. 1179.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [58] _Barnes_, loc. cit.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [59] _Olof Dalin’s_, Svea-Rikes Historie, III. vol. Stockholm,       |
| 1747–61, 4. Vol. II. C. 12, p. 496.                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [60] _Dlugoss_, Histor. Polon. L. IX. p. 1086, T. I. Lips. 1711,     |
| fol.                                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [61] _Deguignes_, loc. cit. p. 223, f.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [62] _Matt. Villani_, Istoria, loc. cit. p. 13.                      |
|                                                                      |
| [63] _Knighton_, in _Barnes_, loc. cit. p. 434.                      |
|                                                                      |
| [64] _Jno. Trithem_ Annal. Hirsaugiens. (Monast. St. Gall. Hirsaug.  |
| 1690. fol.) T. II. p. 296. According to _Boccacio_, loc. cit.        |
| 100,000; according to _Matt. Villani_, loc. cit. p. 14, three out    |
| of five.                                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [65] _Odoric. Raynald._ Annal. ecclesiastic. Colon. Agripp. 1691.    |
| fol. Vol. XVI. p. 280.                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [66] _Vitoduran._ Chronic. in _Füssli_, loc. cit.                    |
|                                                                      |
| [67] _Tromby_, Storia de _S. Brunone_ e dell’ordine Cartusiano.      |
| Vol. VI. L. VIII. p. 235. Napol. 1777. fol.                          |
|                                                                      |
| [68] _Barnes_, p. 435.                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [69] Ibid.                                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [70] _Baluz._ Vitæ Papar. Avenionens. Paris, 1693–4. Vol. I. p.      |
| 316. According to _Rebdorf_ in _Freher_. loc. cit. at the worst      |
| period, 500 daily.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [71] _Königshoven_, loc. cit.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [72] According to _Reimar Kork_, from Easter to Michaelmas 1350,     |
| 80 to 90,000; among whom were eleven members of the senate, and      |
| bishop John IV. Vid. _John Rud_. _Becker_, Circumstantial History    |
| of the Imper. and free city of Lübeck. Lübeck, 1782, 84, 1805.       |
| 3 Vols. 4. Vol. I. p. 269. 71. Although Lübeck was then in its       |
| most flourishing state, yet this account, which agrees with that     |
| of _Paul Lange_, is certainly exaggerated. (Chronic. Citizense,      |
| in _I. Pistorius_, Rerum Germanic. Scriptores aliquot insignes,      |
| cur. _Struve_. Ratisb. 1626. fol. p. 1214.) We have, therefore,      |
| chosen the lower estimate of an anonym. writer. Chronic. Sclavic.    |
| by _Erpold Lindenbrog_. Scriptores rerum Germanic. Septentrional.    |
| vicinorumque populor. diversi, Francof. 1630. fol. p. 225, and       |
| _Spangenberg_, loc. cit., with whom again the assurance of the two   |
| authors, that on the 10th August, 1350, 15 or 1700 (according to     |
| _Becker_ 2500) persons had died, does not coincide. Compare Chronik  |
| des Franciskaner Lesemeisters _Detmar_, nach der Urschrift und mit   |
| Ergänzungen aus anderen Chroniken herausgeg. published by F. H.      |
| _Grautoff_. Hamburg, 1829, 30. 8. P. I. p. 269. App. 471.            |
|                                                                      |
| [73] _Förstemann_, Versuch einer Geschichte der christlichen         |
| Geisslergesellschaften, in _Staüdlin’s_ und _Tzschirner’s_, Archiv   |
| für alte und neue Kirchengeschichte, Vol. III. 1817.                 |
|                                                                      |
| [74] Limburg Chronicle, pub. by _C. D. Vogel_. Marburg, 1828. 8vo.   |
| p. 14.                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [75] _Barnes_, loc. cit.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [76] Ibid.                                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [77] _Spangenberg_. fol. 339. a. Grawsam Sterben vieler faulen       |
| Troppfen. Many lazy monks died a cruel death.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [78] _Vitoduran_, loc. cit.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [79] _Becker_, loc. cit.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [80] _Hainr._ _Rebdorf._ p. 630.                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [81] _Guillelm. de Nang._ loc. cit.                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [82] _Johanna_, queen of Navarre, daughter of _Louis X._, and        |
| _Johanna_ of Burgundy, wife of king _Philip_ de Valois.              |
|                                                                      |
| [83] _Fulco de Chanac._                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [84] _Mich. Felibien_, Histoire de la ville de Paris, Liv. XII.      |
| Vol. II. p. 601, Paris, 1725. fol. Comp. _Guillelm. de Nangis._      |
| loc. cit. and _Daniel_, Histoire de France, Tom. II. p. 484.         |
| Amsterd. 1720. 4to.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [85] _Torfæus_, loc. cit.                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [86] According to another account, 960. Chronic. Salisburg, in       |
| _Pez._ loc. cit. T. I. p. 412.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [87] According to an anonymous Chronicler, each of these pits is     |
| said to have contained 40,000; this, however, we are to understand   |
| as only in round numbers. Anonym. Leobiens, in _Pez._ p. 970.        |
| According to this writer, above seventy persons died in some         |
| houses, and many were entirely deserted, and at St. Stephen’s        |
| alone, fifty-four ecclesiastics were cut off.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [88] _Auger. de Biterris_ in _Muratori_. Vol. III. P. II. p. 556.    |
| The same is said of Paderborn, by _Gobelin Person_, in _Henr.        |
| Meibom._ Rer. Germanic. Script. T. I. p. 286. Helmstadt, 1688. fol.  |
|                                                                      |
| [89] _Spangenberg._ loc. cit. chap. 287. fol. 337. b.                |
|                                                                      |
| [90] _Barnes_, 435.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [91] _Trithem._ Annal. Hirsaug. loc. cit.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [92] Loc. cit. L. XII. c. 99. p. 977.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [93] Chronic. Claustro-Neoburg. in _Pez._ Vol. I. p. 490. Comp.      |
| _Barnes_, p. 435. _Raynald_ Histor. ecclesiastic, loc. cit.          |
| According to this account, a runaway Venetian is said to have        |
| brought the plague to Padua.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [94] _Giov. Villani_, L. XII. c. 83. p. 964.                         |
|                                                                      |
| [95] _Barnes_, p. 436.                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [96] _Wood_, loc. cit.                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [97] _Wood_ says, that before the plague, there were 13,000          |
| students at Oxford; a number which may, in some degree, enable us    |
| to form an estimate of the state of education in England at that     |
| time, if we consider that the universities were, in the middle       |
| ages, frequented by younger students, who in modern times do not     |
| quit school till their 18th year.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [98] _Barnes_ and _Wood_, loc. cit.                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [99] _Gobelin. Person_, in _Meibom._ loc. cit.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [100] _Juan de Mariana._ Historia General de España, illustrated     |
| by Don _José Sabau y Blanco_. Tom. IX. Madrid, 1819. 8vo. Libro      |
| XVI. p. 225. Don _Diego Ortiz de Zúñiga_, Annales ecclesiasticos y   |
| seculares de Sevilla. Madrid, 1795. 4to. T. II. p. 121. Don _Juan    |
| de Ferreras_, Historia de España. Madrid, 1721. T. VII. p. 353.      |
|                                                                      |
| [101] _Gobelin. Person_, loc. cit. Comp. _Chalin_, p. 53.            |
|                                                                      |
| [102] _Guillelm. de Nangis_, loc. cit.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [103] _Spangenberg._ fol. 337. b. Limburg. Chronic, p. 20. “Und die  |
| auch von Rom kamen, wurden eines Theils böser als sie vor gewesen    |
| waren.”                                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [104] _Guillelm. de Nangis_, loc. cit. and many others.              |
|                                                                      |
| [105] _Dalin’s_ Svea Rikes Historie, Vol. II. c. 12. p. 496.         |
|                                                                      |
| [106] _Saabye._ Tagebuch in Grönland. Einleit. XVIII.—_Torfæi_       |
| Histor. Norveg. Tom. IV. L. IX. c. viii. p. 478–79. _F. G. Mansa_,   |
| De epidemiis maxime memorabilibus quæ in Dania Grassatæ sunt, et de  |
| Medicinæ statu. Partic. I. Havn. 1831. 8vo. p. 12.                   |
|                                                                      |
| [107] _Torfæi_ Groenlandia antiqua, s. veteris Groenlandiæ;          |
| descriptio. Havniæ, 1715. 8vo. p. 23.—_Pontan._ Rer. danicar.        |
| Histor. Amstelod. 1631. fol. L. VII. p. 476.                         |
|                                                                      |
| [108] _Richter_, loc. cit.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [109] We shall take this view of the subject from _Guillelm. de      |
| Nangis_ and _Barnes_, if we read them _with attention_. Compare      |
| _Olof Dalin_, loc. cit.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [110] Practica de ægritudinibus a capite usque ad pedes. Papiæ,      |
| 1486. fol. Tract VI. c. vii.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [111] “Darnach, da das Sterben, die Geiselfarth, Römerfarth,         |
| Judenschlacht, als vorgeschrieben stehet, ein End hatte, da hub      |
| die Welt wieder an zu leben und fröhlich zu seyn, und machten        |
| die Männer neue Kleidung.” Limburger Chronik. p. 26. After this,     |
| when, as was stated before, the Mortality, the Processions of the    |
| Flagellants, the Expeditions to Rome, and the Massacre of the Jews,  |
| were at an end, the world began to revive and be joyful, and the     |
| people put on new clothing.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [112] _Chalin_, loc. cit. p. 92. _Detmar’s_ Lübeck Chronicle, V. I.  |
| p. 401.                                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [113] Chronic. _Ditmari_, Episcop. Mersepurg, Francof. 1580, fol.    |
| p.358.—“_Spagenberg_, p. 338. The lamentation was piteous; and       |
| the only remaining solace, was the prevalent anxiety, inspired by    |
| the danger, to prepare for a glorious departure; no other hope       |
| remained—death appeared inevitable. Many were hence induced to       |
| search into their own hearts, to turn to God, and to abandon their   |
| wicked courses: parents warned their children, and instructed them   |
| how to pray, and to submit to the ways of Providence: neighbours     |
| mutually admonished each other; none could reckon on a single        |
| hour’s respite. Many persons, and even young children, were seen     |
| bidding farewell to the world; some with prayer, others with         |
| praises on their lips.”                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [114] _Torfæi_ Hist. rer. Norvegic. L. IX. c. viii. p. 478. (Havn.   |
| 1711, fol.) _Die Cronica van der hilliger Stat van Coellen, off dat  |
| tzytboich_, Coellen, 1490, fol. p. 263. “_In dem vurss jair erhoiff  |
| sich eyn alzo wunderlich nuwe Geselschaft in Ungarien_,” &c. The     |
| Chronicle of the holy city of Cologne, 1499. In this same year, a    |
| very remarkable society was formed in Hungary.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [115] _Albert. Argentinens._ Chronic. p. 149, in _Chr. Urstisius_.   |
| Germaniæ historicorum illustrium Tomus unus. Francof. 1585,          |
| fol.—_Guillelm. de Nang._ loc. cit.—Comp. also the Saxon Chronicle,  |
| by _Mattheus Dresseren_, Physician and Professor at Leipsig,         |
| Wittenberg, 1596, fol. p. 340; the above-named Limburg Chronicle,    |
| and the Germaniæ Chronicon, on the origin, name, commerce, &c., of   |
| all the Teutonic nations of Germany: by _Seb. Francken_, of Wörd.    |
| Tübingen, 1534, fol. p. 201.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [116] _Ditmar_, loc. cit.                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [117] _Königshoven_, Elsassische und Strassburgische Chronicke.      |
| loc. cit. p. 297. f.                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [118] _Albert. Argentin._ loc. cit. They never remained longer than  |
| one night at any place.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [119] Words of _Monachus Paduanus_, quoted in _Förstemann’s_         |
| Treatise, which is the best upon this subject.—See p. 24.            |
|                                                                      |
| [120] _Schnurrer_, Chronicle of the Plagues, T. I. p. 291.           |
|                                                                      |
| [121] _Königshoven_, loc. cit.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [122] _Förstemann_, loc. cit. The pilgrimages of the Flagellants of  |
| the year 1349, were not the last. Later in the 14th century this     |
| fanaticism still manifested itself several times, though never to    |
| so great an extent: in the 15th century, it was deemed necessary,    |
| in several parts of Germany, to extirpate them by fire and sword;    |
| and in the year 1710, processions of the Cross-bearers were still    |
| seen in Italy. How deeply this mania had taken root, is proved by    |
| the deposition of a citizen of Nordhäusen (1446): that his wife,     |
| in the belief of performing a Christian act, wanted to scourge her   |
| children, as soon as they were baptized.                             |
|                                                                      |
| [123] _Königshoven_, p. 298:                                         |
|                                                                      |
|     “_Stant uf durch der reinen Martel ere;                          |
|      Und hüte dich vor der Sünden mere._”                            |
|                                                                      |
| [124] _Guill. de Nang._ loc. cit.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [125] _Albert. Argentinens._ loc. cit.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [126] We meet with fragments of different lengths in the Chronicles  |
| of the times, but the only entire MS. which we possess, is in the    |
| valuable Library of President _von Meusebach_. _Massmann_ has had    |
| this printed, accompanied by a translation, entitled _Erläuterungen  |
| zum Wessobrunner Gebet des_ 8^{ten} _Jahrhunderts. Nebst_ ZWEIEN     |
| _noch ungedruckten_, GEDICHTEN DES VIERZEHNTEN JAHRHUNDERTS,         |
| Berlin, 1824. “Elucidations of the Wessobrunn Prayer of the 8th      |
| century, together with two unpublished Hymns the 14th century.”      |
| We shall subjoin it at the end of this Treatise, as a striking       |
| document of the age. The Limburg Chronicle asserts, indeed, that it  |
| was not composed till that time, although a part, if not the whole,  |
| of it, was sung in the procession of the Flagellants, in 1260.—See   |
| Incerti auctoris Chronicon rerum per Austriam Vicinasque regiones    |
| gestarum inde ab anno 1025, usque ad annum 1282. Munich, 1827 8, p.  |
| 9.                                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [127] _Trithem._ Annal. Hirsaugiens, T. II. p. 206.                  |
|                                                                      |
| [128] He issued a bull against them, Oct. 20, 1349. _Raynald.        |
| Trithem._ loc. cit.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [129] But as they at last ceased to excite astonishment, were no     |
| longer welcomed by the ringing of bells, and were not received with  |
| veneration, as before, they vanished as human imaginations are wont  |
| to do. Saxon Chronicle, by _Matt. Dresseren_. Wittenberg, 1596,      |
| fol. p. 340, 341.                                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [130] _Albert. Argentinens._ loc. cit.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [131] _Guillelm. de Nangis._                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [132] _Ditmar._ loc. cit.                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [133] _Klose_ of Breslaw’s Documental History and Description, 8vo.  |
| Vol. II. p. 190. Breslaw, 1781.                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [134] Limburg Chronicle, p. 17.                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [135] _Kehrberg’s_ Description of Königsberg, _i. e._ Neumark,       |
| 1724, 4to. p. 240.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [136] So says the Polish historian _Dlugoss_, loc. cit., while most  |
| of his contemporaries mention only the poisoning of the wells. It    |
| is evident, that in the state of their feelings, it mattered little  |
| whether they added another still more formidable accusation.         |
|                                                                      |
| [137] In those places where no Jews resided, as in Leipsig,          |
| Magdeburg, Brieg, Frankenstein, &c., the grave-diggers were accused  |
| of the crime.—V. _Möhsen’s_ History of the Sciences in the March of  |
| Brandenburg, T. II. p. 265.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [138] See the original proceedings, in the Appendix.                 |
|                                                                      |
| [139] _Hermanni Gygantis_ Flores temporum, sive Chronicon            |
| Universale—_Ed. Meuschen._ Lugdun. Bat. 1743. 4to. p. 139. Hermann,  |
| a Franciscan monk of Franconia, who wrote in the year 1349, was an   |
| eye-witness of the most revolting scenes of vengeance, throughout    |
| all Germany.                                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [140] _Guid. Cauliac._ loc. cit.                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [141] _Hermann._ loc. cit.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [142] _Albert. Argentin._—_Königshoven_, loc. cit.                   |
|                                                                      |
| [143] _Dies was ouch die Vergift, die die Juden döttete._ “This      |
| was also the poison that killed the Jews,” observes _Königshoven_,   |
| which he illustrates by saying, that their increase in Germany was   |
| very great, and their mode of gaining a livelihood, which, however,  |
| was the only resource left them, had engendered ill-will against     |
| them in all quarters.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [144] Many wealthy Jews, for example, were, on their way to the      |
| stake, stripped of their garments, for the sake of the gold coin     |
| that was sewed in them.—_Albert. Argentinens._                       |
|                                                                      |
| [145] Vide preceding note.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [146] _Spangenberg_, loc. cit.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [147] _Guillelm. de Nangis._—_Dlugoss_, loc. cit.                    |
|                                                                      |
| [148] _Albert. Argentinens._                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [149] _Spangenberg_ describes a similar scene which took place at    |
| Kostnitz.                                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [150] _Guillelm. de Nang.—Raynald._                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [151] Histor. Landgrav. _Thuring._ in _Pistor._ loc. cit. Vol. I.    |
| p. 948.                                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [152] Anonym. _Leobiens_, in _Pez._ loc. cit.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [153] _Spangenberg._ In the county of Mark, the Jews were no better  |
| off than in the rest of Germany. Margrave _Ludwig_, the Roman, even  |
| countenanced their persecutions, of which _Kehrberg_, loc. cit.      |
| 241. gives the following official account: Coram cunctis Christi     |
| fidelibus præsentia percepturis, ego _Johannes_ dictus _de Wedel_    |
| Advocatus, inclyti Principis Domini, _Ludovici_, Marchionis,         |
| publice profiteor et recognosco, quod nomine Domini mei civitatem    |
| Königsberg visitavi et intravi, et ex parte Domini Marchionis        |
| Consulibus ejusdem civitatis in adjutorium mihi assumtis, _Judæos    |
| inibi morantes igne cremavi_, bonaque omnia eorundem Judæorum        |
| ex parte Domini mei totaliter usurpavi et assumsi. In cujus          |
| testimonium præsentibus meum sigillum appendi. Datum A.D. 1351. in   |
| Vigilia S. Matthæi Apostoli.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [154] _Basnage_, Histoire des Juifs. A la Haye, 1716. 8vo. T. IX.    |
| Part 2. Liv. IX. Chap. 23. §. 12. 24. pp. 664. 679. This valuable    |
| work gives an interesting account of the state of the Jews of the    |
| middle ages. Compare _J. M. Jost’s_ History of the Israelites from   |
| the time of the Maccabees to the present day. T. VII. Berlin, 1827.  |
| 8vo. pp. 8. 262.                                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [155] _Albert. Argentinens._                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [156] _Hermann._ _Gygas._ loc. cit.                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [157] On this subject see _Königshoven_, who has preserved some      |
| very valuable original proceedings. The most important are, the      |
| criminal examinations of ten Jews, at Chillon, on the Lake of        |
| Geneva, held in September and October, 1348.—V. Appendix. They       |
| produced the most strange confessions, and sanctioned, by the        |
| false name of justice, the blood-thirsty fanaticism which lighted    |
| the funeral piles. Copies of these proceedings were sent to Bern     |
| and Strasburg, where they gave rise to the first persecutions        |
| against the Jews.—V. also the original document of the offensive     |
| and defensive Alliance between _Berthold von Götz_, Bishop of        |
| Strasburg, and many powerful lords and nobles, in favour of the      |
| city of Strasburg, against Charles IV. The latter saw himself        |
| compelled, in consequence, to grant to that city an amnesty for the  |
| Jewish persecutions, which in our days would be deemed disgraceful   |
| to an imperial crown. Not to mention many other documents, which no  |
| less clearly shew the spirit of the 14th century, p. 1021. f.        |
|                                                                      |
| [158] _Guillelm. de Nangis_, p. 110.                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [159] “Curationem omnem respuit pestis confirmata.”—_Chalin_, p. 33. |
|                                                                      |
| [160] _Jacob. Francischini de Ambrosiis._ In the Appendix to the     |
| Istorie Pistolesi, in _Muratori_, Tom. XI. p. 528.                   |
|                                                                      |
| [161] _Gentilis de Fulgineo_ Consilia. De Peste Cons. I. II. fol.    |
| 76, 77. Venet. 1514. fol.                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [162] —“venenosa putredo circa partes cordis et pulmonis de quibus   |
| exeunte venenoso vapore, periculum est in vicinitatibus.” Cons. I.   |
| fol. 76, a.                                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [163] _Dr. Maclean’s_ notion that the doctrine of contagion was      |
| first promulgated in the year 1547, by Pope Paul III., &c., thus     |
| falls to the ground, together with all the arguments founded on      |
| it.—See _Maclean_ on Epid. and Pestilent. Diseases, 8vo, 1817, Pt.   |
| II. Book II. ch. 3, 4.—_Transl. note._                               |
|                                                                      |
| [164] Lippitudo contagione spectantium oculos afficit.—_Chalin de    |
| Vinario_, p. 149.                                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [165] See the Author’s Geschichte der Heilkunde, Vol. II. P. III.    |
|                                                                      |
| [166] Compare _Marx_, Origines contagii. Caroliruh. et Bad. 1824. 8. |
|                                                                      |
| [167] _Cæl. Aurelian._ Chron. L. IV. c. 1. p. 497. _Ed. Amman._      |
| “Sed hi ægrotantem destituendum magis imperant, quam curandum, quod  |
| a se alienum humanitas approbat medicinæ.”                           |
|                                                                      |
| [168] _Geschichte der Heilkunde_, Vol. II. p. 248.                   |
|                                                                      |
| [169] _Chalin_ assures us expressly, that many nunneries, by         |
| closing their gates, remained free from the contagion. It is worthy  |
| of note, and quite in conformity with the prevailing notions,        |
| that the continuance in a thick, moist atmosphere, was generally     |
| esteemed more advantageous and conservative, on account of its       |
| being more impenetrable to the astral influence, inasmuch as the     |
| inferior cause kept off the superior.—_Chalin_, p. 48.               |
|                                                                      |
| [170] This was called _Affluxus_, or _Forma specifica_, and was      |
| compared to the effect of a magnet on iron, and of amber on          |
| chaff.—_Chalin de Vinario_, p. 23.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [171] Causa universalis agens—causa particularis patiens. To this    |
| correspond, in _Chalin_, the expressions Causa superior et inferior. |
|                                                                      |
| [172] Purging with alöetic pills; bleeding; purification of the air  |
| by means of large fires; the use of treacle; frequent smelling to    |
| volatile substances, of which certain “poma,” were prepared; the     |
| internal use of Armenian bole,—a plague-remedy derived from the      |
| Arabians, and, throughout the middle ages, much in vogue, and very   |
| improperly used; and the employment of acescent food, in order to    |
| resist putridity. _Guy de Chauliac_ appears to have recommended      |
| flight to many. Loc. citat. p. 115. Compare _Chalin_, L. II., who    |
| gives most excellent precepts on this subject.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [173] _Auger. de Biterris_, loc. cit.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [174] L. I. c. 4. p. 39.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [175] Fol. 32. loc. cit.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [176] _Galeacii de Sancta Sophia_, Liber de Febribus. Venet. 1514,   |
| fol. (Printed together with _Guillelmus Brixiensis, Marsilius de     |
| Sancta Sophia, Ricardus Parisiensis._ fol. 29. seq.)                 |
|                                                                      |
| [177] Warmth, cold, dryness and moisture.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [178] The talented _Chalin_ entertains the same conviction,          |
| “Obscurum interdum esse vitium aëris, sub pestis initia et menses    |
| primos, hoc est argumento: _quod cum nec odore tetro gravis,         |
| nec turpi colore fœdatus fuerit, sed purus, tenuis, frigidus,        |
| qualis in montosis et asperis locis esse solet, et tranquillus,      |
| vehementissima sit tamen pestilentia infestaque_,” etc. p. 28. The   |
| most recent observers of malaria have stated nothing more than this. |
|                                                                      |
| [179] Compare _Enr. di Wolmar_, Abhandlung über die Pest. Berlin,    |
| 1827. 8vo.                                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [180] Tractatus de Febribus, fol. 48.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [181] De Peste Liber, pura latinitate donatus a _Jacobo              |
| Dalechampio_. Lugdun. 1552. 16. p. 40. 188. “Longe tamen plurimi     |
| congressu eorum qui fuerunt in locis pestilentibus periclitantur     |
| et gravissime, quoniam e causa duplici, nempe et aëris vitio, et     |
| eorum qui versantur nobiscum, vitio. _Hoc itaque modo fit, ut unius  |
| accessu in totam modo familiam, modo civitatem, modo villam, pestis  |
| invehatur._” Compare p. 20, “Solæ privatorum ædes pestem sentiunt,   |
| _si adeat qui in pestilenti loco versatus est_.”—“Nobis proximi      |
| ipsi sumus, nemoque est tanta occœcatus amentia, qui de sua salute   |
| potius quam aliorum sollicitus non sit, maxime in contagione tam     |
| cita et rapida.” Rather a loose principle, which might greatly       |
| encourage low sentiments, and much endanger the honour of the        |
| medical profession, but which, in _Chalin_, who was aware of the     |
| impossibility of avoiding contagion in uncleanly dwellings, is so    |
| far excusable, that he did not apply it to himself.                  |
|                                                                      |
| [182] Morbos omnes pestilentes esse contagiosos, audacter ego        |
| equidem pronuntio et assevero. p. 149.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [183] Vide preceding note, pp. 162, 163.                             |
|                                                                      |
| [184] Ibid. p. 97. 166. “Qualis (vita) esse solet eorum, qui         |
| sacerdotiorum et cultus divini prætextu, genio plus satis indulgent  |
| et obsequuntur, ac Christum speciosis titulis ementientes, Epicurum  |
| imitantur.” Certainly a remarkable freedom of sentiment for the      |
| 14th century.                                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [185] Ibid. p. 183. 151.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [186] Ibid. p. 159. 189.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [187] Canonica de Febribus, ad Raynerium Siculum, 1487, s. 1.        |
| cap. 10, sine pag. “Febris pestilentialis est febris contagiosa      |
| ex ebullitione putrefactiva in altero quatuor humorum cordi          |
| propinquorum principaliter.”                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [188] _Valesci de Tharanta_, Philonium. Lugduni, 1535. 8. L. VII.    |
| c. 18. fol. 401. b. seq.—Compare _Astruc._ Mémoires pour servir à    |
| l’Histoire de la Faculté de Médecine de Montpellier. Paris, 1767.    |
| 4. p. 208.                                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [189] Chronicon Regiense, _Muratori_, Tom. XVIII. p. 82.             |
|                                                                      |
| [190] _Adr. Chenot_, Hinterlassene Abhandlungen über die ärztlichen  |
| und politischen Anstalten bei der Pestseuche. Wien, 1798, 8vo. p.    |
| 146. From this period it was common in the middle ages to barricade  |
| the doors and windows of houses infected with plague, and to suffer  |
| the inhabitants to perish without mercy.—_S. Möhsen_, loc. cit.      |
|                                                                      |
| [191] Chron. Reg. loc. cit.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [192] _Muratori_, Tom. XVI. p. 560.—Compare _Chenot_, loc. cit. p.   |
| 146.                                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [193] _Papon_, loc. cit.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [194] _Chenot_, p. 145.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [195] _Le Bret_, Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig. Riga, 1775.  |
| 4, Part II. Div. 2. p. 752.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [196] _Zagata_, Cronica di Verona, 1744. 4, III. p. 93.              |
|                                                                      |
| [197] _Le Bret_, loc. cit. Compare Hamburger Remarquen of the year   |
| 1700, pp. 282 and 305.                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [198] Göttinger gelehrte Anzeigen, 1772, p. 22.                      |
|                                                                      |
| [199] The forty days’ duration of the Flood, the forty days’         |
| sojourn of Moses on Mount Sinai, our Saviour’s fast for the same     |
| length of time in the wilderness; lastly, what is called the Saxon   |
| term (Sächsische Frist,) which lasts for forty days, &c. Compare     |
| _G. W. Wedel_, Centuria Exercitationum Medico-philologicarum. _De    |
| Quadragesima Medica._ Jenæ, 1701. 4. Dec. IV. p. 16.                 |
|                                                                      |
| [200] We hence perceive with what feelings subterraneous thunders    |
| were regarded by the people.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [201] For the sake of thy Trinity.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [202] An appearance of justice having been given to all later        |
| persecutions by these proceedings, they deserve to be recorded as    |
| important historical documents. The original is in Latin, but we     |
| have preferred the German translation in Königshoven’s Chronicle,    |
| p. 1029.                                                             |
|                                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+




                          THE DANCING MANIA.

                         TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.


Dr. Hecker’s account of the “Black Death” having, in its English
translation, met with a favourable reception, I am led to believe that
the “Dancing Mania,” a similar production by the same able writer, will
also prove acceptable. Should this be the case, it is my intention
to complete the series by translating the history of the “Sweating
Sickness,” the only remaining epidemic considered by our author to
belong to the Middle Ages.

The mind and the body reciprocally and mysteriously affect each
other, and the maladies which are the subject of these pages, are so
intimately connected with the disordered state of both, that it is
often difficult to determine on which they more essentially depend, or
which they more seriously influence.

The physician will probably be led by their contemplation to admit that
the imagination has a larger share in the production of disease than he
might, without a knowledge of the striking facts here recorded, have
supposed to be within the limits of possibility. He has, no doubt,
already observed, that joy will affect the circulation, grief the
digestion; that anger will heat the frame as perniciously as ardent
spirits, and that fear will chill it as certainly as ice; but he may
not have carried his observation to the extent of perceiving, that not
only single and transient effects, but specific diseases are produced
through the agency of mental impressions, and he may therefore still
be surprised to find that the dances of St. John and of St. Vitus, as
they formerly spread by sympathy from city to city, gave rise to the
same deviations from bodily health, in all the individuals whom they
attacked; that Tarantism was the same disease, whether medically or
morally considered, all over Italy; and that the “Lycanthropia,” of
the past, and the “Leaping Ague” of the present times, have each its
respective train of peculiar symptoms.

The moralist will view these records of human frailty in a different
light; he will examine the state of society which favoured the
propagation of such maladies; he will inquire how far they have been
the offspring of the ages in which they appeared, and although he may
not be disposed to think with our author, that they can never return,
he will at least deduce from the facts here laid before him, that they
originate in those minds, whether ignorant or ill-educated, in which
the imagination is permitted to usurp the power of sober sense, and
the ideal is allowed to occupy the thoughts to the exclusion of the
substantial.

That such minds are most frequently to be met with in an age of
ignorance, we should naturally suppose, and we are borne out in that
supposition by the fact, that these diseases have been declining in
proportion to the advance of knowledge; but credulity and enthusiasm
are not incompatible with a high degree of civilization: and if, among
the educated classes, the female sex is more sentimental than the male,
and the affluent are more credulous than those who are dependent on
their own exertions for their support, it is to be accounted for by
the fact, that they usually devote more leisure to the pleasurable
contemplation of works of imagination, and are less imperatively
called on to improve their judgment by the dry study of facts, and
the experience acquired in the serious business of life. But there is
no class, even in this age of boasted reason, wholly exempt from the
baneful influence of fanaticism; and instances are not wanting, in
our own days, and in this very capital, to prove, that disorders (how
can we more charitably designate them?) much resembling some of those
described in the following pages, may make their appearance among
people who have had all the advantages of an enlightened education, and
every opportunity of enlarging their minds by a free intercourse with
refined society.

I thus venture to hope, that by bestowing a leisure hour on this small
portion of medical history, the physician may enlarge his knowledge
of disease, and the moralist may gather a hint for the intellectual
improvement of his fellow-men. The author has, however, a more extended
object in view—the histories of particular epidemics are with him but
the data from which we are to deduce the general laws that govern
human health in the aggregate. Whether there be such an _entity_ as
collective organic life, and whether, as a consequence, there exist
general laws which regulate its healthy or morbid condition, I do not
here undertake to determine; but the notion is peculiar, and in order
that it may be more fully exposed to the reader, I have translated as
an introduction to the present volume[203], an Appeal which Dr. Hecker
has made to the medical profession of his own country for assistance
in his undertaking. If, in the course of the remarks contained in this
address, he has been somewhat severe in his censure of the neglect,
both in this country and in France, of the study of Medical History, I
freely confess myself to be one of those who are more anxious to profit
by his castigation than to dispute its justice.

I have added a few Notes, which I trust will be found not inapplicable.
They consist chiefly of parallel accounts in illustration of what is
set forth in the text; and with the same view, I have thrown together
in No. V. of the Appendix, some Histories of Local Epidemics, and have
referred to some single cases, which seem to me to have a peculiar
interest in connexion with the subject of this work, and to render it,
on the whole, more complete.




                               PREFACE.


The diseases which form the subject of the present investigation afford
a deep insight into the workings of the human mind in a state of
society. They are a portion of history, and will never return in the
form in which they are there recorded; but they expose a vulnerable
part of man—the instinct of imitation—and are therefore very nearly
connected with human life in the aggregate. It appeared worth while to
describe diseases which are propagated on the beams of light—on the
wings of thought; which convulse the mind by the excitement of the
senses, and wonderfully affect the nerves, the media of its will and of
its feelings. It seemed worth while to attempt to place these disorders
between the epidemics of a less refined origin, which affect the body
more than the soul, and all those passions and emotions which border on
the vast domain of disease, ready at every moment to pass the boundary.
Should we be able to deduce from the grave facts of history here
developed, a convincing proof that the human race, amidst the creation
which surrounds it, moves in body and soul as an individual whole, the
Author might hope that he had approached nearer to his ideal of a grand
comprehension of diseases in time and space, and be encouraged, by the
co-operation of contemporaries, zealous in the search of truth, to
proceed along the path which he has already entered, in prosecuting the
investigation.




                          THE DANCING MANIA.

                              CHAPTER I.

           THE DANCING MANIA IN GERMANY AND THE NETHERLANDS.


                      SECT. 1.—ST. JOHN’S DANCE.

The effects of the _Black Death_ had not yet subsided, and the graves
of millions of its victims were scarcely closed, when a strange
delusion arose in Germany, which took possession of the minds of men,
and, in spite of the divinity of our nature, hurried away body and soul
into the magic circle of hellish superstition. It was a convulsion
which in the most extraordinary manner infuriated the human frame,
and excited the astonishment of contemporaries for more than two
centuries, since which time it has never reappeared. It was called
the dance of St. John or of St. Vitus, on account of the Bacchantic
leaps by which it was characterized, and which gave to those affected,
whilst performing their wild dance, and screaming and foaming with
fury, all the appearance of persons possessed. It did not remain
confined to particular localities, but was propagated by the sight of
the sufferers, like a demoniacal epidemic, over the whole of Germany
and the neighbouring countries to the north-west, which were already
prepared for its reception by the prevailing opinions of the times.

So early as the year 1374, assemblages of men and women were seen at
Aix-la-Chapelle who had come out of Germany, and who, united by one
common delusion, exhibited to the public both in the streets and in
the churches the following strange spectacle[204]. They formed circles
hand in hand, and appearing to have lost all control over their senses,
continued dancing, regardless of the bystanders, for hours together,
in wild delirium, until at length they fell to the ground in a state
of exhaustion. They then complained of extreme oppression, and groaned
as if in the agonies of death, until they were swathed in cloths bound
tightly round their waists, upon which they again recovered, and
remained free from complaint until the next attack. This practice of
swathing was resorted to on account of the tympany which followed these
spasmodic ravings, but the bystanders frequently relieved patients in
a less artificial manner, by thumping and trampling upon the parts
affected. While dancing they neither saw nor heard, being insensible to
external impressions through the senses, but were haunted by visions,
their fancies conjuring up spirits whose names[205] they shrieked
out; and some of them afterwards asserted that they felt as if they
had been immersed in a stream of blood, which obliged them to leap so
high[206]. Others, during the paroxysm, saw the heavens open and the
Saviour enthroned with the Virgin Mary, according as the religious
notions of the age were strangely and variously reflected in their
imaginations[207].

Where the disease was completely developed, the attack commenced
with epileptic convulsions[208]. Those affected fell to the ground
senseless, panting and labouring for breath. They foamed at the mouth,
and suddenly springing up began their dance amidst strange contortions.
Yet the malady doubtless made its appearance very variously, and was
modified by temporary or local circumstances, whereof non-medical
contemporaries but imperfectly noted the essential particulars,
accustomed as they were to confound their observation of natural events
with their notions of the world of spirits.

It was but a few months ere this demoniacal disease had spread from
Aix-la-Chapelle, where it appeared in July, over the neighbouring
Netherlands[209]. In Liege, Utrecht, Tongres, and many other towns of
Belgium, the dancers appeared with garlands in their hair, and their
waists girt with cloths, that they might, as soon as the paroxysm
was over, receive immediate relief on the attack of the tympany.
This bandage was, by the insertion of a stick, easily twisted tight:
many, however, obtained more relief from kicks and blows, which they
found numbers of persons ready to administer; for, wherever the
dancers appeared, the people assembled in crowds to gratify their
curiosity with the frightful spectacle. At length the increasing
number of the affected excited no less anxiety than the attention
that was paid to them. In towns and villages they took possession of
the religious houses, processions were everywhere instituted on their
account, and masses were said and hymns were sung, while the disease
itself, of the demoniacal origin of which no one entertained the
least doubt, excited everywhere astonishment and horror. In Liege the
priests had recourse to exorcisms, and endeavoured, by every means
in their power, to allay an evil which threatened so much danger to
themselves; for the possessed assembling in multitudes, frequently
poured forth imprecations against them, and menaced their destruction.
They intimidated the people also to such a degree that there was an
express ordinance issued that no one should make any but square-toed
shoes, because these fanatics had manifested a morbid dislike to
the pointed shoes which had come into fashion immediately after the
_Great Mortality_ in 1350[210]. They were still more irritated at
the sight of red colours, the influence of which on the disordered
nerves might lead us to imagine an extraordinary accordance between
this spasmodic malady and the condition of infuriated animals; but in
the St. John’s dancers this excitement was probably connected with
apparitions consequent upon their convulsions. There were likewise some
of them who were unable to endure the sight of persons weeping[211].
The clergy seemed to become daily more and more confirmed in their
belief that those who were affected were a kind of sectarians, and
on this account they hastened their exorcisms as much as possible,
in order that the evil might not spread amongst the higher classes,
for hitherto scarcely any but the poor had been attacked, and the few
people of respectability among the laity and clergy who were to be
found among them, were persons whose natural frivolity was unable to
withstand the excitement of novelty, even though it proceeded from
a demoniacal influence. Some of the affected had indeed themselves
declared, when under the influence of priestly forms of exorcism,
that if the demons had been allowed only a few weeks more time, they
would have entered the bodies of the nobility and princes, and through
these have destroyed the clergy. Assertions of this sort, which those
possessed uttered whilst in a state which may be compared with that of
magnetic sleep, obtained general belief, and passed from mouth to mouth
with wonderful additions. The priesthood were, on this account, so much
the more zealous in their endeavours to anticipate every dangerous
excitement of the people, as if the existing order of things could have
been seriously threatened by such incoherent ravings. Their exertions
were effectual, for exorcism was a powerful remedy in the fourteenth
century; or it might perhaps be that this wild infatuation terminated
in consequence of the exhaustion which naturally ensued from it; at all
events, in the course of ten or eleven months the St. John’s dancers
were no longer to be found in any of the cities of Belgium. The evil,
however, was too deeply rooted to give way altogether to such feeble
attacks[212].

A few months after this dancing malady had made its appearance at
Aix-la-Chapelle, it broke out at Cologne, where the number of those
possessed amounted to more than five hundred[213], and about the
same time at Metz, the streets of which place are said to have been
filled with eleven hundred dancers[214]. Peasants left their ploughs,
mechanics their workshops, housewives their domestic duties, to join
the wild revels, and this rich commercial city became the scene of
the most ruinous disorder. Secret desires were excited, and but too
often found opportunities for wild enjoyment; and numerous beggars,
stimulated by vice and misery, availed themselves of this new complaint
to gain a temporary livelihood. Girls and boys quitted their parents,
and servants their masters, to amuse themselves at the dances of those
possessed, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental infection. Above
a hundred unmarried women were seen raving about in consecrated and
unconsecrated places, and the consequences were soon perceived[215].
Gangs of idle vagabonds, who understood how to imitate to the life the
gestures and convulsions of those really affected, roved from place
to place seeking maintenance and adventures, and thus, wherever they
went, spreading this disgusting spasmodic disease like a plague; for
in maladies of this kind the susceptible are infected as easily by the
appearance as by the reality. At last it was found necessary to drive
away these mischievous guests, who were equally inaccessible to the
exorcisms of the priests and the remedies of the physicians. It was
not, however, until after four months that the Rhenish cities were able
to suppress these impostures, which had so alarmingly increased the
original evil. In the mean time, when once called into existence, the
plague crept on, and found abundant food in the tone of thought which
prevailed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and even, though
in a minor degree, throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth, causing
a permanent disorder of the mind, and exhibiting, in those cities to
whose inhabitants it was a novelty, scenes as strange as they were
detestable.


                   SECT. 2.—ST. VITUS’S DANCE[216].

Strasburg was visited by the “Dancing Plague” in the year 1418, and
the same infatuation existed among the people there, as in the towns
of Belgium and the Lower Rhine[217]. Many who were seized at the sight
of those affected, excited attention at first by their confused and
absurd behaviour, and then by their constantly following the swarms of
dancers. These were seen day and night passing through the streets,
accompanied by musicians playing on bagpipes, and by innumerable
spectators attracted by curiosity, to which were added anxious parents
and relations, who came to look after those among the misguided
multitude who belonged to their respective families. Imposture and
profligacy played their part in this city also, but the morbid delusion
itself seems to have predominated. On this account religion could only
bring provisional aid, and therefore the town-council benevolently took
an interest in the afflicted. They divided them into separate parties,
to each of which they appointed responsible superintendents to protect
them from harm, and perhaps also to restrain their turbulence. They
were thus conducted on foot and in carriages to the chapels of St.
Vitus, near Zabern and Rotestein, where priests were in attendance
to work upon their misguided minds by masses and other religious
ceremonies. After divine worship was completed, they were led in
solemn procession to the altar, where they made some small offering of
alms, and where it is probable that many were, through the influence
of devotion and the sanctity of the place, cured of this lamentable
aberration. It is worthy of observation, at all events, that the
Dancing Mania did not recommence at the altars of the saint, and that
from him alone assistance was implored, and through his miraculous
interposition a cure was expected, which was beyond the reach of human
skill. The personal history of St. Vitus is by no means unimportant
in this matter. He was a Sicilian youth, who, together with Modestus
and Crescentia, suffered martyrdom at the time of the persecution of
the Christians, under Diocletian, in the year 303[218]. The legends
respecting him are obscure, and he would certainly have been passed
over without notice among the innumerable apocryphal martyrs of the
first centuries, had not the transfer of his body to St. Denys, and
thence, in the year 836, to Corvey, raised him to a higher rank. From
this time forth, it may be supposed that many miracles were manifested
at his new sepulchre, which were of essential service in confirming the
Roman faith among the Germans, and St. Vitus was soon ranked among the
fourteen saintly helpers (Nothhelfer or Apotheker[219]). His altars
were multiplied, and the people had recourse to them in all kinds of
distresses, and revered him as a powerful intercessor. As the worship
of these saints was, however, at that time stripped of all historical
connexions, which were purposely obliterated by the priesthood, a
legend was invented at the beginning of the fifteenth century, or
perhaps even so early as the fourteenth, that St. Vitus had, just
before he bent his neck to the sword, prayed to God that he might
protect from the Dancing Mania all those who should solemnize the day
of his commemoration, and fast upon its eve, and that thereupon a voice
from heaven was heard, saying, “Vitus, thy prayer is accepted.”[220]
Thus St. Vitus became the patron saint of those afflicted with the
dancing plague, as St. Martin, of Tours, was at one time the succourer
of persons in small-pox; St. Antonius of those suffering under the
“hellish fire,” and as St. Margaret was the Juno Lucina of puerperal
women.


                           SECT. 3.—CAUSES.

The connexion which John the Baptist had with the dancing mania of
the fourteenth century, was of a totally different character. He
was originally far from being a protecting saint to those who were
attacked, or one who would be likely to give them relief from a malady
considered as the work of the devil. On the contrary, the manner in
which he was worshipped afforded an important and very evident cause
for its development. From the remotest period, perhaps even so far
back as the fourth century, St. John’s day was solemnized with all
sorts of strange and rude customs, of which the originally mystical
meaning was variously disfigured among different nations by superadded
relics of heathenism[221]. Thus the Germans transferred to the festival
of St. John’s day an ancient heathen usage, the kindling of the
“Nodfyr,” which was forbidden them by St. Boniface, and the belief
subsists even to the present day that people and animals that have
leaped through these flames, or their smoke, are protected for a whole
year from fevers and other diseases, as if by a kind of baptism by
fire[222]. Bacchanalian dances, which have originated in similar causes
among all the rude nations of the earth, and the wild extravagancies
of a heated imagination, were the constant accompaniments of this
half-heathen, half-christian, festival. At the period of which we are
treating, however, the Germans were not the only people who gave way
to the ebullitions of fanaticism in keeping the festival of St. John
the Baptist. Similar customs were also to be found among the nations
of Southern Europe and of Asia[223], and it is more than probable that
the Greeks transferred to the festival of John the Baptist, who is also
held in high esteem among the Mahomedans, a part of their Bacchanalian
mysteries, an absurdity of a kind which is but too frequently met with
in human affairs. How far a remembrance of the history of St. John’s
death may have had an influence on this occasion, we would leave
learned theologians to decide. It is only of importance here to add,
that in Abyssinia, a country entirely separated from Europe, where
Christianity has maintained itself in its primeval simplicity against
Mahomedanism, John is to this day worshipped, as protecting saint of
those who are attacked with the dancing malady[224]. In these fragments
of the dominion of mysticism and superstition, historical connexion is
not to be found.

When we observe, however, that the first dancers in Aix-la-Chapelle
appeared in July with St. John’s name in their mouths, the conjecture
is probable that the wild revels of St. John’s day, A. D. 1374, gave
rise to this mental plague, which thenceforth has visited so many
thousands with incurable aberration of mind, and disgusting distortions
of body.

This is rendered so much the more probable, because some months
previously the districts in the neighbourhood of the Rhine and the
Maine had met with great disasters. So early as February, both these
rivers had overflowed their banks to a great extent; the walls of the
town of Cologne, on the side next the Rhine, had fallen down, and a
great many villages had been reduced to the utmost distress[225].
To this was added the miserable condition of Western and Southern
Germany. Neither law nor edict could suppress the incessant feuds of
the Barons, and in Franconia especially, the ancient times of club
law appeared to be revived. Security of property there was none;
arbitrary will everywhere prevailed; corruption of morals and rude
power rarely met with even a feeble opposition; whence it arose that
the cruel, but lucrative, persecutions of the Jews, were in many
places still practised through the whole of this century, with their
wonted ferocity. Thus, throughout the western parts of Germany, and
especially in the districts bordering on the Rhine, there was a
wretched and oppressed populace; and if we take into consideration,
that among their numerous bands many wandered about, whose consciences
were tormented with the recollection of the crimes which they had
committed during the prevalence of the black plague, we shall
comprehend how their despair sought relief in the intoxication of an
artificial delirium[226]. There is hence good ground for supposing that
the frantic celebration of the festival of St. John, A. D. 1374, only
served to bring to a crisis, a malady which had been long impending;
and if we would further inquire how a hitherto harmless usage, which,
like many others, had but served to keep up superstition, could
degenerate into so serious a disease, we must take into account the
unusual excitement of men’s minds, and the consequences of wretchedness
and want. The bowels, which in many were debilitated by hunger and bad
food, were precisely the parts which in most cases were attacked with
excruciating pain, and the tympanitic state of the intestines, points
out to the intelligent physician, an origin of the disorder which is
well worth consideration.


                SECT. 4.—MORE ANCIENT DANCING PLAGUES.

The dancing mania of the year 1374 was, in fact, no new disease, but
a phenomenon well known in the middle ages, of which many wondrous
stories were traditionally current among the people. In the year 1237,
upwards of a hundred children were said to have been suddenly seized
with this disease at Erfurt, and to have proceeded dancing and jumping
along the road to Arnstadt. When they arrived at that place they
fell exhausted to the ground, and, according to an account of an old
chronicle, many of them, after they were taken home by their parents,
died, and the rest remained affected, to the end of their lives, with
a permanent tremor[227]. Another occurrence was related to have taken
place on the Mosel bridge at Utrecht, on the 17th day of June, A.D.
1278, when two hundred fanatics began to dance, and would not desist
until a priest passed who was carrying the Host to a person that was
sick, upon which, as if in punishment of their crime, the bridge gave
way, and they were all drowned[228]. A similar event also occurred
so early as the year 1027, near the convent church of Kolbig, not
far from Bernburg. According to an oft repeated tradition, eighteen
peasants, some of whose names are still preserved, are said to have
disturbed divine service on Christmas eve, by dancing and brawling
in the churchyard, whereupon the priest, Ruprecht, inflicted a curse
upon them, that they should dance and scream for a whole year without
ceasing. This curse is stated to have been completely fulfilled, so
that the unfortunate sufferers at length sank knee deep into the
earth, and remained the whole time without nourishment, until they
were finally released by the intercession of two pious bishops. It is
said, that upon this, they fell into a deep sleep, which lasted three
days, and that four of them died: the rest continuing to suffer all
their lives from a trembling of their limbs[229]. It is not worth while
to separate what may have been true, and what the addition of crafty
priests, in this strangely distorted story. It is sufficient that it
was believed, and related with astonishment and horror throughout
the middle ages; so that when there was any exciting cause for this
delirious raving, and wild rage for dancing, it failed not to produce
its effects upon men whose thoughts were given up to a belief in
wonders and apparitions.

This disposition of mind, altogether so peculiar to the middle ages,
and which, happily for mankind, has yielded to an improved state of
civilization and the diffusion of popular instruction, accounts for
the origin and long duration of this extraordinary mental disorder.
The good sense of the people recoiled with horror and aversion from
this heavy plague, which, whenever malevolent persons wished to curse
their bitterest enemies and adversaries, was long after used as a
malediction[230]. The indignation also that was felt by the people
at large against the immorality of the age, was proved by their
ascribing this frightful affliction to the inefficacy of baptism by
unchaste priests, as if innocent children were doomed to atone, in
after years, for this desecration of the sacrament administered by
unholy hands[231]. We have already mentioned what perils the priests
in the Netherlands incurred from this belief. They now, indeed,
endeavoured to hasten their reconciliation with the irritated, and at
that time very degenerate people[232], by exorcisms, which, with some,
procured them greater respect than ever, because they thus visibly
restored thousands of those who were affected. In general, however,
there prevailed a want of confidence in their efficacy, and then the
sacred rites had as little power in arresting the progress of this
deeply rooted malady, as the prayers and holy services subsequently
had at the altars of the greatly revered martyr St. Vitus. We may
therefore ascribe it to accident merely, and to a certain aversion to
this demoniacal disease, which seemed to lie beyond the reach of human
skill, that we meet with but few and imperfect notices, of the St.
Vitus’s dance in the second half of the fifteenth century. The highly
coloured descriptions of the sixteenth century contradict the notion
that this mental plague had in any degree diminished in its severity,
and not a single fact is to be found which supports the opinion, that
any one of the essential symptoms of the disease, not even excepting
the tympany, had disappeared, or that the disorder itself had become
milder in its attacks. The physicians never, as it seems, throughout
the whole of the fifteenth century, undertook the treatment of the
dancing mania, which, according to the prevailing notions, appertained
exclusively to the servants of the church. Against demoniacal disorders
they had no remedies, and though some at first did promulgate the
opinion, that the malady had its origin in natural circumstances, such
as a hot temperament, and other causes named in the phraseology of the
schools[233], yet these opinions were the less examined, as it did not
appear worth while to divide with a jealous priesthood, the care of a
host of fanatical vagabonds and beggars.


                         SECT. 5.—PHYSICIANS.

It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that the St.
Vitus’s dance was made the subject of medical research, and stripped
of its unhallowed character as a work of demons. This was effected by
Paracelsus, that mighty, but as yet scarcely comprehended reformer
of medicine, whose aim it was to withdraw diseases from the pale of
miraculous interpositions and saintly influences, and explain their
causes upon principles deduced from his knowledge of the human frame.
“We will not, however, admit that the saints have power to inflict
diseases, and that these ought to be named after them, although many
there are who, in their theology, lay great stress on this supposition,
ascribing them rather to God than to nature, which is but idle talk. We
dislike such nonsensical gossip as is not supported by symptoms, but
only by faith, a thing which is not human, whereon the gods themselves
set no value.”

Such were the words which Paracelsus addressed to his contemporaries,
who were as yet incapable of appreciating doctrines of this sort; for
the belief in enchantment still remained everywhere unshaken, and faith
in the world of spirits still held men’s minds in so close a bondage
that thousands were, according to their own conviction, given up as a
prey to the devil; while at the command of religion as well as of law,
countless piles were lighted, by the flames of which human society was
to be purified.

Paracelsus divides the St. Vitus’s dance into three kinds. First,
that which arises from imagination (Vitista, Chorea imaginativa,
æstimativa), by which the original dancing plague is to be understood.
Secondly, that which arises from sensual desires, depending on the will
(Chorea lasciva). Thirdly, that which arises from corporeal causes
(Chorea naturalis, coacta), which, according to a strange notion of
his own, he explained by maintaining, that in certain vessels which
are susceptible of an internal pruriency, and thence produce laughter,
the blood is set in commotion, in consequence of an alteration in the
vital spirits, whereby involuntary fits of intoxicating joy, and a
propensity to dance, are occasioned[234]. To this notion he was, no
doubt, led from having observed a milder form of St. Vitus’s dance, not
uncommon in his time, which was accompanied by involuntary laughter;
and which bore a resemblance to the hysterical laughter of the moderns,
except that it was characterized by more pleasurable sensations,
and by an extravagant propensity to dance. There was no howling,
screaming, and jumping, as in the severer form; neither was the
disposition to dance by any means insuperable. Patients thus affected,
although they had not a complete control over their understandings,
yet were sufficiently self-possessed, during the attack, to obey the
directions which they received. There were even some among them who
did not dance at all, but only felt an involuntary impulse to allay
the internal sense of disquietude, which is the usual forerunner of
an attack of this kind, by laughter, and quick walking carried to the
extent of producing fatigue[235]. This disorder, so different from the
original type, evidently approximates to the modern chorea; or rather
is in perfect accordance with it, even to the less essential symptom
of laughter. A mitigation in the form of the dancing mania had thus
clearly taken place at the commencement of the sixteenth century.

On the communication of the St. Vitus’s dance by sympathy, Paracelsus,
in his peculiar language, expresses himself with great spirit, and
shows a profound knowledge of the nature of sensual impressions, which
find their way to the heart,—the seat of joys and emotions,—which
overpower the opposition of reason; and whilst “all other qualities and
natures” are subdued, incessantly impel the patient, in consequence of
his original compliance, and his all conquering imagination, to imitate
what he has seen. On his treatment of the disease, we cannot bestow
any great praise, but must be content with the remark, that it was in
conformity with the notions of the age in which he lived. For the first
kind, which often originated in passionate excitement, he had a mental
remedy, the efficacy of which is not to be despised, if we estimate
its value in connexion with the prevalent opinions of those times.
The patient was to make an image of himself in wax or resin, and by an
effort of thought to concentrate all his blasphemies and sins in it.
“Without the intervention of any other person, to set his whole mind
and thoughts concerning these oaths in the image;” and when he had
succeeded in this, he was to burn the image, so that not a particle of
it should remain[236]. In all this there was no mention made of St.
Vitus, or any of the other mediatory saints, which is accounted for
by the circumstance, that, at this time, an open rebellion against
the Romish Church had begun, and the worship of saints was by many
rejected as idolatrous[237]. For the second kind of St. Vitus’s dance,
arising from sensual irritation, with which women were far more
frequently affected than men, Paracelsus recommended harsh treatment
and strict fasting. He directed that the patients should be deprived of
their liberty; placed in solitary confinement, and made to sit in an
uncomfortable place, until their misery brought them to their senses
and to a feeling of penitence. He then permitted them gradually to
return to their accustomed habits. Severe corporal chastisement was
not omitted; but, on the other hand, angry resistance on the part of
the patient was to be sedulously avoided, on the ground that it might
increase his malady, or even destroy him: moreover, where it seemed
proper, Paracelsus allayed the excitement of the nerves by immersion
in cold water. On the treatment of the third kind we shall not here
enlarge. It was to be effected by all sorts of wonderful remedies,
composed of the quintessences; and it would require, to render it
intelligible, a more extended exposition of peculiar principles than
suits our present purpose.


        SECT. 6.—DECLINE AND TERMINATION OF THE DANCING PLAGUE.

About this time the St. Vitus’s dance began to decline, so that milder
forms of it appeared more frequently, while the severer cases became
more rare; and even in these, some of the important symptoms gradually
disappeared. Paracelsus makes no mention of the tympanites as taking
place after the attacks, although it may occasionally have occurred;
and Schenck von Graffenberg, a celebrated physician of the latter
half of the sixteenth century[238], speaks of this disease as having
been frequent only in the time of his forefathers; his descriptions,
however, are applicable to the whole of that century, and to the
close of the fifteenth[239]. The St. Vitus’s dance attacked people
of all stations, especially those who led a sedentary life, such as
shoemakers and tailors; but even the most robust peasants abandoned
their labours in the fields, as if they were possessed by evil spirits;
and thus those affected were seen assembling indiscriminately, from
time to time, at certain appointed places, and, unless prevented by
the lookers on, continuing to dance without intermission, until their
very last breath was expended. Their fury and extravagance of demeanour
so completely deprived them of their senses, that many of them dashed
their brains out against the walls and corners of buildings, or
rushed headlong into rapid rivers, where they found a watery grave.
Roaring and foaming as they were, the bystanders could only succeed
in restraining them by placing benches and chairs in their way, so
that, by the high leaps they were thus tempted to take, their strength
might be exhausted. As soon as this was the case, they fell as it were
lifeless to the ground, and, by very slow degrees, again recovered
their strength. Many there were, who, even with all this exertion,
had not expended the violence of the tempest which raged within
them, but awoke with newly revived powers, and again and again mixed
with the crowd of dancers, until at length the violent excitement of
their disordered nerves was allayed by the great involuntary exertion
of their limbs; and the mental disorder was calmed by the extreme
exhaustion of the body. Thus the attacks themselves were in these
cases, as in their nature they are in all nervous complaints, necessary
crises of an inward morbid condition, which was transferred from the
sensorium to the nerves of motion, and, at an earlier period, to the
abdominal plexus, where a deep-seated derangement of the system was
perceptible from the secretion of flatus in the intestines.

The cure effected by these stormy attacks was in many cases so perfect,
that some patients returned to the factory or the plough as if nothing
had happened. Others, on the contrary, paid the penalty of their folly
by so total a loss of power, that they could not regain their former
health, even by the employment of the most strengthening remedies.
Medical men were astonished to observe, that women in an advanced state
of pregnancy were capable of going through an attack of the disease,
without the slightest injury to their offspring, which they protected
merely by a bandage passed round the waist. Cases of this kind were not
unfrequent so late as Schenck’s time. That patients should be violently
affected by music, and their paroxysms brought on and increased by it,
is natural with such nervous disorders; where deeper impressions are
made through the ear, which is the most intellectual of all the organs,
than through any of the other senses. On this account the magistrates
hired musicians for the purpose of carrying the St. Vitus’s dancers so
much the quicker through the attacks, and directed, that athletic men
should be sent among them in order to complete the exhaustion, which
had been often observed to produce a good effect[240]. At the same
time there was a prohibition against wearing red garments, because,
at the sight of this colour, those affected became so furious, that
they flew at the persons who wore it, and were so bent upon doing
them an injury that they could with difficulty be restrained. They
frequently tore their own clothes whilst in the paroxysm, and were
guilty of other improprieties, so that the more opulent employed
confidential attendants to accompany them, and to take care that they
did no harm either to themselves or others. This extraordinary disease
was, however, so greatly mitigated in Schenck’s time, that the St.
Vitus’s dancers had long since ceased to stroll from town to town; and
that physician, like Paracelsus, makes no mention of the tympanitic
inflation of the bowels. Moreover, most of those affected, were only
annually visited by attacks; and the occasion of them was so manifestly
referrible to the prevailing notions of that period, that if the
unqualified belief in the supernatural agency of saints could have
been abolished, they would not have had any return of the complaint.
Throughout the whole of June, prior to the festival of St. John,
patients felt a disquietude and restlessness which they were unable
to overcome. They were dejected, timid, and anxious; wandered about
in an unsettled state, being tormented with twitching pains, which
seized them suddenly in different parts, and eagerly expected the eve
of St. John’s day, in the confident hope, that by dancing at the altars
of this saint, or of St. Vitus, (for in the Breisgau aid was equally
sought from both,) they would be freed from all their sufferings. This
hope was not disappointed; and they remained, for the rest of the year,
exempt from any further attack, after having thus, by dancing and
raving for three hours, satisfied an irresistible demand of nature.
There were at that period two chapels in the Breisgau, visited by the
St. Vitus’s dancers; namely, the Chapel of St. Vitus at Biessen, near
Breisach, and that of St. John, near Wasenweiler; and it is probable
that in the south-west of Germany, the disease was still in existence
in the seventeenth century.

However, it grew every year more rare, so that, at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, it was observed only occasionally in its ancient
form. Thus in the spring of the year 1623, G. Horst saw some women who
annually performed a pilgrimage to St. Vitus’s chapel at Drefelhausen,
near Weissenstein, in the territory of Ulm, that they might wait for
their dancing fit there, in the same manner as those in the Breisgau
did, according to Schenck’s account. They were not satisfied, however,
with a dance of three hours’ duration, but continued day and night in a
state of mental aberration, like persons in an ecstacy, until they fell
exhausted to the ground; and when they came to themselves again, they
felt relieved from a distressing uneasiness and painful sensation of
weight in their bodies, of which they had complained for several weeks
prior to St. Vitus’s day[241].

After this commotion they remained well for the whole year; and such
was their faith in the protecting power of the saint, that one of them
had visited this shrine at Drefelhausen more than twenty times, and
another had already kept the Saint’s day for the thirty-second time at
this sacred station.

The dancing fit itself was excited here, as it probably was in other
places, by music, from the effects of which, the patients were thrown
into a state of convulsion[242]. Many concurrent testimonies serve to
show that music generally contributed much to the continuance of the
St. Vitus’s dance, originated, and increased its paroxysms, and was
sometimes the cause of their mitigation. So early as the fourteenth
century, the swarms of St. John’s dancers were accompanied by minstrels
playing upon noisy instruments, who roused their morbid feelings;
and it may readily be supposed that, by the performance of lively
melodies, and the stimulating effects which the shrill tones of fifes
and trumpets would produce, a paroxysm, that was perhaps but slight
in itself, might, in many cases, be increased to the most outrageous
fury, such as in later times, was purposely induced in order that
the force of the disease might be exhausted by the violence of its
attack. Moreover, by means of intoxicating music a kind of demoniacal
festival for the rude multitude was established, which had the effect
of spreading this unhappy malady wider and wider. Soft harmony was,
however, employed to calm the excitement of those affected, and it is
mentioned as a character of the tunes played with this view to the St.
Vitus’s dancers, that they contained transitions from a quick to a
slow measure, and passed gradually from a high to a low key[243]. It
is to be regretted that no trace of this music has reached our times,
which is owing partly to the disastrous events of the seventeenth
century, and partly to the circumstance that the disorder was looked
upon as entirely national, and only incidentally considered worthy
of notice by foreign men of learning. If the St. Vitus’s dance was
already on the decline at the commencement of the seventeenth century,
the subsequent events were altogether adverse to its continuance. Wars
carried on with animosity and with various success for thirty years,
shook the west of Europe; and although the unspeakable calamities which
they brought upon Germany, both during their continuance, and in their
immediate consequences, were by no means favourable to the advance of
knowledge, yet, with the vehemence of a purifying fire, they gradually
effected the intellectual regeneration of the Germans; superstition, in
her ancient form, never again appeared, and the belief in the dominion
of spirits, which prevailed in the middle ages, lost for ever its once
formidable power.




                              CHAPTER II.

                        DANCING MANIA IN ITALY.


                          SECT. 1.—TARANTISM.

It was of the utmost advantage to the St. Vitus’s dancers that
they made choice of a favourite patron saint; for, not to mention
that people were inclined to compare them to the possessed with
evil spirits, described in the Bible, and thence to consider them
as innocent victims to the power of Satan, the name of their great
intercessor recommended them to general commiseration, and a magic
boundary was thus set to every harsh feeling which might otherwise have
proved hostile to their safety. Other fanatics were not so fortunate,
being often treated with the most relentless cruelty whenever the
notions of the middle ages either excused or commanded it as a
religious duty[244].

Thus, passing over the innumerable instances of the burning of witches,
who were, after all, only labouring under a delusion, the Teutonic
knights in Prussia not unfrequently condemned those maniacs to the
stake who imagined themselves to be metamorphosed into wolves[245]—an
extraordinary species of insanity, which, having existed in Greece,
before our era, spread, in process of time, over Europe, so that it
was communicated not only to the Romaic, but also to the German and
Sarmatian nations, and descended from the ancients, as a legacy of
affliction to posterity. In modern times, Lycanthropy, such was the
name given to this infatuation, has vanished from the earth, but it
is nevertheless well worthy the consideration of the observer of
human aberrations, and a history of it by some writer who is equally
well acquainted with the middle ages as with antiquity is still a
desideratum[246]. We leave it, for the present, without further
notice, and turn to a malady most extraordinary in all its phenomena,
having a close connexion with the St. Vitus’s dance, and, by a
comparison of facts, which are altogether similar, affording us an
instructive subject for contemplation. We allude to the disease called
Tarantism, which made its first appearance in Apulia, and thence spread
over the other provinces of Italy, where, during some centuries, it
prevailed as a great epidemic. In the present times it has vanished,
or at least has lost altogether its original importance, like the St.
Vitus’s dance, lycanthropy, and witchcraft.


                 SECT. 2.—MOST ANCIENT TRACES.—CAUSES.

The learned Nicholas Perotti[247] gives the earliest account of this
strange disorder. Nobody had the least doubt that it was caused by
the bite of the _tarantula_[248][249], a ground-spider common in
Apulia; and the fear of this insect was so general, that its bite was
in all probability much oftener imagined, or the sting of some other
kind of insect mistaken for it, than actually received. The word
_tarantula_ is apparently the same as _terrantola_, a name given by
the Italians to the stellio of the old Romans, which was a kind of
lizard[250], said to be poisonous, and invested by credulity with such
extraordinary qualities, that, like the serpent of the Mosaic account
of the Creation, it personified, in the imaginations of the vulgar, the
notion of cunning, so that even the jurists designated a cunning fraud
by the appellation of a “stellionatus”[251]. Perotti expressly assures
us that this reptile was called by the Romans _tarantula_; and since
he himself, who was one of the most distinguished authors of his time,
strangely confounds spiders and lizards together, so that he considers
the Apulian tarantula, which he ranks among the class of spiders, to
have the same meaning as the kind of lizard, called ἀσκαλαβώτης[252],
it is the less extraordinary that the unlearned country people of
Apulia should confound the much dreaded ground-spider with the fabulous
star-lizard[253], and appropriate to the one the name of the other. The
derivation of the word tarantula, from the city of Tarentum, or the
river Thara, in Apulia[254], on the banks of which this insect is said
to have been most frequently found, or at least its bite to have had
the most venomous effect, seems not to be supported by authority. So
much for the name of this famous spider, which, unless we are greatly
mistaken, throws no light whatever upon the nature of the disease in
question. Naturalists who, possessing a knowledge of the past, should
not misapply their talents by employing them in establishing the dry
distinction of forms, would find here much that calls for research, and
their efforts would clear up many a perplexing obscurity.

Perotti states that the tarantula, that is, the spider so called,
was not met with in Italy in former times, but that in his day it
had become common, especially in Apulia, as well as in some other
districts. He deserves, however, no great confidence as a naturalist,
notwithstanding his having delivered lectures in Bologna on medicine
and other sciences[255]. He at least has neglected to prove his
assertion, which is not borne out by any analogous phenomenon observed
in modern times with regard to the history of the spider species. It
is by no means to be admitted that the tarantula did not make its
appearance in Italy before the disease ascribed to its bite became
remarkable, even though tempests more violent than those unexampled
storms which arose at the time of the Black Death[256] in the middle
of the fourteenth century had set the insect world in motion; for the
spider is little, if at all, susceptible of those cosmical influences
which at times multiply locusts and other winged insects to a wonderful
extent, and compel them to migrate.

The symptoms which Perotti enumerates as consequent on the bite of the
tarantula agree very exactly with those described by later writers.
Those who were bitten, generally fell into a state of melancholy, and
appeared to be stupified, and scarcely in possession of their senses.
This condition was, in many cases, united with so great a sensibility
to music, that, at the very first tones of their favourite melodies,
they sprang up, shouting for joy, and danced on without intermission,
until they sank to the ground exhausted and almost lifeless. In others,
the disease did not take this cheerful turn. They wept constantly, and
as if pining away with some unsatisfied desire, spent their days in the
greatest misery and anxiety. Others, again, in morbid fits of love,
cast their longing looks on women, and instances of death are recorded,
which are said to have occurred under a paroxysm of either laughing or
weeping.

From this description, incomplete as it is, we may easily gather that
tarantism, the essential symptoms of which are mentioned in it, could
not have originated in the fifteenth century, to which Perotti’s
account refers; for that author speaks of it as a well known malady,
and states that the omission to notice it by older writers, was to be
ascribed solely to the want of education in Apulia, the only province
probably where the disease at that time prevailed. A nervous disorder
that had arrived at so high a degree of development, must have been
long in existence, and doubtless had required an elaborate preparation
by the concurrence of general causes.

The symptoms which followed the bite of venomous spiders were well
known to the ancients, and had excited the attention of their best
observers, who agree in their descriptions of them. It is probable
that among the numerous species of their phalangium[257], the Apulian
tarantula is included, but it is difficult to determine this point with
certainty, more especially, because in Italy the tarantula was not the
only insect which caused this nervous affection, similar results being
likewise attributed to the bite of the scorpion. Lividity of the whole
body as well as of the countenance, difficulty of speech, tremor of
the limbs, icy coldness, pale urine, depression of spirits, headache,
a flow of tears, nausea, vomiting, sexual excitement, flatulence,
syncope, dysuria, watchfulness, lethargy, even death itself, were cited
by them as the consequences of being bitten by venomous spiders, and
they made little distinction as to their kinds. To these symptoms we
may add the strange rumour, repeated throughout the middle ages, that
persons who were bitten, ejected by the bowels and kidneys, and even by
vomiting, substances resembling a spider’s web.

Nowhere, however, do we find any mention made that those affected felt
an irresistible propensity to dancing, or that they were accidentally
cured by it. Even Constantine of Africa, who lived 500 years after
Aëtius, and as the most learned physician of the school of Salerno,
would certainly not have passed over so acceptable a subject of
remark, knows nothing of such a memorable course of this disease
arising from poison, and merely repeats the observations of his
Greek predecessors[258]. Gariopontus[259], a Salernian physician of
the eleventh century, was the first to describe a kind of insanity,
the remote affinity of which to the tarantula disease is rendered
apparent by a very striking symptom. The patients in their sudden
attacks behaved like maniacs, sprang up, throwing their arms about
with wild movements, and, if perchance a sword was at hand, they
wounded themselves and others, so that it became necessary carefully
to secure them. They imagined that they heard voices, and various
kinds of sounds, and if, during this state of illusion, the tones of
a favourite instrument happened to catch their ear, they commenced a
spasmodic dance, or ran with the utmost energy which they could muster
until they were totally exhausted. These dangerous maniacs, who, it
would seem, appeared in considerable numbers, were looked upon as a
legion of devils, but on the causes of their malady this obscure writer
adds nothing further than that he believes (oddly enough) that it may
sometimes be excited by the bite of a mad dog. He calls the disease
Anteneasmus, by which is meant no doubt the Enthusiasmus of the Greek
physicians[260]. We cite this phenomenon as an important forerunner
of Tarantism, under the conviction that we have thus added to the
evidence that the development of this latter must have been founded
on circumstances which existed from the twelfth to the end of the
fourteenth century; for the origin of Tarantism itself is referrible,
with the utmost probability, to a period between the middle and the
end of this century, and is consequently contemporaneous with that of
the St. Vitus’s dance (1374). The influence of the Roman Catholic
religion, connected as this was, in the middle ages, with the pomp of
processions, with public exercises of penance, and with innumerable
practices which strongly excited the imaginations of its votaries,
certainly brought the mind to a very favourable state for the reception
of a nervous disorder. Accordingly, so long as the doctrines of
Christianity were blended with so much mysticism, these unhallowed
disorders prevailed to an important extent, and even in our own days
we find them propagated with the greatest facility where the existence
of superstition produces the same effect in more limited districts, as
it once did among whole nations. But this is not all. Every country in
Europe, and Italy perhaps more than any other, was visited during the
middle ages by frightful plagues, which followed each other in such
quick succession, that they gave the exhausted people scarcely any
time for recovery. The oriental bubo-plague ravaged Italy[261] sixteen
times between the years 1119 and 1340. Small-pox and measles were still
more destructive than in modern times, and recurred as frequently. St.
Anthony’s fire was the dread of town and country; and that disgusting
disease, the leprosy, which, in consequence of the crusades, spread
its insinuating poison in all directions, snatched from the paternal
hearth innumerable victims who, banished from human society, pined away
in lonely huts, whither they were accompanied only by the pity of the
benevolent and their own despair. All these calamities, of which the
moderns have scarcely retained any recollection, were heightened to
an incredible degree by the Black Death[262], which spread boundless
devastation and misery over Italy. Men’s minds were everywhere morbidly
sensitive; and as it happens with individuals whose senses, when they
are suffering under anxiety, become more irritable, so that trifles are
magnified into objects of great alarm, and slight shocks, which would
scarcely affect the spirits when in health, give rise in them to severe
diseases, so was it with this whole nation, at all times so alive to
emotions, and at that period so sorely pressed with the horrors of
death.

The bite of venomous spiders, or rather the unreasonable fear of its
consequences, excited at such a juncture, though it could not have
done so at an earlier period, a violent nervous disorder, which,
like St. Vitus’s dance in Germany, spread by sympathy, increasing
in severity as it took a wider range, and still further extending
its ravages from its long continuance. Thus, from the middle of the
fourteenth century, the furies of _the Dance_ brandished their scourge
over afflicted mortals; and music, for which the inhabitants of Italy,
now probably for the first time, manifested susceptibility and talent,
became capable of exciting ecstatic attacks in those affected, and then
furnished the magical means of exorcising their melancholy.


                          SECT. 3.—INCREASE.

At the close of the fifteenth century we find that Tarantism had
spread beyond the boundaries of Apulia, and that the fear of being
bitten by venomous spiders had increased. Nothing short of death
itself was expected from the wound which these insects inflicted, and
if those who were bitten escaped with their lives, they were said to
be seen pining away in a desponding state of lassitude. Many became
weak-sighted or hard of hearing, some lost the power of speech, and
all were insensible to ordinary causes of excitement. Nothing but
the flute or the cithern afforded them relief[263]. At the sound of
these instruments they awoke as it were by enchantment, opened their
eyes, and moving slowly at first, according to the measure of the
music, were, as the time quickened, gradually hurried on to the most
passionate dance. It was generally observable that country people,
who were rude, and ignorant of music, evinced on these occasions an
unusual degree of grace, as if they had been well practised in elegant
movements of the body; for it is a peculiarity in nervous disorders
of this kind, that the organs of motion are in an altered condition,
and are completely under the control of the over-strained spirits.
Cities and villages alike resounded throughout the summer season with
the notes of fifes, clarinets, and Turkish drums; and patients were
everywhere to be met with who looked to dancing as their only remedy.
Alexander ab Alexandro[264], who gives this account, saw a young man in
a remote village who was seized with a violent attack of Tarantism. He
listened with eagerness and a fixed stare to the sound of a drum, and
his graceful movements gradually became more and more violent, until
his dancing was converted into a succession of frantic leaps, which
required the utmost exertion of his whole strength. In the midst of
this over-strained exertion of mind and body the music suddenly ceased,
and he immediately fell powerless to the ground, where he lay senseless
and motionless until its magical effect again aroused him to a renewal
of his impassioned performances.

At the period of which we are treating there was a general conviction,
that by music and dancing the poison of the Tarantula was distributed
over the whole body, and expelled through the skin, but that if there
remained the slightest vestige of it in the vessels, this became a
permanent germ of the disorder, so that the dancing fits might again
and again be excited _ad infinitum_ by music. This belief, which
resembled the delusion of those insane persons who, being by artful
management freed from the imagined causes of their sufferings, are but
for a short time released from their false notions, was attended with
the most injurious effects: for in consequence of it those affected
necessarily became by degrees convinced of the incurable nature of
their disorder. They expected relief, indeed, but not a cure, from
music; and when the heat of summer awakened a recollection of the
dances of the preceding year, they, like the St. Vitus’s dancers
of the same period before St. Vitus’s day, again grew dejected
and misanthropic, until, by music and dancing, they dispelled the
melancholy which had become with them a kind of sensual enjoyment.

Under such favourable circumstances it is clear that Tarantism must
every year have made further progress. The number of those affected by
it increased beyond all belief, for whoever had either actually been,
or even fancied that he had been, once bitten by a poisonous spider or
scorpion, made his appearance annually wherever the merry notes of the
Tarantella resounded. Inquisitive females joined the throng and caught
the disease, not indeed from the poison of the spider, but from the
mental poison which they eagerly received through the eye; and thus
the cure of the _Tarantati_ gradually became established as a regular
festival of the populace, which was anticipated with impatient delight.

Without attributing more to deception and fraud than to the peculiar
nature of a progressive mental malady, it may readily be conceived
that the cases of this strange disorder now grew more frequent.
The celebrated Matthioli[265], who is worthy of entire confidence,
gives his account as an eye-witness. He saw the same extraordinary
effects produced by music as Alexandro, for, however tortured with
pain, however hopeless of relief the patients appeared, as they lay
stretched on the couch of sickness, at the very first sounds of those
melodies which made an impression on them—but this was the case only
with the Tarantellas composed expressly for the purpose—they sprang
up as if inspired with new life and spirit, and, unmindful of their
disorder, began to move in measured gestures, dancing for hours
together without fatigue, until, covered with a kindly perspiration,
they felt a salutary degree of lassitude, which relieved them for a
time at least, perhaps even for a whole year, from their dejection and
oppressive feeling of general indisposition. Alexandro’s experience of
the injurious effects resulting from a sudden cessation of the music
was generally confirmed by Matthioli. If the clarinets and drums ceased
for a single moment, which, as the most skilful players were tired out
by the patients, could not but happen occasionally, they suffered their
limbs to fall listless, again sank exhausted to the ground, and could
find no solace but in a renewal of the dance. On this account care was
taken to continue the music until exhaustion was produced; for it was
better to pay a few extra musicians, who might relieve each other,
than to permit the patient, in the midst of this curative exercise, to
relapse into so deplorable a state of suffering. The attack consequent
upon the bite of the Tarantula, Matthioli describes as varying much in
its manner. Some became morbidly exhilarated, so that they remained
for a long while without sleep, laughing, dancing, and singing in a
state of the greatest excitement. Others, on the contrary, were drowsy.
The generality felt nausea and suffered from vomiting, and some had
constant tremors. Complete mania was no uncommon occurrence, not to
mention the usual dejection of spirits and other subordinate symptoms.


                    SECT. 4.—IDIOSYNCRACIES.—MUSIC.

Unaccountable emotions, strange desires and morbid sensual irritations
of all kinds, were as prevalent as in the St. Vitus’s dance and similar
great nervous maladies. So late as the sixteenth century patients
were seen armed with glittering swords which, during the attack, they
brandished with wild gestures, as if they were going to engage in a
fencing match[266]. Even women scorned all female delicacy[267] and,
adopting this impassioned demeanour, did the same; and this phenomenon,
as well as the excitement which the Tarantula dancers felt at the sight
of any thing with metallic lustre, was quite common up to the period
when, in modern times, the disease disappeared[268].

The abhorrence of certain colours and the agreeable sensations produced
by others, were much more marked among the excitable Italians than was
the case in the St. Vitus’s dance with the more phlegmatic Germans.
Red colours, which the St. Vitus’s dancers detested, they generally
liked, so that a patient was seldom seen who did not carry a red
handkerchief for his gratification, or greedily feast his eyes on
any articles of red clothing worn by the bystanders. Some preferred
yellow, others black colours, of which an explanation was sought,
according to the prevailing notions of the times, in the difference
of temperaments[269]. Others again were enraptured with green; and
eye-witnesses describe this rage for colours as so extraordinary, that
they can scarcely find words with which to express their astonishment.
No sooner did the patients obtain a sight of the favourite colour
than, new as the impression was, they rushed like infuriated animals
towards the object, devoured it with their eager looks, kissed and
caressed it in every possible way, and gradually resigning themselves
to softer sensations, adopted the languishing expression of enamoured
lovers, and embraced the handkerchief, or whatever other article it
might be, which was presented to them, with the most intense ardour,
while the tears streamed from their eyes as if they were completely
overwhelmed by the inebriating impression on their senses.

The dancing fits of a certain Capuchin friar in Tarentum excited so
much curiosity, that Cardinal Cajetano proceeded to the monastery,
that he might see with his own eyes what was going on. As soon as the
monk, who was in the midst of his dance, perceived the spiritual prince
clothed in his red garments, he no longer listened to the Tarantella
of the musicians, but with strange gestures endeavoured to approach
the Cardinal, as if he wished to count the very threads of his scarlet
robe, and to allay his intense longing by its odour. The interference
of the spectators, and his own respect, prevented his touching it, and
thus the irritation of his senses not being appeased, he fell into a
state of such anguish and disquietude, that he presently sank down in a
swoon, from which he did not recover until the Cardinal compassionately
gave him his cape. This he immediately seized in the greatest ecstacy,
and pressed now to his breast, now to his forehead and cheeks, and then
again commenced his dance as if in the frenzy of a love fit[270].

At the sight of colours which they disliked, patients flew into the
most violent rage, and, like the St. Vitus’s dancers when they saw red
objects, could scarcely be restrained from tearing the clothes of those
spectators who raised in them such disagreeable sensations[271].

Another no less extraordinary symptom was the ardent longing for the
sea which the patients evinced. As the St. John’s dancers of the
fourteenth century saw, in the spirit, the heavens open and display
all the splendour of the saints, so did those who were suffering under
the bite of the Tarantula feel themselves attracted to the boundless
expanse of the blue ocean, and lost themselves in its contemplation.
Some songs, which are still preserved, marked this peculiar longing,
which was moreover expressed by significant music, and was excited even
by the bare mention of the sea[272]. Some, in whom this susceptibility
was carried to the greatest pitch, cast themselves with blind fury into
the blue waves[273], as the St. Vitus’s dancers occasionally did into
rapid rivers. This condition, so opposite to the frightful state of
hydrophobia, betrayed itself in others only in the pleasure afforded
them by the sight of clear water in glasses. These they bore in their
hands while dancing, exhibiting at the same time strange movements,
and giving way to the most extravagant expressions of their feelings.
They were delighted also when, in the midst of the space allotted for
this exercise, more ample vessels, filled with water, and surrounded by
rushes and water plants, were placed, in which they bathed their heads
and arms with evident pleasure[274]. Others there were who rolled about
on the ground, and were, by their own desire, buried up to the neck in
the earth, in order to alleviate the misery of their condition, not to
mention an endless variety of other symptoms which showed the perverted
action of the nerves.

All these modes of relief, however, were as nothing in comparison with
the irresistible charms of musical sound. Attempts had indeed been
made in ancient times to mitigate the pain of sciatica[275], or the
paroxysms of mania[276], by the soft melody of the flute, and, what
is still more applicable to the present purpose, to remove the danger
arising from the bite of vipers[277] by the same means. This, however,
was tried only to a very small extent. But after being bitten by the
Tarantula, there was, according to popular opinion, no way of saving
life except by music, and it was hardly considered as an exception
to the general rule, that every now and then the bad effects of a
wound were prevented by placing a ligature on the bitten limb, or
by internal medicine, or that strong persons occasionally withstood
the effects of the poison, without the employment of any remedies at
all[278]. It was much more common, and is quite in accordance with the
nature of so exquisite a nervous disease, to hear accounts of many,
who, when bitten by the Tarantula, perished miserably because the
Tarantella, which would have afforded them deliverance, was not played
to them[279]. It was customary, therefore, so early as the commencement
of the seventeenth century, for whole bands of musicians to traverse
Italy during the summer months, and, what is quite unexampled either in
ancient or modern times, the cure of the _Tarantati_ in the different
towns and villages was undertaken on a grand scale. This season of
dancing and music was called “the women’s little carnival,”[280] for
it was women more especially who conducted the arrangements; so that
throughout the whole country they saved up their spare money, for the
purpose of rewarding the welcome musicians, and many of them neglected
their household employments to participate in this festival of the
sick. Mention is even made of one benevolent lady (Mita Lupa) who had
expended her whole fortune on this object[281].

The music itself was of a kind perfectly adapted to the nature of
the malady, and it made so deep an impression on the Italians, that
even to the present time, long since the extinction of the disorder,
they have retained the Tarantella, as a particular species of music
employed for quick lively dancing. The different kinds of Tarantella
were distinguished, very significantly, by particular names, which had
reference to the moods observed in the patients. Whence it appears that
they aimed at representing by these tunes, even the idiosyncracies of
the mind as expressed in the countenance. Thus there was one kind of
Tarantella which was called “Panno rosso,” a very lively impassioned
style of music, to which wild dithyrambic songs were adapted; another,
called “Panno verde,” which was suited to the milder excitement of the
senses, caused by green colours, and set to Idyllian songs of verdant
fields and shady groves. A third was named “Cinque tempi:” a fourth
“Moresca,” which was played to a Moorish dance; a fifth, “Catena”
and a sixth, with a very appropriate designation, “Spallata,” as if it
were only fit to be played to dancers who were lame in the shoulder.
This was the slowest and least in vogue of all[282]. For those who
loved water they took care to select love songs, which were sung to
corresponding music, and such persons delighted in hearing of gushing
springs and rushing cascades and streams[283]. It is to be regretted
that on this subject we are unable to give any further information, for
only small fragments of songs, and a very few Tarantellas, have been
preserved, which belong to a period so remote as the beginning of the
seventeenth, or at furthest the end of the sixteenth century[284].

The music was almost wholly in the Turkish style (aria Turchesca),
and the ancient songs of the peasantry of Apulia, which increased in
number annually, were well suited to the abrupt and lively notes of
the Turkish drum and the shepherd’s pipe. These two instruments were
the favourites in the country, but others of all kinds were played in
towns and villages, as an accompaniment to the dances of the patients
and the songs of the spectators. If any particular melody was disliked
by those affected, they indicated their displeasure by violent gestures
expressive of aversion. They could not endure false notes, and it
is remarkable that uneducated boors, who had never in their lives
manifested any perception of the enchanting power of harmony, acquired,
in this respect, an extremely refined sense of hearing, as if they had
been initiated into the profoundest secrets of the musical art[285].
It was a matter of every day’s experience, that patients showed a
predilection for certain Tarantellas, in preference to others, which
gave rise to the composition of a great variety of these dances. They
were likewise very capricious in their partialities for particular
instruments; so that some longed for the shrill notes of the trumpet,
others for the softest music produced by the vibration of strings[286].

Tarantism was at its greatest height in Italy in the seventeenth
century, long after the St. Vitus’s Dance of Germany had disappeared.
It was not the natives of the country only who were attacked by this
complaint. Foreigners of every colour and of every race, negroes,
gipsies, Spaniards, Albanians, were in like manner affected by it[287].
Against the effects produced by the Tarantula’s bite, or by the sight
of the sufferers, neither youth nor age afforded any protection; so
that even old men of ninety threw aside their crutches at the sound of
the Tarantella, and, as if some magic potion, restorative of youth and
vigour, were flowing through their veins, joined the most extravagant
dancers[288]. Ferdinando saw a boy five years old seized with the
dancing mania[289], in consequence of the bite of a tarantula, and,
what is almost past belief, were it not supported by the testimony of
so credible an eye-witness, even deaf people were not exempt from this
disorder, so potent in its effect was the very sight of those affected,
even without the exhilarating emotions caused by music[290].

Subordinate nervous attacks were much more frequent during this
century than at any former period, and an extraordinary icy coldness
was observed in those who were the subjects of them; so that they
did not recover their natural heat until they had engaged in violent
dancing[291]. Their anguish and sense of oppression forced from them
a cold perspiration; the secretion from the kidneys was pale[292],
and they had so great a dislike to every thing cold, that when water
was offered them they pushed it away with abhorrence. Wine, on the
contrary, they all drank willingly, without being heated by it, or
in the slightest degree intoxicated[293]. During the whole period
of the attack they suffered from spasms in the stomach, and felt a
disinclination to take food of any kind. They used to abstain some time
before the expected seizures from meat and from snails, which they
thought rendered them more severe[294], and their great thirst for wine
may, therefore, in some measure, be attributable to the want of a more
nutritious diet; yet the disorder of the nerves was evidently its chief
cause, and the loss of appetite, as well as the necessity for support
by wine, were its effects. Loss of voice, occasional blindness[295],
vertigo, complete insanity, with sleeplessness, frequent weeping
without any ostensible cause, were all usual symptoms. Many patients
found relief from being placed in swings or rocked in cradles[296];
others required to be roused from their state of suffering by severe
blows on the soles of their feet; others beat themselves, without any
intention of making a display, but solely for the purpose of allaying
the intense nervous irritation which they felt; and a considerable
number were seen with their bellies swollen[297], like those of the
St. John’s dancers, while the violence of the intestinal disorder
was indicated in others by obstinate constipation or diarrhœa and
vomiting[298]. These pitiable objects gradually lost their strength
and their colour, and creeping about with injected eyes, jaundiced
complexions, and inflated bowels, soon fell into a state of profound
melancholy, which found food and solace in the solemn tolling of the
funeral bell, and in an abode among the tombs of cemeteries, as is
related of the Lycanthropes of former times.

The persuasion of the inevitable consequences of being bitten by
the Tarantula, exercised a dominion over men’s minds which even the
healthiest and strongest could not shake off. So late as the middle
of the sixteenth century, the celebrated Fracastoro found the robust
bailiff of his landed estate groaning, and, with the aspect of a person
in the extremity of despair, suffering the very agonies of death,
from a sting in the neck, inflicted by an insect which was believed
to be a Tarantula. He kindly administered without delay, a potion of
vinegar and Armenian bole, the great remedy of those days for the
plague and all kinds of animal poisons, and the dying man was, as if by
a miracle, restored to life and the power of speech[299]. Now, since
it is quite out of the question that the bole could have any thing to
do with the result in this case, notwithstanding Fracastoro’s belief
in its virtues, we can only account for the cure by supposing, that a
confidence in so great a physician prevailed over this fatal disease
of the imagination, which would otherwise have yielded to scarcely any
other remedy except the Tarantella. Ferdinando was acquainted with
women who, for thirty years in succession, had overcome the attacks
of this disorder by a renewal of their annual dance—so long did they
maintain their belief in the yet undestroyed poison of the Tarantula’s
bite, and so long did that mental affection continue to exist, after it
had ceased to depend on any corporeal excitement[300].

Wherever we turn we find that this morbid state of mind prevailed, and
was so supported by the opinions of the age, that it needed only a
stimulus in the bite of the Tarantula, and the supposed certainty of
its very disastrous consequences, to originate this violent nervous
disorder. Even in Ferdinando’s time there were many who altogether
denied the poisonous effects of the Tarantula’s bite, whilst they
considered the disorder, which annually set Italy in commotion, to be
a melancholy depending on the imagination[301]. They dearly expiated
this scepticism, however, when they were led, with an inconsiderate
hardihood, to test their opinions by experiment; for many of them
became the subjects of severe Tarantism, and even a distinguished
prelate, Jo. Baptist Quinzato, Bishop of Foligno, having allowed
himself, by way of a joke, to be bitten by a Tarantula, could obtain
a cure in no other way than by being, through the influence of the
Tarentella, compelled to dance[302]. Others among the clergy, who
wished to shut their ears against music, because they considered
dancing derogatory to their station, fell into a dangerous state of
illness by thus delaying the crisis of the malady, and were obliged at
last to save themselves from a miserable death by submitting to the
unwelcome but sole means of cure[303]. Thus it appears that the age was
so little favourable to freedom of thought, that even the most decided
sceptics, incapable of guarding themselves against the recollection
of what had been presented to the eye, were subdued by a poison, the
powers of which they had ridiculed, and which was in itself inert in
its effect.


                          SECT. 5.—HYSTERIA.

Different characteristics of morbidly excited vitality having been
rendered prominent by Tarantism in different individuals, it could
not but happen that other derangements of the nerves would assume the
form of this, whenever circumstances favoured such a transition.
This was more especially the case with hysteria, that proteiform and
mutable disorder, in which the imaginations, the superstitions and the
follies of all ages have been evidently reflected. The “Carnevaletto
delle Donne” appeared most opportunely for those who were hysterical.
Their disease received from it, as it had at other times from other
extraordinary customs, a peculiar direction; so that whether bitten
by the tarantula or not, they felt compelled to participate in the
dances of those affected, and to make their appearance at this
popular festival, where they had an opportunity of triumphantly
exhibiting their sufferings. Let us here pause to consider the kind
of life which the women in Italy led. Lonely, and deprived by cruel
custom of social intercourse, that fairest of all enjoyments, they
dragged on a miserable existence. Cheerfulness and an inclination
to sensual pleasures passed into compulsory idleness, and, in many,
into black despondency[304]. Their imaginations became disordered—a
pallid countenance and oppressed respiration bore testimony to their
profound sufferings. How could they do otherwise, sunk as they were
in such extreme misery, than seize the occasion to burst forth from
their prisons, and alleviate their miseries by taking part in the
delights of music. Nor should we here pass unnoticed a circumstance
which illustrates, in a remarkable degree, the psychological nature
of hysterical sufferings, namely, that many chlorotic females, by
joining the dancers at the Carnevaletto, were freed from their spasms
and oppression of breathing for the whole year, although the corporeal
cause of their malady was not removed[305]. After such a result, no one
could call their self-deception a mere imposture, and unconditionally
condemn it as such.

This numerous class of patients certainly contributed not a little to
the maintenance of the evil, for their fantastic sufferings, in which
dissimulation and reality could scarcely be distinguished even by
themselves, much less by their physicians, were imitated, in the same
way as the distortions of the St. Vitus’s dancers, by the impostors of
that period. It was certainly by these persons also that the number
of subordinate symptoms was increased to an endless extent, as may
be conceived from the daily observation of hysterical patients, who,
from a morbid desire to render themselves remarkable, deviate from the
laws of moral propriety. Powerful sexual excitement had often the most
decided influence over their condition. Many of them exposed themselves
in the most indecent manner, tore their hair out by the roots, with
howling and gnashing of their teeth; and when, as was sometimes the
case, their unsatisfied passion hurried them on to a state of frenzy,
they closed their existence by self-destruction; it being common at
that time for these unfortunate beings to precipitate themselves into
the wells[306].

It might hence seem that, owing to the conduct of patients of this
description, so much of fraud and falsehood would be mixed up with the
original disorder, that having passed into another complaint, it must
have been itself destroyed. This, however, did not happen in the first
half of the seventeenth century; for as a clear proof that Tarantism
remained substantially the same and quite unaffected by Hysteria,
there were in many places, and in particular at Messapia, fewer women
affected than men, who in their turn were, in no small proportion, led
into temptation by sexual excitement[307]. In other places, as for
example at Brindisi, the case was reversed, which may, as in other
complaints, be in some measure attributable to local causes. Upon the
whole it appears, from concurrent accounts, that women by no means
enjoyed the distinction of being attacked by Tarantism more frequently
than men.

It is said that the cicatrix of the tarantula bite, on the yearly or
half-yearly return of the fit, became discoloured[308], but on this
point the distinct testimony of good observers is wanting to deprive
the assertion of its utter improbability.

It is not out of place to remark here, that about the same time that
Tarantism attained its greatest height in Italy, the bite of venomous
spiders was more feared in distant parts of Asia likewise, than it
had ever been within the memory of man. There was this difference,
however, that the symptoms supervening on the occurrence of this
accident were not accompanied by the Apulian nervous disorder, which,
as has been shown in the foregoing pages, had its origin rather in the
melancholic temperament of the inhabitants of the south of Italy, than
in the nature of the tarantula poison itself. This poison is therefore
doubtless to be considered only as a remote cause of the complaint,
which, but for that temperament, would be inadequate to its production.
The Persians employed a very rough means of counteracting the bad
consequences of a poison of this sort. They drenched the wounded person
with milk, and then, by violent rotatory motion in a suspended box,
compelled him to vomit[309].


                          SECT. 6.—DECREASE.

The Dancing Mania, arising from the tarantula bite, continued, with all
those additions of self-deception, and of the dissimulation which is
such a constant attendant on nervous disorders of this kind, through
the whole course of the seventeenth century. It was indeed gradually
on the decline, but up to the termination of this period, showed such
extraordinary symptoms, that Baglivi, one of the best physicians of
that time, thought he did a service to science by making them the
subject of a dissertation[310]. He repeats all the observations of
Ferdinando, and supports his own assertions by the experience of his
father, a physician at Lecce, whose testimony, as an eye-witness, may
be admitted as unexceptionable[311].

The immediate consequences of the tarantula bite, the supervening
nervous disorder, and the aberrations and fits of those who suffered
from Hysteria, he describes in a masterly style, nor does he ever
suffer his credulity to diminish the authenticity of his account, of
which he has been unjustly accused by later writers.

Finally, Tarantism has declined more and more in modern times, and is
now limited to single cases. How could it possibly have maintained
itself unchanged in the eighteenth century, when all the links which
connected it with the middle ages had long since been snapped asunder?
Imposture[312] grew more frequent, and wherever the disease still
appeared in its genuine form, its chief cause, namely, a peculiar cast
of melancholy, which formerly had been the temperament of thousands,
was now possessed only occasionally by unfortunate individuals. It
might therefore not unreasonably be maintained, that the Tarantism of
modern times bears nearly the same relation to the original malady, as
the St. Vitus’s dance which still exists, and certainly has all along
existed, bears, in certain cases, to the original dancing mania of the
dancers of St. John.

To conclude. Tarantism, as a real disease, has been denied _in toto_,
and stigmatized as an imposition, by most physicians and naturalists,
who in this controversy have shown the narrowness of their views and
their utter ignorance of history. In order to support their opinion
they have instituted some experiments, apparently favourable to it,
but under circumstances altogether inapplicable, since, for the most
part, they selected, as the subjects of them, none but healthy men,
who were totally uninfluenced by a belief in this once so dreaded
disease. From individual instances of fraud and dissimulation, such as
are found in connexion with most nervous affections without rendering
their reality a matter of any doubt, they drew a too hasty conclusion
respecting the general phenomenon, of which they appeared not to know,
that it had continued for nearly four hundred years, having originated
in the remotest periods of the middle ages. The most learned and the
most acute among these sceptics is Serao the Neapolitan[313]. His
reasonings amount to this, that he considers the disease to be a very
marked form of melancholia, and compares the effect of the tarantula
bite upon it to stimulating, with spurs, a horse which is already
running. The reality of that effect he thus admits, and therefore
directly confirms what in appearance only he denies[314]. By shaking
the already vacillating belief in this disorder he is said to have
actually succeeded in rendering it less frequent, and in setting bounds
to imposture[315]; but this no more disproves the reality of its
existence, than the oft-repeated detection of imposition has been able,
in modern times, to banish magnetic sleep from the circle of natural
phenomena, though such detection has, on its side, rendered more rare
the incontestible effects of animal magnetism. Other physicians and
naturalists[316] have delivered their sentiments on Tarantism, but as
they have not possessed an enlarged knowledge of its history, their
views do not merit particular exposition. It is sufficient for the
comprehension of every one, that we have presented the facts freed from
all extraneous speculation.




                             CHAPTER III.

                      DANCING MANIA IN ABYSSINIA.


                          SECT. 1.—TIGRETIER.

Both the St. Vitus’s dance and Tarantism belonged to the ages in which
they appeared. They could not have existed under the same latitude at
any other epoch, for at no other period were the circumstances which
prepared the way for them combined in a similar relation to each other,
and the mental as well as corporeal temperaments of nations, which
depend on causes such as have been stated, are as little capable of
renewal as the different stages of life in individuals. This gives
so much the more importance to a disease but cursorily alluded to
in the foregoing pages, which exists in Abyssinia, and which nearly
resembles the original mania of the St. John’s dancers, inasmuch as it
exhibits a perfectly similar ecstacy, with the same violent effect on
the nerves of motion. It occurs most frequently in the Tigrè country,
being thence called Tigretier, and is probably the same malady which is
called in the Æthiopian language Astarāgaza[317]. On this subject we
will introduce the testimony of Nathaniel Pearce[318], an eye-witness,
who resided nine years in Abyssinia. “The Tigretier,” says he, “is
more common among the women than among the men. It seizes the body as
if with a violent fever, and from that turns to a lingering sickness,
which reduces the patients to skeletons, and often kills them, if the
relations cannot procure the proper remedy. During this sickness their
speech is changed to a kind of stuttering, which no one can understand
but those afflicted with the same disorder. When the relations find
the malady to be the real _tigretier_, they join together to defray
the expenses of curing it; the first remedy they in general attempt,
is to procure the assistance of a learned Dofter, who reads the Gospel
of St. John[319], and drenches the patient with cold water daily for
the space of seven days—an application that very often proves fatal.
The most effectual cure, though far more expensive than the former, is
as follows:—The relations hire, for a certain sum of money, a band of
trumpeters, drummers and fifers, and buy a quantity of liquor; then all
the young men and women of the place assemble at the patient’s house,
to perform the following most extraordinary ceremony.

“I was once called in by a neighbour to see his wife, a very young
woman, who had the misfortune to be afflicted with this disorder; and
the man being an old acquaintance of mine, and always a close comrade
in the camp, I went every day when at home to see her, but I could not
be of any service to her, though she never refused my medicines. At
this time, I could not understand a word she said, although she talked
very freely, nor could any of her relations understand her. She could
not bear the sight of a book or a priest, for at the sight of either,
she struggled, and was apparently seized with acute agony, and a flood
of tears, like blood mingled with water, would pour down her face from
her eyes. She had lain three months in this lingering state, living
upon so little that it seemed not enough to keep a human body alive;
at last, her husband agreed to employ the usual remedy, and, after
preparing for the maintenance of the band, during the time it would
take to effect the cure, he borrowed from all his neighbours their
silver ornaments, and loaded her legs, arms, and neck with them.

“The evening that the band began to play, I seated myself close by
her side as she lay upon the couch, and about two minutes after the
trumpets had begun to sound, I observed her shoulders begin to move,
and soon afterwards her head and breast, and in less than a quarter
of an hour, she sat upon her couch. The wild look she had, though
sometimes she smiled, made me draw off to a greater distance, being
almost alarmed to see one nearly a skeleton move with such strength:
her head, neck, shoulders, hands and feet, all made a strong motion
to the sound of the music, and in this manner she went on by degrees,
until she stood up on her legs upon the floor. Afterwards she began to
dance, and at times to jump about, and at last, as the music and noise
of the singers increased, she often sprang three feet from the ground.
When the music slackened, she would appear quite out of temper, but
when it became louder, she would smile and be delighted. During this
exercise, she never showed the least symptom of being tired, though the
musicians were thoroughly exhausted; and when they stopped to refresh
themselves by drinking and resting a little, she would discover signs
of discontent.

“Next day, according to the custom in the cure of this disorder,
she was taken into the market-place, where several jars of _maize_
or _tsug_ were set in order by the relations, to give drink to the
musicians and dancers. When the crowd had assembled and the music was
ready, she was brought forth and began to dance and throw herself into
the maddest postures imaginable, and in this manner she kept on the
whole day. Towards evening, she began to let fall her silver ornaments
from her neck, arms, and legs, one at a time, so that, in the course of
three hours, she was stripped of every article. A relation continually
kept going after her as she danced, to pick up the ornaments, and
afterwards delivered them to the owners from whom they were borrowed.
As the sun went down, she made a start with such swiftness, that the
fastest runner could not come up with her, and when at the distance
of about two hundred yards, she dropped on a sudden, as if shot. Soon
afterwards, a young man, on coming up with her, fired a matchlock over
her body, and struck her upon the back with the broad side of his large
knife, and asked her name, to which she answered as when in her common
senses—a sure proof of her being cured; for, during the time of this
malady, those afflicted with it never answer to their Christian names.
She was now taken up in a very weak condition and carried home, and a
priest came and baptized her again in the name of the Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, which ceremony concluded her cure. Some are taken in this
manner to the market-place for many days before they can be cured, and
it sometimes happens that they cannot be cured at all. I have seen
them in these fits dance with a _bruly_, or bottle of maize, upon
their heads, without spilling the liquor, or letting the bottle fall,
although they have put themselves into the most extravagant postures.

“I could not have ventured to write this from hearsay, nor could
I conceive it possible, until I was obliged to put this remedy in
practice upon my own wife[320], who was seized with the same disorder,
and then I was compelled to have a still nearer view of this strange
disorder. I at first thought that a whip would be of some service, and
one day attempted a few strokes when unnoticed by any person, we being
by ourselves, and I having a strong suspicion that this ailment sprang
from the weak minds of women, who were encouraged in it for the sake
of the grandeur, rich dress, and music which accompany the cure. But
how much was I surprised, the moment I struck a light blow, thinking to
do good, to find that she became like a corpse, and even the joints of
her fingers became so stiff that I could not straighten them; indeed,
I really thought that she was dead, and immediately made it known to
the people in the house that she had fainted, but did not tell them the
cause, upon which they immediately brought music, which I had for many
days denied them, and which soon revived her; and I then left the house
to her relations to cure her at my expense, in the manner I have before
mentioned, though it took a much longer time to cure my wife than the
woman I have just given an account of. One day I went privately, with
a companion, to see my wife dance, and kept at a short distance, as
I was ashamed to go near the crowd. On looking stedfastly upon her,
while dancing or jumping more like a deer than a human being, I said
that it certainly was not my wife; at which my companion burst into
a fit of laughter, from which he could scarcely refrain all the way
home. Men are sometimes afflicted with this dreadful disorder, but not
frequently. Among the Amhara and Galla it is not so common.”

Such is the account of Pearce, who is every way worthy of credit,
and whose lively description renders the traditions of former times
respecting the St. Vitus’s dance and Tarantism intelligible even
to those who are sceptical respecting the existence of a morbid
state of the mind and body of the kind described, because, in the
present advanced state of civilization among the nations of Europe,
opportunities for its development no longer occur. The credibility
of this energetic, but by no means ambitious man, is not liable to
the slightest suspicion, for, owing to his want of education, he had
no knowledge of the phenomenon in question, and his work evinces
throughout his attractive and unpretending impartiality.

Comparison is the mother of observation, and may here elucidate one
phenomena by another—the past by that which still exists. Oppression,
insecurity, and the influence of a very rude priestcraft, are the
powerful causes which operated on the Germans and Italians of the
middle ages, as they now continue to operate on the Abyssinians of the
present day. However these people may differ from us in their descent,
their manners and their customs, the effects of the above-mentioned
causes are the same in Africa as they were in Europe, for they operate
on man himself independently of the particular locality in which he may
be planted; and the condition of the Abyssinians of modern times is,
in regard to superstition, a mirror of the condition of the European
nations in the middle ages. Should this appear a bold assertion, it
will be strengthened by the fact, that in Abyssinia, two examples
of superstitions occur, which are completely in accordance with
occurrences of the middle ages that took place contemporarily with the
dancing mania. _The Abyssinians have their Christian flagellants, and
there exists among them a belief in a Zoomorphism, which presents a
lively image of the lycanthropy of the middle ages._ Their flagellants
are called Zackarys. They are united into a separate Christian
fraternity, and make their processions through the towns and villages
with great noise and tumult, scourging themselves till they draw blood,
and wounding themselves with knives[321]. They boast that they are
descendants of St. George. It is precisely in Tigrè, the country of the
Abyssinian dancing mania, where they are found in the greatest numbers,
and where they have, in the neighbourhood of Axum, a church of their
own, dedicated to their patron saint _Oun Arvel_. Here there is an
ever-burning lamp, and they contrive to impress a belief that this is
kept alight by supernatural means. They also here keep a holy water,
which is said to be a cure for those who are affected by the dancing
mania.

The Abyssinian Zoomorphism is a no less important phenomenon, and shows
itself in a manner quite peculiar. The blacksmiths and potters form,
among the Abyssinians, a society, or caste called in Tigrè _Tebbib_,
and in Amhara _Buda_, which is held in some degree of contempt, and
excluded from the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, because it is
believed that they can change themselves into hyænas and other beasts
of prey, on which account they are feared by every body, and regarded
with horror. They artfully contrive to keep up this superstition,
because by this separation they preserve a monopoly of their lucrative
trades, and as in other respects they are good Christians, (but few
Jews or Mahomedans live among them,) they seem to attach no great
consequence to their excommunication. As a badge of distinction, they
wear a golden earring, which is frequently found in the ears of hyænas
that are killed, without its having ever been discovered how they catch
these animals, so as to decorate them with this strange ornament,
and this removes, in the minds of the people, all doubt as to the
supernatural powers of the smiths and potters[322]. To the budas is
also ascribed the gift of enchantment, especially that of the influence
of the evil eye[323]. They nevertheless live unmolested, and are not
condemned to the flames by fanatical priests, as the lycanthropes were
in the middle ages.




                              CHAPTER IV.

                               SYMPATHY.


Imitation—compassion—sympathy, these are imperfect designations for a
common bond of union among human beings—for an instinct which connects
individuals with the general body, which embraces with equal force,
reason and folly, good and evil, and diminishes the praise of virtue
as well as the criminality of vice. In this impulse there are degrees,
but no essential differences, from the first intellectual efforts of
the infant mind, which are in a great measure based on imitation, to
that morbid condition of the soul in which the sensible impression of
a nervous malady fetters the mind, and finds its way, through the eye,
directly to the diseased texture, as the electric shock is propagated
by contact from body to body. To this instinct of imitation, when it
exists in its highest degree, is united a loss of all power over the
will, which occurs as soon as the impression on the senses has become
firmly established, producing a condition like that of small animals
when they are fascinated by the look of a serpent. By this mental
bondage, morbid sympathy is clearly and definitely distinguished from
all subordinate degrees of this instinct, however closely allied the
imitation of a disorder may seem to be to that of a mere folly, of an
absurd fashion, of an awkward habit in speech and manner, or even of a
confusion of ideas. Even these latter imitations, however, directed as
they are to foolish and pernicious objects, place the self-independence
of the greater portion of mankind in a very doubtful light, and account
for their union into a social whole. Still more nearly allied to morbid
sympathy than the imitation of enticing folly, although often with
a considerable admixture of the latter, is the diffusion of violent
excitements, especially those of a religious or political character,
which have so powerfully agitated the nations of ancient and modern
times, and which may, after an incipient compliance[324], pass into a
total loss of power over the will, and an actual disease of the mind.
Far be it from us to attempt to awaken all the various tones of this
chord, whose vibrations reveal the profound secrets which lie hid in
the inmost recesses of the soul. We might well want powers adequate
to so vast an undertaking. Our business here is only with that morbid
sympathy, by the aid of which the dancing mania of the middle ages grew
into a real epidemic. In order to make this apparent by comparison, it
may not be out of place, at the close of this inquiry, to introduce a
few striking examples:—

1. “At a cotton manufactory at Hodden Bridge, in Lancashire, a girl, on
the fifteenth of February 1787, put a mouse into the bosom of another
girl, who had a great dread of mice. The girl was immediately thrown
into a fit, and continued in it, with the most violent convulsions, for
twenty-four hours. On the following day, three more girls were seized
in the same manner; and on the 17th, six more. By this time, the alarm
was so great, that the whole work, in which 200 or 300 were employed,
was totally stopped, and an idea prevailed that a particular disease
had been introduced by a bag of cotton opened in the house. On Sunday
the 18th, Dr. St. Clare was sent for from Preston; before he arrived
three more were seized, and during that night and the morning of the
19th, eleven more, making in all twenty-four. Of these, twenty-one
were young women, two were girls of about ten years of age, and one
man, who had been much fatigued with holding the girls. Three of the
number lived about two miles from the place where the disorder first
broke out, and three at another factory at Clitheroe, about five miles
distant, which last and two more were infected entirely from report,
not having seen the other patients, but, like them and the rest of the
country, strongly impressed with the idea of the plague being caught
from the cotton. The symptoms were anxiety, strangulation, and very
strong convulsions; and these were so violent as to last without any
intermission from a quarter of an hour to twenty-four hours, and to
require four or five persons to prevent the patients from tearing their
hair and dashing their heads against the floor or walls. Dr. St. Clare
had taken with him a portable electrical machine, and by electric
shocks the patients were universally relieved without exception. As
soon as the patients and the country were assured that the complaint
was merely nervous, easily cured, and not introduced by the cotton,
no fresh person was affected. To dissipate their apprehensions still
further, the best effects were obtained by causing them to take a
cheerful glass and join in a dance. On Tuesday the 20th, they danced,
and the next day were all at work, except two or three, who were much
weakened by their fits.”[325]

The occurrence here described is remarkable on this account, that there
was no important predisposing cause for convulsions in these young
women, unless we consider as such their miserable and confined life
in the work-rooms of a spinning manufactory. It did not arise from
enthusiasm, nor is it stated that the patients had been the subjects
of any other nervous disorders. In another perfectly analogous case,
those attacked were all suffering from nervous complaints, which
roused a morbid sympathy in them at the sight of a person seized with
convulsions. This, together with the supervention of hysterical fits,
may aptly enough be compared to Tarantism.

2. “A young woman of the lowest order, twenty-one years of age, and
of a strong frame, came on the 13th of January, 1801, to visit a
patient in the Charité hospital at Berlin, where she had herself
been previously under treatment for an inflammation of the chest
with tetanic spasms, and immediately on entering the ward, fell down
in strong convulsions. At the sight of her violent contortions, six
other female patients immediately became affected in the same way,
and by degrees eight more were in like manner attacked with strong
convulsions. All these patients were from sixteen to twenty-five years
of age, and suffered without exception, one from spasms in the stomach,
another from palsy, a third from lethargy, a fourth from fits with
consciousness, a fifth from catalepsy, a sixth from syncope, &c. The
convulsions, which alternate in various ways with tonic spasms, were
accompanied by loss of sensibility, and were invariably preceded by
languor with heavy sleep, which was followed by the fits in the course
of a minute or two; and it is remarkable, that in all these patients
their former nervous disorders, not excepting paralysis, disappeared,
returning, however, after the subsequent removal of their new
complaint. The treatment, during the course of which two of the nurses,
who were young women, suffered similar attacks, was continued for four
months. It was finally successful, and consisted principally in the
administration of opium, at that time the favourite remedy[326].”

Now, every species of enthusiasm, every strong affection, every violent
passion, may lead to convulsions—to mental disorders—to a concussion of
the nerves, from the sensorium to the very finest extremities of the
spinal chord. The whole world is full of examples of this afflicting
state of turmoil, which, when the mind is carried away by the force
of a sensual impression that destroys its freedom, is irresistibly
propagated by imitation. Those who are thus infected do not spare even
their own lives, but, as a hunted flock of sheep will follow their
leader and rush over a precipice, so will whole hosts of enthusiasts,
deluded by their infatuation, hurry on to a self-inflicted death. Such
has ever been the case, from the days of the Milesian virgins to the
modern associations for self-destruction[327]. Of all enthusiastic
infatuations, however, that of religion is the most fertile in
disorders of the mind as well as of the body, and both spread with the
greatest facility by sympathy. The history of the church furnishes
innumerable proofs of this, but we need go no further than the most
recent times.

3. In a Methodist chapel at Redruth, a man during divine service, cried
out with a loud voice, “What shall I do to be saved?” at the same
time manifesting the greatest uneasiness and solicitude respecting
the condition of his soul. Some other members of the congregation,
following his example, cried out in the same form of words, and seemed
shortly after to suffer the most excruciating bodily pain. This strange
occurrence was soon publicly known, and hundreds of people, who had
come thither, either attracted by curiosity, or a desire, from other
motives, to see the sufferers, fell into the same state. The chapel
remained open for some days and nights, and from that point the new
disorder spread itself, with the rapidity of lightning, over the
neighbouring towns of Camborne, Helston, Truro, Penryn, and Falmouth,
as well as over the villages in the vicinity. Whilst thus advancing,
it decreased in some measure at the place where it had first appeared,
and it confined itself throughout to the Methodist chapels. It was
only by the words which have been mentioned that it was excited, and it
seized none but people of the lowest education. Those who were attacked
betrayed the greatest anguish, and fell into convulsions; others cried
out, like persons possessed, that the Almighty would straightway pour
out his wrath upon them, that the wailings of tormented spirits rang in
their ears, and that they saw hell open to receive them. The clergy,
when in the course of their sermons, they perceived that persons
were thus seized, earnestly exhorted them to confess their sins, and
zealously endeavoured to convince them that they were by nature enemies
to Christ; that the anger of God had therefore fallen upon them; and
that if death should surprise them in the midst of their sins, the
eternal torments of hell would be their portion. The over-excited
congregation upon this repeated their words, which naturally must have
increased the fury of their convulsive attacks. When the discourse had
produced its full effect, the preacher changed his subject; reminded
those who were suffering, of the power of the Saviour, as well as
of the grace of God, and represented to them in glowing colours the
joys of heaven. Upon this a remarkable reaction sooner or later took
place. Those who were in convulsions felt themselves raised from the
lowest depths of misery and despair to the most exalted bliss, and
triumphantly shouted out that their bonds were loosed, their sins were
forgiven, and that they were translated to the wonderful freedom of the
children of God. In the mean time, their convulsions continued, and
they remained, during this condition, so abstracted from every earthly
thought, that they staid two and sometimes three days and nights
together in the chapels, agitated all the time by spasmodic movements,
and taking neither repose nor nourishment. According to a moderate
computation, 4000 people were, within a very short time, affected with
this convulsive malady.

The course and symptoms of the attacks were in general as
follows:—There came on at first a feeling of faintness, with rigour
and a sense of weight at the pit of the stomach, soon after which
the patient cried out, as if in the agonies of death or the pains
of labour. The convulsions then began, first showing themselves in
the muscles of the eyelids, though the eyes themselves were fixed
and staring. The most frightful contortions of the countenance
followed, and the convulsions now took their course downwards, so that
the muscles of the neck and trunk were affected, causing a sobbing
respiration, which was performed with great effort. Tremors and
agitation ensued, and the patients screamed out violently, and tossed
their heads about from side to side. As the complaint increased, it
seized the arms, and its victims beat their breasts, clasped their
hands, and made all sorts of strange gestures. The observer who gives
this account remarked that the lower extremities were in no instance
affected. In some cases, exhaustion came on in a very few minutes,
but the attack usually lasted much longer, and there were even cases
in which it was known to continue for sixty or seventy hours. Many of
those who happened to be seated when the attack commenced, bent their
bodies rapidly backwards and forwards during its continuance, making a
corresponding motion with their arms, like persons sawing wood. Others
shouted aloud, leaped about, and threw their bodies into every possible
posture, until they had exhausted their strength. Yawning took place
at the commencement in all cases, but as the violence of the disorder
increased, the circulation and respiration became accelerated, so
that the countenance assumed a swollen and puffed appearance. When
exhaustion came on, patients usually fainted, and remained in a stiff
and motionless state until their recovery. The disorder completely
resembled the St. Vitus’s dance, but the fits sometimes went on to
an extraordinarily violent extent, so that the author of the account
once saw a woman, who was seized with these convulsions, resist the
endeavours of four or five strong men to restrain her. Those patients
who did not lose their consciousness were in general made more furious
by every attempt to quiet them by force, on which account they were in
general suffered to continue unmolested until nature herself brought
on exhaustion. Those affected complained, more or less, of debility
after the attacks, and cases sometimes occurred in which they passed
into other disorders: thus some fell into a state of melancholy, which,
however, in consequence of their religious ecstacy, was distinguished
by the absence of fear and despair; and in one patient inflammation of
the brain is said to have taken place. No sex or age was exempt from
this epidemic malady. Children five years old and octogenarians were
alike affected by it, and even men of the most powerful frame were
subject to its influence. Girls and young women, however, were its most
frequent victims[328].

4. For the last hundred years a nervous affection of a perfectly
similar kind has existed in the Shetland Islands, which furnishes
a striking example, perhaps the only one now existing, of the very
lasting propagation by sympathy of this species of disorders. The
origin of the malady was very insignificant. An epileptic woman had a
fit in church, and whether it was that the minds of the congregation
were excited by devotion, or that, being overcome at the sight of
the strong convulsions, their sympathy was called forth, certain it
is, that many adult women, and even children, some of whom were of
the male sex, and not more than six years old, began to complain
forthwith of palpitation, followed by faintness, which passed into a
motionless and apparently cataleptic condition. These symptoms lasted
more than an hour, and probably recurred frequently. In the course of
time, however, this malady is said to have undergone a modification,
such as it exhibits at the present day. Women whom it has attacked
will suddenly fall down, toss their arms about, writhe their bodies
into various shapes, move their heads suddenly from side to side, and
with eyes fixed and staring, utter the most dismal cries. If the fit
happen on any occasion of public diversion, they will, as soon as it
has ceased, mix with their companions and continue their amusement as
if nothing had happened. Paroxysms of this kind used to prevail most
during the warm months of summer, and about fifty years ago there was
scarcely a Sabbath in which they did not occur. Strong passions of
the mind, induced by religious enthusiasm, are also exciting causes
of these fits, but like all such false tokens of divine workings,
they are easily encountered by producing in the patient a different
frame of mind, and especially by exciting a sense of shame: thus those
affected are under the control of any sensible preacher, who knows
how to “administer to a mind diseased,” and to expose the folly of
voluntarily yielding to a sympathy so easily resisted, or of inviting
such attacks by affectation. An intelligent and pious minister of
Shetland informed the physician, who gives an account of this
disorder as an eye-witness, that being considerably annoyed, on his
first introduction into the country, by these paroxysms, whereby the
devotions of the church were much impeded, he obviated their repetition
by assuring his parishioners, that no treatment was more effectual than
immersion in cold water; and as his kirk was fortunately contiguous to
a freshwater lake, he gave notice that attendants should be at hand,
during divine service, to ensure the proper means of cure. The sequel
need scarcely be told. The fear of being carried out of the church,
and into the water, acted like a charm; not a single Naiad was made,
and the worthy minister, for many years, had reason to boast of one of
the best regulated congregations in Shetland. As the physician above
alluded to was attending divine service in the kirk of Baliasta, on
the Isle of Unst, a female shriek, the indication of a convulsion fit,
was heard; the minister, Mr. Ingram, of Fetlar, very properly stopped
his discourse, until the disturber was removed; and, after advising
all those who thought they might be similarly affected, to leave the
church, he gave out, in the meantime, a psalm. The congregation was
thus preserved from further interruption; yet the effect of sympathy
was not prevented, for as the narrator of the account was leaving the
church, he saw several females writhing and tossing about their arms on
the green grass, who durst not, for fear of a censure from the pulpit,
exhibit themselves after this manner within the sacred walls of the
kirk[329].

In the production of this disorder, which no doubt still exists,
fanaticism certainly had a smaller share than the irritable state of
women out of health, who only needed excitement, no matter of what
kind, to throw them into the prevailing nervous paroxysms. When,
however, that powerful cause of nervous disorders takes the lead, we
find far more remarkable symptoms developed, and it then depends on the
mental condition of the people among whom they appear, whether in their
spread, they shall take a narrow or an extended range—whether confined
to some small knot of zealots they are to vanish without a trace, or
whether they are to attain even historical importance.

5. The appearance of the _Convulsionnaires_ in France, whose
inhabitants, from the greater mobility of their blood, have in
general been the less liable to fanaticism, is, in this respect,
instructive and worthy of attention. In the year 1727 there died, in
the capital of that country, the Deacon Pâris, a zealous opposer of the
Ultramontanists, division having arisen in the French church on account
of the bull “Unigenitus.” People made frequent visits to his tomb, in
the cemetery of St. Medard, and four years afterwards, (in September,
1731,) a rumour was spread, that miracles took place there. Patients
were seized with convulsions and tetanic spasms, rolled upon the ground
like persons possessed, were thrown into violent contortions of their
heads and limbs, and suffered the greatest oppression, accompanied by
quickness and irregularity of pulse. This novel occurrence excited
the greatest sensation all over Paris, and an immense concourse of
people resorted daily to the above named cemetery, in order to see
so wonderful a spectacle, which the Ultramontanists immediately
interpreted as a work of Satan, while their opponents ascribed it to a
divine influence. The disorder soon increased, until it produced, in
nervous women, _clairvoyance_, (_Schlafwachen_,) a phenomenon till then
unknown; for one female especially attracted attention, who blindfold,
and, as it was believed, by means of the sense of smell, read every
writing that was placed before her, and distinguished the characters of
unknown persons. The very earth taken from the grave of the Deacon, was
soon thought to possess miraculous power. It was sent to numerous sick
persons at a distance, whereby they were said to have been cured, and
thus this nervous disorder spread far beyond the limits of the capital,
so that at one time it was computed that there were more than eight
hundred decided _Convulsionnaires_, who would hardly have increased
so much in numbers, had not Louis XV. directed that the cemetery
should be closed[330]. The disorder itself assumed various forms,
and augmented, by its attacks, the general excitement. Many persons,
besides suffering from the convulsions, became the subjects of violent
pain, which required the assistance of their brethren of the faith. On
this account they, as well as those who afforded them aid, were called
by the common title of _Secourists_. The modes of relief adopted were
remarkably in accordance with those which were administered to the
St. John’s dancers and the Tarantati, and they were in general very
rough; for the sufferers were beaten and goaded in various parts of
the body with stones, hammers, swords, clubs, &c., of which treatment
the defenders of this extraordinary sect relate the most astonishing
examples, in proof that severe pain is imperatively demanded by nature
in this disorder, as an effectual counter-irritant. The Secourists used
wooden clubs, in the same manner as paviors use their mallets, and it
is stated that some Convulsionnaires have borne daily from six to eight
thousand blows, thus inflicted, without danger[331]. One Secourist
administered to a young woman, who was suffering under spasm of the
stomach, the most violent blows on that part, not to mention other
similar cases, which occurred everywhere in great numbers. Sometimes
the patients bounded from the ground, impelled by the convulsions,
like fish when out of water; and this was so frequently imitated at a
later period, that the women and girls, when they expected such violent
contortions, not wishing to appear indecent, put on gowns, made like
sacks, closed at the feet. If they received any bruises by falling
down, they were healed with earth from the grave of the uncanonized
saint. They usually, however, showed great agility in this respect,
and it is scarcely necessary to remark that the female sex especially
was distinguished by all kinds of leaping, and almost inconceivable
contortions of body. Some spun round on their feet with incredible
rapidity, as is related of the dervishes; others ran their heads
against walls, or curved their bodies like rope-dancers, so that their
heels touched their shoulders.

All this degenerated at length into decided insanity. A certain
Convulsionnaire, at Vernon, who had formerly led rather a loose course
of life, employed herself in confessing the other sex; in other places
women of this sect were seen imposing exercises of penance on priests,
during which these were compelled to kneel before them. Others played
with children’s rattles, or drew about small carts, and gave to these
childish acts symbolical significations[332]. One Convulsionnaire
even made believe to shave her chin, and gave religious instruction
at the same time, in order to imitate Pâris, the worker of miracles,
who, during this operation, and whilst at table, was in the habit of
preaching. Some had a board placed across their bodies, upon which a
whole row of men stood; and as, in this unnatural state of mind, a
kind of pleasure is derived from excruciating pain, some too were seen
who caused their bosoms to be pinched with tongs, while others, with
gowns closed at the feet, stood upon their heads, and remained in that
position longer than would have been possible had they been in health.
Pinault, the advocate, who belonged to this sect, barked like a dog
some hours every day, and even this found imitation among the believers.

The insanity of the Convulsionnaires lasted, without interruption,
until the year 1790, and during these fifty-nine years, called
forth more lamentable phenomena than the enlightened spirits of the
eighteenth century would be willing to allow. The grossest immorality
found, in the secret meetings of the believers, a sure sanctuary, and,
in their bewildering devotional exercises, a convenient cloak. It was
of no avail that, in the year 1762, the Grands Secours was forbidden by
act of parliament; for thenceforth this work was carried on in secrecy,
and with greater zeal than ever; it was in vain, too, that some
physicians, and, among the rest, the austere, pious Hecquet[333], and
after him Lorry[334], attributed the conduct of the Convulsionnaires
to natural causes. Men of distinction among the upper classes, as,
for instance, Montgeron the deputy, and Lambert an ecclesiastic (obt.
1813), stood forth as the defenders of this sect; and the numerous
writings[335] which were exchanged on the subject, served, by the
importance which they thus attached to it, to give it stability. The
revolution, finally, shook the structure of this pernicious mysticism.
It was not, however, destroyed; for, even during the period of the
greatest excitement, the secret meetings were still kept up; prophetic
books, by Convulsionnaires of various denominations, have appeared
even in the most recent times, and only a few years ago (in 1828) this
once celebrated sect still existed, although without the convulsions
and the extraordinarily rude aid of the brethren of the faith, which,
amidst the boasted pre-eminence of French intellectual advancement,
remind us most forcibly of the dark ages of the St. John’s dancers[336].

6. Similar fanatical sects exhibit among all nations[337] of ancient
and modern times the same phenomena. An over-strained bigotry is,
in itself, and considered in a medical point of view, a destructive
irritation of the senses, which draws men away from the efficiency of
mental freedom, and peculiarly favours the most injurious emotions.
Sensual ebullitions, with strong convulsions of the nerves, appear
sooner or later[338], and insanity, suicidal disgust of life,
and incurable nervous disorders[339], are but too frequently the
consequences of a perverse, and, indeed, hypocritical zeal, which has
ever prevailed, as well in the assemblies of the Mænades and Corybantes
of antiquity, as under the semblance of religion among the Christians
and Mahomedans.

There are some denominations of English Methodists which surpass, if
possible, the French Convulsionnaires; and we may here mention, in
particular, the Jumpers, among whom it is still more difficult, than
in the example given above, to draw the line between religious ecstacy
and a perfect disorder of the nerves; sympathy, however, operates
perhaps more perniciously on them than on other fanatical assemblies.
The sect of Jumpers was founded in the year 1760, in the county of
Cornwall, by two fanatics[340], who were, even at that time, able to
collect together a considerable party. Their general doctrine is that
of the Methodists, and claims our consideration here, only in so far
as it enjoins them, during their devotional exercises, to fall into
convulsions, which they are able to effect in the strangest manner
imaginable. By the use of certain unmeaning words, they work themselves
up into a state of religious frenzy, in which they seem to have
scarcely any control over their senses. They then begin to jump with
strange gestures, repeating this exercise with all their might, until
they are exhausted, so that it not unfrequently happens that women,
who, like the Mænades, practise these religious exercises, are carried
away from the midst of them in a state of syncope, whilst the remaining
members of the congregations, for miles together, on their way home,
terrify those whom they meet by the sight of such demoniacal ravings.
There are never more than a few ecstatics, who, by their example,
excite the rest to jump, and these are followed by the greatest part
of the meeting, so that these assemblages of the Jumpers resemble, for
hours together, the wildest orgies, rather than congregations met for
Christian edification[341].

In the United States of North America, communities of Methodists
have existed for the last sixty years. The reports of credible
witnesses of their assemblages for divine service in the open-air
(camp meetings)[342], to which many thousands flock from great
distances[343], surpass, indeed, all belief; for not only do they
there repeat all the insane acts of the French Convulsionnaires and
of the English Jumpers, but the disorder of their minds and of their
nerves attains, at these meetings, a still greater height. Women have
been seen to miscarry whilst suffering under the state of ecstacy and
violent spasms into which they are thrown, and others have publicly
stripped themselves and jumped into the rivers. They have swooned
away[344] by hundreds, worn out with ravings and fits; and of the
Barkers, who appeared among the Convulsionnaires only here and there,
in single cases of complete aberration of intellect, whole bands are
seen running on all fours, and growling[345] as if they wished to
indicate, even by their outward form, the shocking degradation of their
human nature. At these camp-meetings the children are witnesses of
this mad infatuation, and as their weak nerves are, with the greatest
facility, affected by sympathy, they, together with their parents, fall
into violent fits, though they know nothing of their import, and many
of them retain for life some severe nervous disorder, which, having
arisen from fright and excessive excitement, will not afterwards yield
to any medical treatment[346].

But enough of these extravagances, which, even in our own days,
embitter the lives of so many thousands, and exhibit to the world, in
the nineteenth century, the same terrific form of mental disturbance as
the St. Vitus’s dance once did to the benighted nations of the middle
ages.




                               APPENDIX


                                  I.

  _Petri de Herentals_, Prioris Floreffiensis Vita _Gregorii
    XI._, in _Stephan. Baluzii_ Vitæ Paparum Avenionensium. T. I.
    Paris, 1693. _4to. p. 483_.

Ejus tempore, videlicet A. D. MCCCLXXV., mira secta tam virorum quam
mulierum venit Aquisgrani de partibus Alamanniæ, et ascendit usque
Hanoniam seu Franciam, cujus talis fuit conditio. Nam homines utriusque
sexus illudebantur a dæmonio, taliter quod tam in domibus quam in
plateis et in Ecclesiis se invicem manibus tenentes chorizabant et in
altum saltabant, ac quædam nomina dæmoniorum nominabant, videlicet
_Friskes_ et similia, nullam cognitionem in hujusmodi chorizatione
nec verecundiam sui propter astantes populos habentes. Et in fine
hujus chorizationis in tantum circa pectoralia torquebantur, quod
nisi mappulis lineis a suis amicis per medium ventris fortiter
stringerentur, quasi furiose clamabant se mori. Hi vero in Leodio per
conjurationes sumptas de illis quæ in catechismo ante baptismum fiunt,
a dæmonio liberabantur, et sanati dicebant, quod videbatur eis _quod in
hora hujus chorizationis erant in fluvio sanguinis, et propterea sic
in altum saltabant_. Vulgus autem apud Leodium dicebat quod hujusmodi
plaga populo contigisset eo, quod populus male baptizatus erat, maxime
a Presbyteribus suas tenentibus concubinas. Et propter hoc proposuerat
vulgus insurgere in clerum, eos occidendo et bona eorum diripiendo,
nisi Deus de remedio providisset per conjurationes prædictas. Quo viso
cessavit tempestas vulgi taliter quod clerus multo plus a populo fuit
honoratus. De ista autem chorizatione seu secta talia extant rigmata:

    Oritur in seculo nova quædam secta
    In gestis aut in speculo visa plus nec lecta.
    Populus tripudiat nimium saltando.
    Se unus alteri sociat leviter clamando.
    _Frisch friskes cum gaudio clamat uterque sexus._
    Cunctus manutergio et baculo connexus.
    Capite fert pelleum desuper sertum.
    _Cernit Mariæ filium et cœlum apertum._
    Deorsum prosternitur. Dudum fit ululatus.
    Calcato ventre cernitur statim liberatus.
    Vagatur loca varia pompose vivendo.
    Mendicat necessaria propriis parcendo.
    _Spernit videre rubea et personam flentem._
    Ad fidei contraria crigit hic gens mentem.
    Noctis sub umbraculo ista perpetravit.
    Cum naturali baculo subtus se calcavit.
    Clerum habet odio. Non curat sacramenta.
    Post sunt Leodio remedia inventa,
    Hanc nam fraudem qua suggessit sathan est convictus.
    Conjuratus evanescit. Hinc sit Christus benedictus.


                                  II.

  _Jo. Pistorii_ Rerum familiarumque Belgicarum Cbronicon magnum.
    Francof. 1654. _fol. p. 319_. De chorisantibus.

Item Anno. Dn. MCCCLXXIV. tempore pontificates venerabilis Domini
Joannis de Arckel Episcopi Leodiensis, in mense Julio in crastino
divisionis Apostolorum visi sunt dansatores scilicet chorisantes,
qui postea venerunt Trajectum, Leodium, Tungrim et alia loca istarum
partium in mense Septembri. Et cœpit hæc _dæmoniaca pestis_ vexare in
dictis locis et circumvicinis masculos et fœminas maxime pauperes et
levis opinionis ad magnum omnium terrorem; pauci clericorum vel divitum
sunt vexati. Serta in capitibus gestabant, circa ventrem mappa cum
baculo se stringebant circa umbilicum, ubi post saltationem cadentes
nimium torquebantur, et ne creparentur pedibus conculcabantur, vel
contra creporem cum baculo ad mappam duriter se ligabant, vel cum pugno
se trudi faciebant, rostra calceorum aliqui clamabant se abhorrere,
unde in Leodio fieri tunc vetabantur. Ecclesias chorisando occupabant,
et crescebant numerose de mense Septembri et Octobri, processiones
fiebant ubique, litaniæ et missæ speciales. Leodii apud Sanctam
crucem scholaris servitor in vesperis dedicationis, cœpit ludere cum
thuribulo, et post vesperas fortiter saltare. Evocatus a pluribus,
ut diceret Pater noster, noluit, et Credo respondit in diabolum.
Quod videns capellanus, allata stola conjuravit cum per exorcismum
baptizandorum, et statim dixit: Ecce inquit, scholaris recedit cum
parva toga et calceis rostratis. Dic, tunc inquit, Pater noster et
Credo. At ille utrumque dixit perfecte et curatus est. Apud Harstallium
uno mane ante omnium Sanctorum, multi eorum ibi congregati consilium
habuerunt, ut pariter venientes omnes canonicos, presbyteres et
clericos Leodienses occiderent. Canonicus quidam parvæ mensæ minister
Simon in claustro Leodiensi apud capellam Beatæ virginis, in Deo
confortatus, scalam projecit in collum unius, dicens Evangelium: In
principio erat verbum, super caput ejus, et per hoc fuit liberatus,
et pro miraculo statim fuit pulsatum. Apud S. Bartolomæum Leodii,
præsentibus multis, cuidam alii exorcisanti respondit dæmon: Ego exibo
libenter. Expecta, inquit presbyter, volo tibi loqui. Et postquam
aliquos alios curasset, dixit illi, loquere tu personaliter et responde
mihi. Tum solus respondit dæmon: Nos eramus duo, sed socius meus
nequior me, ante me exivit, habui tot pati in hoc corpore, si essem
extra, nunquam intrarem in corpus Christianum. Cui presbyter: Quare
intrasti corpora talium personarum? Respondit: Clerici et presbyteres
dicunt tot pulchra verba et tot orationes, ut non possemus intrare
corpora ipsorum. Si adhuc fuisset expectatum per quindenam vel mensem,
nos intrassemus corpora divitum, et postea principum, et sic per eos
destruxissemus clerum. Et hæc fuerunt ibi a multis audita et postea a
multis narrata. Hæc pestis intra annum satis invaluit, sed postea per
tres aut quatuor annos omnino cessavit.


                               III[347].

  Die Limburger Chronik, herausgegeben von _C. D. Vogel_.
    Marburg, 1828, _8vo. s. 71_.

Anno 1374 zu mitten im Sommer, da erhub sich ein wunderlich Ding auff
Erdreich, und sonderlich in Teutschen Landen, auff dem Rhein und auff
der Mosel, also dass Leute anhuben zu tantzen und zu rasen, und stunden
je zwey gegen ein, und tantzeten auff einer Stätte einen halben Tag,
und in dem Tantz da fielen sie etwan offt nieder, und liessen sich
mit Füssen tretten auff ihren Leib. Davon nahmen sie sich an, dass
sie genesen wären. Und lieffen von einer Stadt zu der andern, und
von einer Kirchen zu der andern, und huben Geld auff von den Leuten,
wo es ihnen mocht gewerden. Und wurd des Dings also viel, dass man
zu Cölln in der Stadt mehr dann fünff hundert Täntzer fand. Und fand
man, dass es eine Ketzerey war, und geschahe um Golds willen, das
ihr ein Theil Frau und Mann in Unkeuschheit mochten kommen, und die
vollbringen. Und fand man da zu Cölln mehr dann hundert Frauen und
Dienstmägde, die nicht eheliche Männer hatten. Die wurden alle in der
Täntzerey Kinder-tragend, und wann dass sie tantzeten, so bunden und
knebelten sie sich hart um den Leib, dass sie desto geringer wären.
Hierauff sprachen ein Theils Meister, sonderlich der guten Artzt,
das ein Theil wurden tantzend, die von heisser Natur wären, und von
andern gebrechlichen natürlichen Sachen. Dann deren war wenig, denen
das geschahe. Die Meister von der heiligen Schrift, die beschwohren der
Täntzer ein Theil, die meynten, dass sie besessen wären von dem bösen
Geist. Also nahm es ein betrogen End, und währete wohl sechszehn Wochen
in diesen Landen oder in der Mass. Auch nahmen die vorgenannten Täntzer
Mann und Frauen sich an, dass sie kein roth sehen möchten. Und war ein
eitel Teuscherey, und ist verbottschaft gewesen an Christum nach meinem
Bedünken.


                                  IV.

  Die Chronica van der hilliger Stat van Coellen. A. D.
    MCCCLXXIV. fol. 277. Coellen, 1499. fol.

In dem seluen iair stonde eyn groisse kranckheit vp vnder den mynschen,
ind was doch niet vill me gesyen dese selue kranckheit vur off nae ind
quam van natuerlichen ursachen as die meyster schrijnen, ind noemen
Sij maniam, dat is raserie off unsynnicheit. Ind vill lude beyde man
ind frauwen junck ind alt hadden die kranckheit. Ind gyngen vyss huyss
ind hoff, dat deden ouch junge meyde, die verliessen yr alderen,
vrunde ind maege ind lantschaff. Disse vurss mynschen zo etzlichen
tzijden as Sij die kranckheit anstiesse, so hadden Sij eyn wonderlich
bewegung yrre lychamen. Sij gauen vyss kryschende vnd grusame stymme,
ind mit dem wurpen Sij sich haestlich up die erden, vnd gyngen liggen
up yren rugge, ind beyde man ind vrauwen moist men vmb yren buych ind
vmp lenden gurdelen vnd kneuelen mit twelen vnd mit starcken breyden
benden, asso stijff vnd harte als men mochte.

Item asso gegurt mit den twelen dantzten Sij in kyrchen ind in clusen
ind vp allen gewijeden steden. As Sij dantzten, so sprungen Sij allit
vp ind rieffen, _Here sent Johan, so so, vrisch ind vro here sent
Johan_.

Item die ghene die die kranckheit hadden wurden gemeynlichen gesunt
bynnen. VV. dagen. Zom lesten geschiede vill bouerie vnd droch dae mit.
Eyndeyll naemen sich an dat Sij kranck weren. vp dat Sij mochten gelt
dae durch bedelen. Die anderen vinsden sich kranck vp dat Sij mochten
vnkuyschheit bedrijuen mit den vrauwen. jnd gyngen durch alle lant ind
dreuen vill bouerie. Doch zo lesten brach idt vyss ind wurden verdreuen
vyss den landen. Die selue dentzer quamen ouch zo Coellen tusschen
tzwen vnser lieuen frauwen missen Assumptionis ind Natiuitatis.


                                  V.

In the third volume of the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal,
p. 434, there is an account of “some convulsive diseases in certain
parts of Scotland, which is taken from Sir J. Sinclair’s statistical
account, and from which I have thought it illustrative of our author’s
subject to make some extracts; the first that is noticed is peculiar to
a part of Forfarshire, and is called the leaping ague, which bears so
close an analogy to the original St. Vitus’s Dance, or to Tarantism,
that it seems to want only the “foul fiend,” or the dreaded bite, as
a cause, and a Scotch reel or strathspey as a cure, to render the
resemblance quite complete. “Those affected with it first complain
of a pain in the head, or lower part of the back, to which succeed
convulsive fits, or _fits of dancing_, at certain periods. During the
paroxysm they have all the appearance of madness, distorting their
bodies in various ways, and leaping and springing in a surprising
manner, whence the disease has derived its vulgar name. Sometimes they
run with astonishing velocity, and often over dangerous passes, to
some place out of doors, which they have fixed on in their own minds,
or, perhaps, even mentioned to those in company with them, and then
_drop down quite exhausted_. At other times, especially when confined
to the house, they climb in the most singular manner. In cottages, for
example, they leap from the floor to what is called the baulks, or
those beams by which the rafters are joined together, springing from
one to another with the agility of a cat, or whirling round one of
them, with a motion resembling the fly of a jack. Cold bathing is found
to be the most effectual remedy; but when the fit of dancing, leaping,
or running comes on, _nothing tends so much to abate the violence of
the disease, as allowing them free scope to exercise themselves, till
nature be exhausted_. No mention is made of its being peculiar to any
age, sex, or condition of life, although I am informed by a gentleman
from Brechin, that it is most common before puberty. In some families
it seems to be hereditary; and I have heard of one, in which a horse
was always kept ready saddled, to follow the young ladies belonging to
it, when they were seized with a fit of running. It was first observed
in the parish of Kenmuir, and has prevailed occasionally in that and
the neighbouring parishes, for about seventy years: but it is not now
nearly so frequent as it was about thirty years ago. The history of
this singular affection is still extremely imperfect: and it is only
from some of the medical practitioners in that part of the country
where it prevails, that a complete description can be expected.”

Our author has already noticed the convulsive disease prevalent in
the Shetland Islands, and has quoted Hibbert’s account of it. The
following, however, from a very valuable manuscript account of the
Orkney and Shetland Islands, drawn up about 1774, by George Low, with
notes, by Mr. Pennant, is given in the journal already cited, and will
be read with interest. The facts were communicated to Mr. Low by the
Rev. Wm. Archibald, parochial clergyman of Unst, the most northerly of
the Shetlands.

“There is a most shocking distemper, which has of late years prevailed
very much, especially among young women, and was hardly known thirty
or forty years ago. About that period only one person was subject to
it. The inhabitants give it the name of convulsion fits; and indeed,
in appearance it something resembles epilepsy. In its first rise, it
began with a palpitation of the heart, of which they complained for a
considerable time; it at length produced swooning fits, in which people
seized with it would lie motionless upwards of an hour. At length, as
the distemper gathered strength, when any violent passion seized, or
on a sudden surprise, they would all at once fall down, toss their
arms about, with their bodies, into many odd shapes, crying out all
the while most dismally, throwing their heads about from side to side,
with their eyes fixed and staring. At first this distemper obtained
in a private way, with one female, but she being seized in a public
way, at church, the disease was communicated to others; but, whether
by the influence of _fear_ or _sympathy_, is not easy to determine.
However this was, our public assemblies, especially at church, became
greatly disturbed by their outcries. This distemper always prevails
most violently during the summer time, in which season, for many years,
we are hardly one sabbath free. In these few years past, it has not
prevailed so extensively, and upon the whole, seems on the decline.
One thing remarkable in this distemper is, that as soon as the fit is
over, the persons affected with it are generally as lively and brisk
as before; and if it happens at any of their public diversions, as
soon as they revive, they mix with their companions, and continue
their amusement as vigorously as if nothing had happened. Few men are
troubled with this distemper, which seems more confined to women; but
there are instances of its seizing men, and girls of six years of
age. With respect to the nature of this disease, people who have made
enquiry about it differ, but most imagine it hysterical; however, this
seems not entirely the case, as men and children are subject to it;
however, it is a new disease in Shetland, but whence imported, none can
imagine.

“When the statistical account of this parish was published, this awful
and afflicting disease was becoming daily less common. In the parishes
of Aithsting, Sandsting, and Northmaven, in which it was once very
frequent, it was now totally extinct. In the last of these the cure is
said to have been effected by a very singular remedy, which, if true,
and there seems no reason to doubt it, shows the influence of moral
causes in removing, as well as in inducing convulsive disorders.” The
cure is attributed to a rough fellow of a kirk officer, who tossed a
woman in that state, with whom he had been frequently troubled, into a
ditch of water. She was never known to have the disease afterwards, and
others dreaded the same treatment.

“It, however, still prevails in some of the northern parishes,
particularly in Delting, although, according to the description given
of it, with some alteration in its symptoms.

“Convulsion fits of a very extraordinary kind seem peculiar to this
country. The patient is first seized with something like fainting, and
immediately after utters wild cries and shrieks, the sound of which, at
whatever distance, immediately puts all who are subject to the disorder
in the same situation. It most commonly attacks them when the church
is crowded, and often interrupts the service in this and many other
churches in the country. On a sacramental occasion, fifty or sixty
are sometimes carried out of the church, and laid in the churchyard,
where they struggle and roar with all their strength, for five or ten
minutes, and then rise up without recollecting a single circumstance
that happened to them, or being in the least hurt or fatigued with
the violent exertions they had made during the fit. One observation
occurs on this disorder, that, during the late scarce years it was
very uncommon, and, during the two last years of plenty (1791), it has
appeared more frequently.

“Similar instances of epidemical convulsions are already upon record;
but the history of that which occurred in Anglesea, North Wales, is the
most remarkable, as its progress was, in all probability, checked by
the judicious precautions recommended by Dr. Haygarth.

“In 1796, on the estates of the Earl of Uxbridge and Holland Griffith,
Esq., 23 females, from 10 to 25, and one boy, of about 17 years of age,
who had all intercourse with each other, were seized with an unusual
kind of convulsions, affecting only the upper extremities. It began
with pain of the head, and sometimes of the stomach and side, not very
violent; after which there came on violent twitchings or convulsions of
the upper extremities, continuing with little intermission, and causing
the shoulders almost to meet by the exertion. In bed the disorder was
not so violent: but, in some cases at least, it continued even during
sleep. Their pulse was moderate, the body costive, and the general
health not much impaired. In general they had a hiccough; and, when
the convulsions were most violent, giddiness came on, with the loss
of hearing and recollection. During their convalescence, and they
all recovered, the least fright or sudden alarm brought on a slight
paroxysm.

“Dr. Haygarth, who was consulted on the means of relieving these
unfortunate people, successfully recommended the use of antispasmodics;
that all girls and young women should be prevented from having any
communication with persons affected with those convulsions; and that
those who were ill should be kept separate as much as possible.”

The same paper from which the above extracts have been taken, quotes
a remarkable instance in which religious enthusiasm was the exciting
cause of a convulsive disease analogous to those already noticed. The
account is given by the Rev. Dr. Meik, at great length. It appears,
that in January, 1742, about 90 persons in the parish of Cambuslang,
in Lanarkshire, were induced to subscribe a petition to the minister,
urging him to give them a weekly lecture, to which he readily assented.
Nothing particular occurred at the first two lectures, but, at the
third, to which the hearers had been very attentive, when the minister
in his last prayer expressed himself thus, “Lord, who hath believed
our report; and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?—where are the
fruits of my poor labours among this people?” several persons in the
congregation cried out publicly, and about fifty men and women came
to the minister’s house, expressing strong convictions of sin, and
alarming fears of punishment. After this period, so many people from
the neighbourhood resorted to Cambuslang, that the minister thought
himself obliged to provide them with daily sermons or exhortations,
and actually did so for seven or eight months. The way in which the
converts were affected, for it seems they were affected much in the
same way, though in very different degrees, is thus described. “They
were seized, all at once, commonly by something said in the sermons or
prayers, with the most dreadful apprehensions concerning the state of
their souls, insomuch that many of them could not abstain from crying
out, in the most public and frightful manner, ‘bewailing their lost
and undone condition by nature; calling themselves enemies to God,
and despisers of precious Christ; declaring that they were unworthy
to live on the face of the earth; that they saw the mouth of hell
open to receive them, and that they heard the shrieks of the damned;’
but the universal cry was, ‘What shall we do to be saved?’ The agony
under which they laboured was expressed, not only by words, but also
by violent agitations of body; by clapping their hands and beating
their breasts; by shaking and trembling; by faintings and convulsions;
and sometimes by excessive bleeding at the nose. While they were in
this distress, the minister often called out to them, not to stifle or
smother their convictions, but to encourage them: and, after sermon
was ended, he retired with them to the manse, and frequently spent the
best part of the night with them in exhortations and prayers. Next day,
before sermon began, they were brought out, and, having napkins tied
round their heads, were placed all together on seats before the tents,
where they remained sobbing, weeping, and often crying aloud, till the
service was over. Some of those who fell under conviction were never
converted; but most of those who fell under it were converted in a few
days, and sometimes in a few hours. In most cases their conversion
was as sudden and unexpected as their conviction. They were raised all
at once from the lowest depth of sorrow and distress, to the highest
pitch of joy and happiness; crying out with triumph and exultation,
‘that they had overcome the wicked one; that they had gotten hold of
Christ, and would never let him go; that the black cloud which had
hitherto concealed him from their view was now dispelled; and that
they saw him, with a pen in his hand, blotting out their sins.’ Under
these delightful impressions, some began to pray, and exhort publicly,
and others desired the congregation to join with them in singing a
particular psalm, which they said God had commanded them to sing.
From the time of their conviction to their conversion, many had no
appetite for food, or inclination to sleep, and all complained of their
sufferings during that interval.”

The following account, which closes the paper whence the above
quotations have been extracted, is taken from an Inaugural Essay on
Chorea Sancti Viti, by Felix Robertson of Tennessee, 8vo. Philadelph.
1805.

“The Chorea, which is more particularly the subject of this
dissertation, made its appearance during the summer of 1803, in the
neighbourhood of Maryville, (Tennessee,) in the form of an epidemic.
Previously to entering on its history, I think it necessary to premise
a few cursory remarks on the mode of life of those amongst whom it
originated, for some time before the appearance of the disease.

“I suppose there are but few individuals in the United States, who
have not at least heard of the unparalleled blaze of enthusiastic
religion which burst forth in the western country, about the year
1800; but it is, perhaps, impossible to have a competent idea of its
effects, without personal observation. This religious enthusiasm
travelled like electricity, with astonishing velocity, and was felt,
_almost instantaneously_, in every part of the states of Tennessee
and Kentucky. It often proved so powerful a stimulus, that every
other entirely lost its effect, or was but feebly felt. Hence that
general neglect of earthly things, which was observed, and the almost
perpetual attendance at places of public worship. Their churches are,
in general, small and every way uncomfortable; the concourse of people,
on days of worship, particularly of extraordinary meetings, was very
numerous, and hundreds who lived at too great a distance to return home
every evening, came supplied with provisions, tents, &c., for their
sustenance and accommodation, during the continuance of the meeting,
which commonly lasted from three to five days. They, as well as many
others, remained on the spot day and night, the whole or greater part
of this time, worshipping their Maker almost incessantly. The outward
expressions of their worship consisted chiefly in alternate crying,
laughing, singing, and shouting, and, at the same time, performing that
variety of gesticulation, which the muscular system is capable of
producing. It was under these circumstances that some found themselves
unable, by voluntary efforts, to suppress the contraction of their
muscles; and, to their own astonishment, and the diversion of many
of the spectators, they continued to act from necessity, the curious
character which they had commenced from choice.

“The disease no sooner appeared, than it spread with rapidity through
the medium of the principle of imitation; thus it was not uncommon for
an affected person to communicate it to the greater part of a crowd,
who, from curiosity or other motives, had collected around him. It is
at this time, in almost every part of Tennessee and Kentucky, and in
various parts of Virginia, but is said not to be contagious (or readily
communicated) as at its commencement. It attacks both sexes, and every
constitution, but evidently more readily those who are enthusiasts in
religion, such as those above described, and females; children of six
years of age, and adults of sixty, have been known to have it, but a
great majority of those affected are from fifteen to twenty-five. The
muscles generally affected are those of the trunk, particularly of the
neck, sometimes those of the superior extremities, but very rarely, if
ever, those of the inferior. The contractions are sudden and violent,
such as are denominated convulsive, being sometimes so powerful, when
in the muscles of the back, that the patient is thrown on the ground,
where, for some time, his motions more resemble those of a live fish,
when thrown on land, than any thing else to which I can compare them.

“This, however, does not often occur, and never, I believe, except at
the commencement of the disease. The patients, in general, are capable
of standing and walking, and many, after it has continued a short time,
can attend to their business, provided it is not of a nature requiring
much steadiness of body. They are incapable of conversing with any
degree of satisfaction to themselves or company, being continually
interrupted by those irregular contractions of their muscles, each
causing a grunt, or forcible expiration; but the organs of speech do
not appear to be affected, nor has it the least influence on the mind.
They have no command over their actions by any effort of volition, nor
does their lying in bed prevent them, but they always cease during
sleep. This disease has remissions and exacerbations, which, however,
observe no regularity in their occurrence or duration. During the
intermission a paroxysm is often excited at the sight of a person
affected, but more frequently by the common salute of shaking hands.
The sensations of the patients in a paroxysm are generally agreeable,
which the enthusiastic class often endeavour to express, by laughing,
shouting, _dancing_, &c.

“Fatigue is almost always complained of after violent paroxysms, and
sometimes a general soreness is experienced. The heart and arteries
appear to be no further affected by the disease, than what arises from
the exercise of the body; nor does any change take place in any of the
secretions or excretions. It has not proved mortal in a single instance
within my knowledge, but becomes lighter by degrees, and finally
disappears. In some cases, however, of long continuance, it is attended
with some degree of melancholia, which seems to arise entirely from the
patient’s reflections, and not directly from the disease.

“The state of the atmosphere has no influence over it, as it rages with
equal violence in summer and in winter; in moist and in dry air.”

In the above examples, nervous disorders bearing a strong resemblance
to those of the middle ages, are shown to exist in an _epidemic_
form, both in Europe and America, at the present time; but in these
instances some general cause of mental excitement—and none is more
powerful than religious enthusiasm—seems to have been requisite for
their propagation. Their appearance, however, in _single cases_, is
occasionally independent of any such origin, which leads to a belief,
not without support in the experiments of modern physiologists,
that they occasionally proceed from physical causes, and that it is
therefore not necessary to consider them in all cases as the offspring
of a disordered imagination.

A well marked case of a disease approximating to the original
Dancing Mania, is related by Mr. Kinder Wood, in the 7th volume of
the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, p. 237. The patient, a young
married woman, is described to have suffered from headache and
sickness, together with involuntary motions of the eyelids, and most
extraordinary contortions of the trunk and extremities, for several
days, when the more remarkable symptoms began to manifest themselves,
which are thus recorded:—

“February 26. Slight motions of the limbs came on in bed. She arose
at nine o’clock, after which they increased, and became unusually
severe. She was hurled from side to side of the couch-chair upon which
she sat, for a considerable time, without intermission; was sometimes
instantaneously and forcibly thrown upon her feet, when she jumped
and stamped violently. She had headache; the eyelids were frequently
affected, and she had often a sudden propensity to spring or leap
upwards. The affection ceased about eleven o’clock in the forenoon,
the patient being very much fatigued; but it returned about noon, and
a third time in the afternoon, when she was impelled into every corner
of the room, and began to strike the furniture and doors violently with
the hand, as she passed near them, the sound of which afforded her
great satisfaction. The fourth attack was at night; was very violent,
and ended with sickness and vomiting. She went to bed at half-past
eleven. Her nights were invariably good. The last three attacks were
more violent than the former ones, but they continued only half an hour
each.

“February 27. The attack commenced in bed, and was violent, but of
short duration. When she arose about ten, she had a second attack,
continuing an hour, except an interval of five minutes. She now struck
the furniture more violently and more repeatedly. Kneeling on one
knee, with the hands upon the back, she often sprang up suddenly and
struck the top of the room with the palm of the hand. To do this, she
rose fifteen inches from the floor, so that the family were under the
necessity of drawing all the nails and hooks from the ceiling. She
frequently danced upon one leg, holding the other with the hand, and
occasionally changing the legs. In the evening, the family observed
the blows upon the furniture to be more continuous, and to assume
the regular time and measure of a musical air. As a strain or series
of strokes was concluded, she ended with a more violent stroke or a
more violent spring or jump. Several of her friends also at this time
noticed the regular measure of the strokes, and the greater regularity
the disease was assuming; the motions being evidently affected, or in
some measure modified by the strokes upon the surrounding bodies. She
chiefly struck a small slender door, the top of a chest of drawers, the
clock, a table, or a wooden screen placed near the door. The affection
ceased about nine o’clock, when the patient went to bed.

“February 28. She arose very well at eight. At half-past nine the
motions recommenced; they were now of a more pleasant nature; the
involuntary actions, instead of possessing their former irregularity
and violence, being changed into a measured step over the room,
connected with an air, or series of strokes, and she beat upon the
adjacent bodies as she passed them. In the commencement of the
attack, the lips moved as if words were articulated, but no sound
could be distinguished at this period. It was curious indeed to
observe the patient at this time, moving around the room with all the
vivacity of the country dance, or the graver step of the minuet, the
arms frequently carried, not merely with ease, but with elegance.
Occasionally all the steps were so directed as to place the foot
constantly where the stone flags joined to form the floor, particularly
when she looked downwards. When she looked upwards, there was an
irresistible impulse to spring up to touch little spots or holes in
the top of the ceiling; when she looked around, she had a similar
propensity to dart the forefinger into little holes in the furniture,
&c. One hole in the wooden screen received the point of the forefinger
many hundred times, which was suddenly and involuntarily darted into it
with an amazing rapidity and precision. There was one particular part
of the wall to which she frequently danced, and there placing herself
with the back to it, stood two or three minutes. This by the family was
called ‘_the measuring place_.’

“In the afternoon the motions returned, and proceeded much as in the
morning. At this time a person present, surprised at the manner in
which she beat upon the doors, &c., and thinking he recognised the
air, without further ceremony began to sing the tune; the moment this
struck her ears, she turned suddenly to the man, and dancing directly
up to him, continued doing so till he was out of breath. The man now
ceased a short time, when commencing again, he continued till the
attack stopped. The night before this, her father had mentioned his
wish to procure a drum, associating this dance of his daughter with
some ideas of music. The avidity with which she danced to the tune
when sung as above stated, confirmed this wish, and accordingly a drum
and fife were procured in the evening. After two hours of rest, the
motions again reappeared, when the drum and fife began to play the air
to which she had danced before, viz. the ‘Protestant Boys,’ a favourite
popular air in this neighbourhood. In whatever part of the room she
happened to be, she immediately turned and danced up to the drum, and
as close as possible to it, and there she danced till she missed the
step, when the involuntary motions instantly ceased. The first time she
missed the step in five minutes; but again rose, and danced to the drum
two minutes and a half by her father’s watch, when, missing the step,
the motions instantly ceased. She rose a third time, and missing the
step in half a minute, the motions immediately ceased. After this, the
drum and fife commenced as the involuntary actions were coming on, and
before she rose from her seat; and four times they completely checked
the progress of the attack, so that she did not rise upon the floor to
dance. At this period the affection ceased for the evening.

“March 1. She arose very well at half-past seven. Upon my visit this
morning, the circumstances of the preceding afternoon being stated, it
appeared clear to me, that the attacks had been shortened. Slow as I
had seen the effects of medicine in the comparatively trifling disease
of young females, I was very willing that the family should pursue the
experiment, whilst the medical means were continued.

“As I wished to see the effect of the instrument over the disease, I
was sent for at noon, when I found her dancing to the drum, which she
continued to do for half an hour without missing the step, owing to the
slowness of the movement. As I sat counting the pulse, which I found
to be 120, in the short intervals of an attack, I noticed motions of
the lips, previous to the commencement of the dance, and placing my
ear near the mouth I distinguished a tune. After the attack of which
this was the beginning, she informed me, in answer to my inquiry, that
there always was a tune dwelling upon her mind, which at times becoming
more pressing, irresistibly impelled her to commence the involuntary
motions. The motions ceased at four o’clock.

“At half-past seven the motions commenced again, when I was sent for.
There were two drummers present, and an unbraced drum was beaten till
the other was braced. She danced regularly to the unbraced drum, but
the moment the other commenced she instantly ceased. As missing the
time stopped the affections, I wished the measure to be changed during
the dance, which stopped the attack. It also ceased upon increasing
the rapidity of the beat, till she could no longer keep time; and it
was truly surprising to see the rapidity and violence of the muscular
exertion, in order to keep time with the increasing movement of the
instrument. Five times I saw her sit down the same evening, at the
instant that she was unable to keep the measure; and in consequence
of this I desired the drummers to beat one continued roll, instead
of a regular movement. She arose and danced five minutes, when both
drums beat a continued roll: the motions instantly stopped, and the
patient sat down. In a few minutes the motions commencing again, she
was suffered to dance five minutes, when the drums again began to
roll, the effect of which was instantaneous; the motions ceased, and
the patient sat down. In a few minutes the same was repeated with the
same effect. It appeared certain that the attacks could now be stopped
in an instant, and I was desirous of arresting them entirely, and
breaking the chain of irregular associations which constituted the
disease. As the motions at this period always commenced in the fingers,
and propagated themselves along the upper extremities to the trunk, I
desired the drummers, when the patient arose to dance, to watch the
commencement of the attack, and roll the drums before she arose from
the chair. Six times successively the patient was hindered from rising,
by attending to the commencement of the affection; and before leaving
the house, I desired the family to attend to the commencement of the
attacks, and use the drum early.

“March 2. She arose at seven o’clock, and the motions commenced at
ten; she danced twice before the drummer was prepared, after which
she attempted to dance again four several times; but one roll of a
well-braced drum hindered the patient from leaving her seat, after
which the attacks did not recur. She was left weakly and fatigued by
the disease, but with a good appetite. In the evening of this day an
eruption appeared, particularly about the elbows, in diffused patches
of a bright red colour, which went off on the third day.”

Other cases might be adduced, (see 23d vol. of the Edinburgh Medical
and Surgical Journal, p. 261; 31st vol. of ditto, p. 299; 5th vol. of
the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, pp. 1 to 23, &c.,) but as there
is none more striking than this, they would unnecessarily swell this
number of the Appendix, which has already extended to an undue length.


                                  VI.

                 MUSIC FOR THE DANCE OF THE TARANTATI,
                                 FROM
                            ATHAN. KIRCHER.

  _Magness. de Arte magnetica. Rom. 1654. fol. p. 591.—Repeated
    in Sam. Hafenreffer, Nosodochium, in quo cutis affectus
    traduntur. Ulm. 1660. 8vo. p. 485._


[Illustration: I. _Primus modus Tarantella._]

[Illustration: II. _Secundus modus._]

[Illustration: III. _Tertius modus._]

[Illustration: IV. _Antidotum Tarantulæ._]

[Illustration: V.]

      Stu pettu è fattu Cimbalu d’Amuri:
    Tasti li sensi mobili, e accorti:
    Cordi li chianti, sospiri, e duluri:
    Rosa è lu Cori miu feritu à morti:
    Strali è lu ferru, chiai so li miei arduri:
    Marteddu è lu pensieri, e la mia sorti:
    Mastra è la Donna mia, ch’à tutti l’huri
    Cantando canta leta la mia morti.

Some strophes, which are no longer extant, were usually sung between
these and the following lines:—

    Allu mari mi portati,
    Se voleti che mi sanati.
    Allu mari, alla via:
    Cosi m’ama la Donna mia.
    Allu mari, allu mari:
    Mentre campo, t’aggio amari.

[Illustration: VI. _Tarantella._]

[Illustration: _Ritornello._]

[Illustration: VII. _Tono hypodorio._]

[Illustration]

[Illustration: VIII. _Alia clausula._]

[Illustration]


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                             FOOTNOTES:                               |
|                                                                      |
| [203] By this term the reader is now to understand the “Epidemics    |
| of the Middle Ages.” This work not having been published, as a       |
| whole, in the original, there is no general preface by the Author.   |
| His Address to the Physicians of Germany is therefore prefixed as    |
| an appropriate substitute.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [204] _Odor. Raynald._ Annal. Ecclesiastic. A. 1374. Lucæ, 1752.     |
| fol. Tom. VII. p. 252.                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [205] _Joh. Wier’s_ ample Catalogue of Spirits gives no information  |
| on this point. Pseudomonarchia dæmonum. Opera omnia, Amstelod.       |
| 1660. 4to. p. 649.—_Raynald_ mentions the word _Frisckes_ as the     |
| name of a spirit; but this mistake is easily accounted for by his    |
| ignorance of the language; for, according to the Chronicle of        |
| Cologne, the St. John’s dancers sang during their paroxysm: “Here    |
| Sent Johan. so so, _vrisch_ ind vro, here Sent Johan.” St. John so,  |
| so, brisk and cheerful, St. John. Die Cronica van der hilliger Stat  |
| van Coellen, fol. 277. Coellen, 1499. fol.                           |
|                                                                      |
| [206] _Cyr. Spangenberg_, Adels-Spiegel—_Mirror of Nobility_, a      |
| detailed historical account of what nobility is, &c. Schmalkalden,   |
| 1591. fol. Fol. 403. b.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [207] _Petr. de Herentals_, Appendix, No. I.                         |
|                                                                      |
| [208] _Jo. Trithem._ Chronic. Sponheimense, A. 1374. Opera           |
| historic. Francof. 1601. fol. p. 332. Also: _Abrah. Bzovii_ Annal.   |
| Ecclesiastic. Tom. XIV. Colon. Agripp. 1625. fol. Ann. 1374.         |
| (Maniaca passio. S. Johannis chorea.)                                |
|                                                                      |
| [209] _Jo. Pistorii_ Rerum Familiarumque Belgicarum Chronicon        |
| magnum. Francof. 1654. fol. p. 319. Here the persons affected        |
| are called _dansatores_, _chorisantes_. See the whole passage in     |
| the Appendix, No. II. Compare Incerti auctoris vetus chronicon       |
| Belgicum, Matthæi veteris ævi Analecta. Hag. com. 1738. 4to. Tom.    |
| I. p. 51. “Anno MCCCLXXIV. the _dansers_ appeared. Gens impacata     |
| cadit, dudum cruciata salvat.” This should be salivat; a quotation   |
| from a Latin poem not now extant.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [210] The Limburg Chronicle, published by _C. D. Vogel_, Marburg,    |
| 1828. 8vo. p. 27. This singular phenomenon cannot but remind us      |
| of the “Demon of Fashion,” of the middle ages. Extravagant as the    |
| love of dress was after the middle of the fourteenth century,        |
| the opposition of the enemies of fashion was equally great, and      |
| they let slip no opportunity of crying down every change or          |
| innovation as the work of the devil. Hence it is extremely probable  |
| that the fanatic penitential sermons of zealous priests excited      |
| this singular aversion of the St. Vitus dancers. In later times      |
| also, signs and wonders took place, on account of things equally     |
| insignificant, and the fury of the possessed was directed against    |
| the fashions. Compare _Möhsen’s_ History of the Sciences in the      |
| Mark of Brandenburg, p. 498. f.                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [211] _Petr. de Herentals._ Appendix, No. I.                         |
|                                                                      |
| [212] Respecting the exorcisms used, see E. G. _Förstemann_, the     |
| Christian Societies of Flagellants. Halle, 1828. 8vo. p. 232.        |
|                                                                      |
| [213] Limburg Chronicle, p. 71. Cologne Chronicle, loc. cit. See     |
| Appendix, Nos. III. and IV.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [214] Dans la ville y eut des dansans, tant grands que petits, onze  |
| cents. Journal de Paris, 1785.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [215] _Schenk._ v. _Grafenberg._ loc. cit.                           |
|                                                                      |
| [216] “Chorus Sancti Viti, or St. Vitus’ Dance; the lascivious       |
| dance, Paracelsus calls it, because they that are taken with it,     |
| can do nothing but dance till they be dead, or cured. It is so       |
| called for that the parties so troubled were wont to go to St.       |
| Vitus for help; and, after they had danced there awhile, they were   |
| certainly freed. ’Tis strange to hear how long they will dance,      |
| and in what manner, over stools, forms, tables; even great bellied   |
| women sometimes (and yet never hurt their children) will dance       |
| so long that they can stir neither hand nor foot, but seem to be     |
| quite dead. One in red clothes they cannot abide. Musick above all   |
| things they love; and therefore magistrates in Germany will hire     |
| musicians to play to them, and some lusty, sturdy companions to      |
| dance with them. This disease hath been very common in Germany, as   |
| appears by those relations of Schenkius, and Paracelsus in his book  |
| of madness, who brags how many several persons he hath cured of it.  |
| Felix Platerus (_de Mentis Alienat. cap. 3._) reports of a woman in  |
| Basle whom he saw, that danced a whole month together. The Arabians  |
| call it a kind of _palsie_. Bodine, in his fifth book, de Repub.     |
| cap. 1. speaks of this infirmity; Monavius, in his last epistle to   |
| Scoltizius, and in another to Dudithus, where you may read more      |
| of it.”—_Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy_, Vol. I. p. 15.—_Transl.    |
| note._                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [217] _J. of Köningshoven_, the oldest German Chronicle in           |
| existence. The contents are general, but devoted more exclusively    |
| to Alsace and Strasburg, published by _Schiltern_, Strasburg, 1698.  |
| 4to. Observat. 21, of St. Vitus’s Dance, p. 1085. f.                 |
|                                                                      |
|     “_Viel hundert_ fingen zu Strassburg an                          |
|      Zu tanzen und springen Frau und Mann,                           |
|      Am offnen Markt, Gassen und Strassen                            |
|      Tag und Nacht ihrer viel nicht assen.                           |
|      Bis ihn das Wüthen wieder gelag.                                |
|      St. Vits Tanz ward genannt die Plag.”                           |
|                                                                      |
| “Many hundreds of men and women began to dance and jump in the       |
| public market-place, the lanes, and the streets of Strasburg. Many   |
| of them ate nothing for days and nights, until their mania again     |
| subsided. The plague was called St. Vitus’s Dance.”                  |
|                                                                      |
| [218] _Cæs. Baron._ Annales ecclesiastic. Tom. II. p. 819. Colon.    |
| Agripp. 1609. fol. See the more ample Acta Sanctorum Junii (The      |
| 15th of June is St. Vitus’s day) Tom. II. p. 1013. Antwerp. 1698.    |
| fol. From which we shall merely add that Mazara, in Sicily, is       |
| supposed to have been the birth-place of our Saint, and that         |
| his father’s name was _Hylas_; that he went from thence with         |
| _Crescentia_ (probably his nurse) and _Modestus_ to Lucania, with    |
| both of whom he suffered martyrdom under _Diocletian_. They are all  |
| said to have been buried at Florence, and it was not long before     |
| the miraculous powers of St. Vitus, which had already manifested     |
| themselves in his life-time, were acknowledged throughout Italy.     |
| The most celebrated of his chapels were situated on the Promontory   |
| of Sicily (called by his name), in Rome and in Polignano, whither    |
| many pilgrimages were made by the sick. Persons who had been bitten  |
| by mad dogs believed that they would find an infallible cure at      |
| his altars, though the power of the Saint in curing wounds of this   |
| kind was afterwards disputed by the followers of St. Hubertus, the   |
| Saint of the Chase. In 672, his body was with much pomp moved to     |
| Apulia, but soon after the priests of many churches and chapels      |
| in Italy, gave out that they were in possession of portions of       |
| the saint’s body which worked miracles. In the eighth century the    |
| veneration of this youthful martyr extended itself to France, and    |
| the honour of possessing his body was conferred on the church of     |
| St. Denys. By command of the Pope it was solemnly delivered on       |
| the 19th of March, 836, by the Abbot _Hilduwinus_, of St. Denys,     |
| to the Abbot _Warinus_, of Corvey, (founded in 822). On its way      |
| thither, which occupied three months (to the 13th of June), many     |
| miracles were performed, and the subsequent Abbots of Corvey were    |
| able for centuries to maintain the popular belief in the miraculous  |
| healing power of their relics, which had indiscriminate influence    |
| on all diseases, more especially on those of a demoniacal kind. See  |
| Monachi anonymi Historia translationis S. Viti. In _G. H. Pertz_,    |
| Monumenta Germaniæ Historica. Tom. II. Hannov. 1828. fol. p. 576.    |
| As a proof of the great veneration for St. Vitus in the fourteenth   |
| century, we may further mention that Charles IV. dedicated to him    |
| the Cathedral of Prague, of which he had laid the foundation, and    |
| caused him to be proclaimed Patron Saint of Bohemia, and a nominal   |
| body of the holy martyr was, for this purpose, brought from Parma.   |
| Act. Sanctor. loc. cit.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [219] Probably a corruption of Apotropæi. The expression is          |
| constantly met with; for example, in _Agricola_, Proverbs, No. 497.  |
| These are the θεοὶ ἀλεξικάκοι, the dii averrunci of the antients.    |
| The fourteen saints, to whose churches (between Bamberg and Coburg)  |
| thousands still annually make pilgrimages, are the following:        |
| 1. Georgius. 2. Blasius. 3. Erasmus. 4. Vitus. 5. Pantaleon.         |
| 6. Christophorus. 7. Dionysius. 8. Cyriacus. 9. Achatius. 10.        |
| Eustachius. 11. Ægidius. 12. Margaretha. 13. Catharina. 14. Barbara. |
|                                                                      |
| [220] _J. Agricola._ Sybenhundert und fünffzig Teutscher             |
| Sprichwörter. No. 497. Seven hundred and fifty German Proverbs.      |
| Hagenau, 1537. 8vo. fol. 248.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [221] _St. Augustine_ had already warned the people against          |
| committing excesses and singing profane songs at the festival of     |
| St. John: “Nec permittamus solemnitatem sanctam cantica luxuriosa    |
| proferendo polluere.”—_St. Augusti_ Denkwürdigkeiten aus der         |
| Christlichen Archäologie. Vol. III. p. 166. Leipzig. 1820. 8vo.      |
| Memorabilia of Christian Archæology.                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [222] _Wirthwein._ Series chronologic. Epistolarum S. Bonifacii ab   |
| ann. 716–755. LVII. Concil. Liptinens. p. 131. XV. De igne fricato   |
| de ligno, id est, Nodfyr. See _Joh. Reiskii_. Untersuchung des bei   |
| den Alten Teutschen gebräuchlichen heidnischen Nodfyrs, imgleichen   |
| des Oster-und Johannis-Feuers. Enquiry respecting the heathen        |
| Nodfyrs customary among the ancient Germans, and also the Easter     |
| and St. John’s fires. Frankfort, 1696. 8vo.                          |
|                                                                      |
| [223] The Bishop _Theodoret_ of Cyrus in Syria, states, that at      |
| the festival of St. John, large fires were annually kindled in       |
| several towns, through which men, women and children jumped;         |
| and that young children were carried through by their mothers.       |
| He considered this custom as an ancient Asiatic ceremony of          |
| purification, similar to that recorded of Ahaz, in 2 Kings, xvi.     |
| 3. (Quæstiones in IV. Libr. Regum. Interrogat. 47, p. 352. _Beati    |
| Theodoreti_, Episcop. Cyri Opera omnia, Ed. _Jac. Sirmondi_, Lùt.    |
| Paris. 1642. fol. T. I.) _Zonaras, Balsamon and Photius_ speak of    |
| the St. John’s fires in Constantinople, and the first looks upon it  |
| as the remains of an old Grecian custom. See _Reiske_, loc. cit. p.  |
| 81. That such different nations should have had the same idea of     |
| fixing the purification by fire on St. John’s day, is a remarkable   |
| coincidence, which perhaps can be accounted for only by its analogy  |
| to baptism.                                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [224] The Life and Adventures of _Nathaniel Pearce_, written by      |
| himself, during a residence in Abyssinia from the year 1810 to       |
| 1819. Edited by _J. J. Halls_. 2 Vols. 8vo. London, 1831. chap. ix.  |
| p. 290.                                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [225] _Joann. Trithem._ Annal. Hirsaugiens. Oper. Tom. II. Hirsaug.  |
| 1690. fol. p. 263. A. 1374. See the before-mentioned Chronicle of    |
| Cologne, fol. 276. b., wherein it is said that the people passed in  |
| boats and rafts over the city walls.                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [226] What took place at the St. John’s fires in the middle ages     |
| (about 1280) we learn by a communication from the Bishop _Guil.      |
| Durantes_ of Aquitania (Rationale divinorum officiorum. L. VII. c.   |
| 26. In _Reiske_, loc. cit. p. 77.) Bones, horns, and other rubbish,  |
| were heaped together to be consumed in smoke, while persons of all   |
| ages danced round the flames as if they had been possessed, in the   |
| same way as at the Palilia, an ancient Roman lustration by fire,     |
| whereat those who took part in them, sprang through a fire made of   |
| straw. (Ovid. Met. XIV. 774. Fast. IV. 721.) Others seized burning   |
| flambeaux, and made a circuit of the fields, in the supposition      |
| that they thereby screened them from danger, while others, again,    |
| turned a cart wheel, to represent the retrograde movement of the     |
| sun.                                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [227] _J. Chr. Beckmann_, Historia des Fürstenthums Anhalt. Zerbst.  |
| History of the Principality of Anhalt. Zerbst. 1710. fol. Part III.  |
| book 4. chap. 4. § 3. p. 467.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [228] _Martini_ Minoritæ Flores temporum, in _Jo. Georg. Eccard_,    |
| Corpus historiæ medii ævi. Lips. 1723. fol. Tom. I. p. 1632.         |
|                                                                      |
| [229] _Beckmann_, loc. cit. § 1. f. p. 465, where many other         |
| observations are made on this well known circumstance. The priest    |
| named, is the same who is still known in the nursery tales of        |
| children as the _Knecht Ruprecht_.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [230] “Das dich Sanct Veitstanz ankomme.” May you be seized with     |
| St. Vitus’s Dance. _Joh. Agricola_, Sybenhundert und fünffzig        |
| Teutscher Sprichwörter. Hagenau, 1537, 8. No. 497. p. 268.           |
|                                                                      |
| [231] _Spangenberg_ (Adels-Spiegel. Mirror of Nobility, loc. cit.)   |
| in his own forcible manner, thus expresses himself on this subject:  |
| “It was afterwards pointed out by some, that these people could not  |
| have been properly baptized, or at all events, that their baptism    |
| was ineffectual, because they had received it from priests who       |
| shamelessly lived in open cohabitation with unchaste harlots. Upon   |
| this the lower classes rose in rebellion, and would have killed all  |
| the priests.” Compare Appendix, No. I.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [232] _Bzovii_ Annal. ecclesiastic. loc. cit. 1468.                  |
|                                                                      |
| [233] See Appendix, Nos. III. and IV.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [234] _Theophrasti Bombast von Hohenheym_, 7 Buch in der Artzney.    |
| Von den Krankheiten, die der Vernunft berauben. 7th Book on          |
| Medicine. Of the diseases which produce insanity. Tract I. chap. 3,  |
| p. 491. Tract II. chap. 3, p. 501. Opera. Strassburg, 1616. fol.     |
| Tom. I.                                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [235] Chorea procursiva of the moderns. _Bernt_, Monographia Choreæ  |
| Sti. Viti. Prag. 1810. p. 25.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [236] This proceeding was, however, no invention of his, but an      |
| imitation of a usual mode of enchantment by means of wax figures     |
| (peri cunculas). The witches made a wax image of the person who      |
| was to be bewitched; and in order to torment him, they stuck it      |
| full of pins, or melted it before the fire. The books on magic,      |
| of the middle ages, are full of such things; though the reader       |
| who may wish to obtain information on this subject, need not go      |
| so far back. Only eighty years since, the learned and celebrated     |
| _Storch_, of the school of _Stahl_, published a treatise on          |
| witchcraft, worthy of the fourteenth century. “Abhandlung von        |
| Kinderkrankheiten.” Treatise on the Diseases of Children. Vol. IV.   |
| p. 228. Eisenach, 1751–8.                                            |
|                                                                      |
| The ancients were in the habit of employing wax in incantations.     |
|                                                                      |
| Thus Simoetha in Theocritus:                                         |
|                                                                      |
|     Ὡς τοῦτον τὸν καρὸν ἐγὼ σὺν δαίμονι τάκω,                        |
|     Ὡς τάκοιθ’ ὑπ’ ἔρωτος ὁ Μύνδιος αὐτίκα Δέλφις.                   |
|                        _See Potter’s Antiquities_, Vol. II. p. 251.  |
|                                                                      |
| and Horace—                                                          |
|                                                                      |
|     “Lanea et effigies erat, altera cerea.”                          |
|                                        _Lib._ 1. _Sat._ 8. _l._ 30.  |
|                                                     _Transl. note._  |
|                                                                      |
| [237] See _Agricola_, loc. cit. p. 269. No. 498.                     |
|                                                                      |
| [238] _Johann Schenck von Graffenberg_, born 1530, took his degree   |
| at Tübingen, in 1554. He passed the greater part of his life as      |
| physician to the corporation of Freiburg in the Breisgau, and died   |
| in 1598.                                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [239] _J. Schenkii a Graffenberg_ Observationum medicarum,           |
| rariarum, &c. Libri VII. Lugdun. 1643. fol. L. I. Obs. VIII. p. 136. |
|                                                                      |
| [240] It is related by _Felix Plater_ (born 1536, died 1614)         |
| that he remembered in his youth the authorities of Basle having      |
| commissioned several powerful men to dance with a girl who had       |
| the dancing mania, till she recovered from her disorder. They        |
| successively relieved each other; and this singular mode of cure     |
| lasted above four weeks, when the patient fell down exhausted, and   |
| being quite unable to stand, was carried to an hospital, where       |
| she recovered. She had remained in her clothes all the time,         |
| and, entirely regardless of the pain of her lacerated feet, she      |
| had merely sat down occasionally to take some nourishment, or to     |
| slumber, during which the hopping movement of her body continued.    |
| _Felic. Plateri_ Praxeos medicæ opus. L. I. ch. 3. p. 88. Tom. I.    |
| Basil. 1656. 4to. Ejusd. Observation. Basil. 1641. 8. p. 92.         |
|                                                                      |
| [241] The 15th of June. Here therefore they did not wait till the    |
| Festival of St. John.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [242] _Gregor. Horstii_ Observationum medicinalium singularium       |
| Libri IV. priores. His accessit Epistolarum et Consultationum        |
| medicar. Lib. I. Ulm. 1628. 4to. Epistol. p. 374.                    |
|                                                                      |
| [243] _Jo. Bodin._ Method. historic. Amstelod. 1650. 12mo, Ch. V.    |
| p. 99.—Idem, de Republica. Francofurt. 1591. 8vo. Lib. V. Ch. I. p.  |
| 789.                                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [244] A very remarkable case, illustrative in part of this           |
| observation, where, however, not the person who was supposed to be   |
| the subject of the demoniacal malady, but its alleged authors, were  |
| punished, is thus reported by Dr. Watt of Glasgow:—“It occurred      |
| at Bargarran, in Renfrewshire, in 1696. The patient’s name was       |
| Christian Shaw, a girl of eleven years of age. She is described      |
| as having had violent fits of leaping, dancing, running, crying,     |
| fainting, &c., but the whole narrative is mixed up with so much      |
| credulity and superstition, that it is impossible to separate truth  |
| from fiction. These strange fits continued from August, 1696,        |
| till the end of March in the year following, when the patient        |
| recovered.” An account of the whole was published at Edinburgh,      |
| in 1698, entitled, “A true Narrative of the Sufferings of a Young    |
| Girl, who was strangely molested by evil spirits, and their          |
| instruments, in the West, collected from authentic testimonies.”     |
|                                                                      |
| The whole being ascribed to witchcraft, the clergy were most active  |
| on the occasion. Besides occasional days of humiliation, two solemn  |
| fasts were observed throughout the whole bounds of the Presbytery,   |
| and a number of clergymen and elders were appointed in rotation, to  |
| be constantly on the spot. So far the matter was well enough. But    |
| such was the superstition of the age, that a memorial was presented  |
| to his Majesty’s most honourable Privy Council, and on the 19th      |
| of January, 1697, a warrant was issued, setting forth “that there    |
| were pregnant grounds of suspicion of witchcraft in Renfrewshire,    |
| especially from the afflicted and extraordinary condition of         |
| Christian Shaw, daughter of John Shaw, of Bargarran.” A commission   |
| was therefore granted to Alexander Lord Blantyre, Sir John Maxwell,  |
| Sir John Shaw, and five others, together with the sheriff of the     |
| county, to inquire into the matter, and report. This commission is   |
| signed by eleven privy councillors, consisting of some of the first  |
| noblemen and gentlemen in the kingdom.                               |
|                                                                      |
| The report of the commissioners having fully confirmed the           |
| suspicions respecting the existence of witchcraft, another warrant   |
| was issued on the 5th of April, 1697, to Lord Hallcraig, Sir         |
| John Houston, and four others, “to try the persons accused of        |
| witchcraft, and to sentence the guilty to be burned, or otherwise    |
| executed to death, as the commission should incline.”                |
|                                                                      |
| The commissioners, thus empowered, were not remiss in the discharge  |
| of their duty. After twenty hours were spent in the examination      |
| of witnesses, and counsel heard on both sides, the counsel for       |
| the prosecution “exhorted the jury to beware of condemning the       |
| innocent; but at the same time, should they acquit the prisoners in  |
| opposition to legal evidence, they would be accessory to all the     |
| blasphemies, apostacies, murders, tortures, and seductions, whereof  |
| these enemies of heaven and earth should hereafter be guilty.”       |
| After the jury had spent six hours in deliberation, seven of the     |
| miserable wretches, three men and four women, were condemned to      |
| the flames, and the sentence faithfully executed at Paisley, on      |
| the 10th of June, 1697.—_Medico-Chirurg. Trans._ Vol. V. p. 20, et   |
| seq.—_Transl. note._                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [245] Compare _Olaus Magnus_, de gentibus septentrionalibus. Lib.    |
| XVIII. Ch. 45–47. p. 642, seq. Rom. 1555. fol.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [246] _Burton_, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, has the following      |
| observations, which, with the ample references by which they are     |
| accompanied, will furnish materials for such a history.              |
|                                                                      |
| “_Lycanthropia_, which _Avicenna_ calls _cucubuth_, others _lupinam  |
| insaniam_, or wolf-madness, when men run howling about graves        |
| and fields in the night, and will not be persuaded but that they     |
| are wolves, or some such beasts. _Aëtius_ (Lib. 6. cap. 11.) and     |
| _Paulus_ (Lib. 3. cap. 16.) call it a kind of _melancholy_; but I    |
| should rather refer it to _madness_, as most do. Some make a doubt   |
| of it, whether there be any such disease. _Donat. ab Altomari_       |
| (Cap. 9. Art. Med.) saith, that he saw two of them in his time:      |
| _Wierus_ (De Præstig. Demonum, 1. 3. cap. 21.) tells a story of      |
| such a one at Padua, 1541, that would not believe to the contrary,   |
| but that he was a wolf. He hath another instance of a Spaniard, who  |
| thought himself a bear. _Forestus_ (Observat. lib. 10. de Morbis     |
| Cerebri, c. 15.) confirms as much by many examples; one, among the   |
| rest, of which he was an eye-witness, at Alcmaer in Holland.—A poor  |
| husbandman that still hunted about graves, and kept in churchyards,  |
| of a pale, black, ugly, and fearful look. Such, belike, or little    |
| better, were king Prœtus’ daughters, (_Hippocrates_ lib. de          |
| insaniâ,) that thought themselves kine: and Nebuchadnezzar, in       |
| Daniel, as some interpreters hold, was only troubled with this       |
| kind of madness. This disease, perhaps, gave occasion to that bold   |
| assertion of Pliny, (Lib. 8. cap. 22. homines interdum lupos fieri;  |
| et contra,) _some men were turned into wolves in his time, and from  |
| wolves to men again_; and to that fable of Pausanias, of a man that  |
| was ten years a wolf, and afterwards turned to his former shape; to  |
| Ovid’s (Met. lib. 1.) tale of Lycaon, &c. He that is desirous to     |
| hear of this disease, or more examples, let him read _Austin_ in     |
| his eighteenth book, _de Civitate Dei_, cap. 5; _Mizaldus_, cent.    |
| 5. 77; _Schenkius_, lib. 1. _Hildesheim, Spicil. 2. de maniâ_;       |
| Forestus, lib. 10. _de morbis cerebri; Olaus Magnus; Vicentius       |
| Bellavicensis, spec. met._ lib. 31. c. 122; _Pierius, Bodine,        |
| Zuinger, Zeilgur, Peucer, Wierus, Spranger, &c._ This malady, saith  |
| _Avicenna_, troubleth men most in February, and is now-a-days        |
| frequent in Bohemia and Hungary, according to _Heurnius_. (Cap. de   |
| Man.) _Schernitzius_ will have it common in Livonia. They lie hid,   |
| most part, all day, and go abroad in the night, barking, howling,    |
| at graves and deserts; _they have usually hollow eyes, scabbed legs  |
| and thighs, very dry and pale_, (Ulcerata crura; sitis ipsis adest   |
| immodica; pallidi; lingua sicca,) saith _Altomarus_: he gives a      |
| reason there of all the symptoms, and sets down a brief cure of      |
| them.”—_Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy._ Tenth Edit.: 8vo. 1804.     |
| Vol. 1. Page 13, et seq.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| It is surprising that so learned a writer as _Burton_ should         |
| not have alluded to Oribasius, who flourished 140 years before       |
| _Aëtius_, and of whom _Freind_ says, “In auctore hoc miri cujusdam   |
| morbi prima mentio est; is Λυκάνθρωπος sive Λυκανθρωπία dicitur,     |
| estque melancholiæ, aut insaniæ, species quænam ita ab illo          |
| descripta: ‘Quos hoc malum infestos habet, nocturno tempore domo     |
| egressi, Lupos in omnibus rebus imitantur, et ad diem usque circa    |
| tumulos vagantur mortuorum. Hos ita cognosce: pallidi sunt, oculos   |
| hebetes et siccos, non illachrymantes, eosque concavos habent:       |
| lingua siccissima est, nulla penitus in ore saliva conspicitur,      |
| siti enecti; crura vero, quia noctu sæpe offendunt, sine remedio     |
| exulcerata.’—‘Quod ad morbum ipsum attinet, si peregrinantibus       |
| fides adhibenda est, fuit olim in quibusdam regionibus, ut in        |
| Livonia, Hibernia, et aliis locis visi non infrequens,’” &c.—_J.     |
| Freind. Opera omnia Med._ fol. London. 1733.                         |
|                                                                      |
| De hujus morbi antiquitatibus vide elegantem _Böttigeri_             |
| disputationem in _Sprengelii_ Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Med. 11. p. 1–45.  |
| _Blancard. Lexic. Med._ Edit. noviss. 8vo. Lipsiæ, 1822.—_Transl.    |
| note._                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [247] Born 1430, died 1480. Cornucopiæ latinæ linguæ. Basil. 1536.   |
| fol. Comment. in primum _Martialis_ Epigramma, p. 51, 52. “Est et    |
| alius stellio ex araneorum genere, qui, simili modo, ascalabotes a   |
| Græcis dicitur, et colotes et galeotes, lentiginosus in cavernulis   |
| dehiscentibus, per æstum terræ habitans. Hic majorum nostrorum       |
| temporibus in Italia visus non fuit, nunc frequens in Apulia         |
| visitur. Aliquando etiam in Tarquinensi et Corniculano agro, et      |
| vulgo similiter _tarantula_ vocatur. Morsus ejus perraro interemit   |
| hominem, semistupidum tamen facit, et varie afficit, _tarantulam_    |
| vulgo appellant. _Quidam cantu audito, aut sono, ita excitantur, ut  |
| pleni lætitia et semper ridentes saltent, nec nisi defatigati et     |
| semineces desistant._ Alii semper flentes, quasi desiderio suorum    |
| miserabilem vitam agant. Alii visa muliere, libidinis statim ardore  |
| incensi, veluti furentes in eam prosiliant. Quidam ridendo, quidam   |
| flendo moriantur.”                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [248] Lycosa Tarantula.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [249] The Aranea Tarantula of _Linnæus_, who, after the technical    |
| description, says, “Habitat in Europa australi, potissimum           |
| Apulia, in Barbaria, in Tauria, Russiæque, australis desertis, in    |
| Astracania ad montes Sibiriæ Altaicos usque, in Persia et reliquo    |
| Oriente, in solo præsertim argillaceo in antris, morsu quamvis       |
| interdum dolente, olimque famosum tarantismum musica sanandum        |
| excitare credito, vix unquam periculoso, cinerascens, oculis         |
| duobus prioribus rubris, thorace in areas nigras diviso in centrum   |
| concurrentes, abdomine supra fasciis maxillisque nigris.”—_Systema   |
| Naturæ._ Tom. I. pars v. p. 2956.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| For particulars regarding the habits of the Lycosæ, see              |
| _Griffith’s_ Transl. of _Cuvier’s_ Animal Kingdom. Vol.              |
| XIII. p. 427 and p. 480. et seq. The author states that _M.          |
| Chabrier_ has published (Soc. Acad. de Lille 4^e cahier) some        |
| curious observations on the _Lycosa tarantula_ of the south of       |
| France.—_Transl. note._                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [250] _Matthiol._ Commentar. in Dioscorid. L. II. ch. 59. p. 363.    |
| Ed. Venet. 1565. fol.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [251] _Perotti_, loc. cit.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [252] Probably Lacerto Gecko, as also the synonymes, κωλώτης and     |
| γαλεώτης quoted by him.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [253] Lacerta Stellio. It need scarcely be observed that the         |
| venomous nature of this harmless creature was a pure invention of    |
| Roman superstition.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [254] See _Athan. Kircher._ loc. cit.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [255] From 1451–1458. _Tiraboschi._ VI. 11. p. 356.                  |
|                                                                      |
| [256] See p. 12. et seq.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [257] _Aëtius_, who wrote at the end of the sixth century,           |
| mentions six which occur in the older works. 1. ῥάγιον, 2. λύκος,    |
| 3. μυρμήκειον 4. κρανοκολάπτης, by others, κεφαλοκρούστης, 5.        |
| σκληροκέφαλον, and 6. σκωλήκιον. Tetrabl. IV. Serm. I. ch. 18. in    |
| _Hen. Steph._ Compare _Dioscorid._ Lib. VI. ch. 42. _Matthiol._      |
| Commentar. in Dioscorid. p. 1447. _Nicand._ Theriac. V. 8. 715.      |
| 755. 654.                                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [258] Aranearum multæ species sunt. Quæ ubi mordent, faciunt multum  |
| dolorem, ruborem, frigidum sudorem, et citrinum colorem. Aliquando   |
| quasi stranguriæ in urina duritiem, et virgæ extensionem, intra      |
| inguina, et genua, tetinositatem in stomacho. Linguæ extensionem,    |
| ut eorum sermo non possit discerni. _Vomunt humiditatem quasi        |
| araneæ telam_, et ventris emollitionem similiter, &c. De communibus  |
| medico cognitu necessariis locis. Lib. VIII. cap. 22. p. 235.        |
| Basil. 1539. fol.                                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [259] He lived in the middle of the eleventh century, and was a      |
| junior contemporary with _Constantine_ of Africa. _J. Chr. Gottl.    |
| Ackermann_, Regimen sanitatis Salerni sive Scholæ Salernitanæ de     |
| conservanda bona valetudine præcepta. Stendal. 1790. 8vo. p. 38.     |
|                                                                      |
| [260] The passage is as follows: “Anteneasmon est species maniæ      |
| periculosa nimium. Irritantur tanquam maniaci, et in se manus        |
| injiciunt. Hi subito arripiuntur, _cum saltatione manuum et pedum,   |
| quia intra aurium cavernas quasi voces diversas sonare falso         |
| audiunt, ut sunt diversorum instrumentorum musicæ soni; quibus       |
| delectantur, ut statim saltent_, aut cursum velocem arripiant;       |
| subito arripientes gladium percutiunt se aut alios: morsibus         |
| se et alios attrectare non dubitant. Hos Latini percussores,         |
| alii dicunt dæmonis legiones esse, ut dum eos arripiunt, vexent      |
| et vulnerent. Diligentia eis imponenda est, quando istos sonos       |
| audierint, includantur, et post accessionis horas phlebotomentur,    |
| et venter eis moveatur. Cibos leves accipiant cum calida aqua, ut    |
| omnis ventositas, quæ in cerebro sonum facit, egeratur. In ipsa      |
| accessione silentium habeant. Quod si spumam per os ejecerint, _vel  |
| ex canis rabidi morsu causa fuerit_, intra septem dies moriuntur.”   |
| _Garioponti_, medici vetustissimi, de morborum causis, accidentibus  |
| et curationibus. Libri VIII. Basil. 1536. 8vo. L. I. ch. 2. p. 27.   |
|                                                                      |
| [261] _J. P. Papon._ De la peste, ou les époques mémorables de ce    |
| fléau. Paris, an 8. 8vo. Tome II. page 270. (1119. 1126. 1135.       |
| 1193. 1225. 1227. 1231. 1234. 1243. 1254. 1288. 1301. 1311. 1316.    |
| 1335. 1340.)                                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [262] 1347 to 1350.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [263] _Athanasius Kircher_ gives a full account of the instruments   |
| then in use, which differed very slightly from those of our days.    |
| Musurgia universalis, sive Ars magna consoni et dissoni. Romæ,       |
| 1650, fol. Tom. I. p. 477.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [264] Genialium dierum Libri VI. Lugdun. Bat. 1673. 8vo. Lib. II.    |
| ch. 17. p. 398. _Alex. ab Alexandro_, a distinguished Neapolitan     |
| lawyer, lived from 1461 to 1523. The historian _Gaudentius Merula_,  |
| who became celebrated about 1536, makes only a very slight mention   |
| of the Tarantism. Memorabilium _Gaud. Merulæ_ Novariensis opus, &c.  |
| Lugdun. 1656. 8vo. L. III. ch. 69. p. 251.                           |
|                                                                      |
| [265] _Petr. And. Matthioli_ Commentarii in Dioscorid. Venet. 1565.  |
| fol. Lib. II ch. 57. p. 362.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [266] _Athanas. Kircher._ Magnes sive de Arte magnetica Opus. Rom.   |
| 1654. fol. p. 589.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [267] _Joann. Juvenis_ de antiquitate et varia Tarentinorum fortuna  |
| Lib. VIII. Neapol. 1589. fol. Lib. II. ch. 17. p. 107. With the      |
| exception of the statement quoted, _Juvenis_ has borrowed almost     |
| every thing from _Matthioli_.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [268] _Simon. Alloys._ _Tudecius_, physician to Queen Christine,     |
| saw a case of this kind in July, 1656. _Bonet._ Medicina             |
| septentrionalis collatit. Genev. 1684. fol.                          |
|                                                                      |
| [269] _Epiphan. Ferdinand._ Centum historiæ seu observationes et     |
| casus medici. Venet. 1621. fol. Hist. LXXXI. p. 259. _Ferdinando_,   |
| a physician in Messapia at the commencement of the seventeenth       |
| century, has collected, with much diligence, the various statements  |
| respecting the Tarantism of his time. He “_was himself an eye        |
| witness of it_,” (p. 265.) and is by far the most copious of all     |
| the old writers on this subject.                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [270] _Kircher_, loc. cit. pp. 588, 589.                             |
|                                                                      |
| [271] _Ferdinand._ p. 259.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [272] For example:—                                                  |
|                                                                      |
|     “Allu mari mi portati                                            |
|      Se voleti che mi sanati.                                        |
|      Allu mari, alla via:                                            |
|      Cosi m’ama la donna mia.                                        |
|      Allu mari allu mari:                                            |
|      Mentre campo, t’aggio amari.”                                   |
|                                                                      |
| _Kircher_, loc. cit. p. 592.—Appendix, No. V.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [273] _Ferdinand._ loc. cit. p. 257.                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [274] _Kircher_, p. 589.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [275] _Plin._ Hist. Nat. Lib. XXVIII. ch. 2. p. 447. Ed. _Hard._     |
|                                                                      |
| [276] _Cael. Aurelian._ Chron. Lib. I. ch. 5. p. 335. Ed. _Amman_.   |
|                                                                      |
| [277] _Democritus_ and _Theophrastus_ made mention of it. See        |
| _Gell._ Noct. Attic. Lib. IV. ch. 13.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [278] _Ferdinand._ p. 260.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [279] _Bagliv._ loc. cit. p. 618. From more decided statements,      |
| however, we learn, that of those who had been bitten only one or     |
| two in a thousand died. _Ferdinand._ p. 255.                         |
|                                                                      |
| [280] Il carnevaletto delle donne. _Bagliv._ p. 617.                 |
|                                                                      |
| [281] _Ferdinand._ pp. 254. 260.                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [282] _Ferdinand._ p. 259. Slow music made the Tarantel dancers      |
| feel as if they were crushed: spezzati, minuzzati, p. 260.           |
|                                                                      |
| [283] _A. Kircher_, loc. cit.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [284] See Appendix, No. V.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [285] _Bagliv._ loc. cit. p. 623.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [286] _A. Kircher_, loc. cit.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [287] _Ferdinand._ p. 262.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [288] This is said of an old man of Avetrano, who was ninety-four    |
| years of age. pp. 254. 257.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [289] Idem, p. 261.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [290] _Ferdinando_ saw a man who was hard of hearing listen with     |
| great eagerness during the dance, and endeavour to approach the      |
| drums and fifes as nearly as possible. p. 258.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [291] Idem, p. 260.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [292] Idem, p. 256.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [293] Idem, p. 260.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [294] Idem, p. 261.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [295] _Ferdinand._ p. 256.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [296] Idem, p. 258.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [297] Idem, p. 257.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [298] Idem, p. 256.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [299] De Contag. Lib. III. ch. 2. p. 212. Opera Lugdun. 1591. 8vo.   |
|                                                                      |
| [300] De Contag. p. 254.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [301] Idem, ibid.                                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [302] Idem, p. 262.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [303] Idem, p. 261.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [304] “The imaginations of women are always more excitable than      |
| those of men, and they are therefore susceptible of every folly      |
| when they lead a life of strict seclusion, and their thoughts        |
| are constantly turned inwards upon themselves. Hence in orphan       |
| asylums, hospitals, and convents, the nervous disorder of one        |
| female so easily and quickly becomes the disorder of all. I have     |
| read in a good medical work that a nun, in a very large convent      |
| in France, began to mew like a cat; shortly afterwards other nuns    |
| also mewed. At last all the nuns mewed together every day at a       |
| certain time for several hours together. The whole surrounding       |
| Christian neighbourhood heard, with equal chagrin and astonishment,  |
| this daily cat-concert, which did not cease until all the nuns       |
| were informed that a company of soldiers were placed by the police   |
| before the entrance of the convent, and that they were provided      |
| with rods, and would continue whipping them until they promised not  |
| to mew any more.                                                     |
|                                                                      |
| “But of all the epidemics of females which I myself have seen        |
| in Germany, or of which the history is known to me, the most         |
| remarkable is the celebrated Convent-epidemic of the fifteenth       |
| century, which Cardan describes, and which peculiarly proves         |
| what I would here enforce. A nun in a German nunnery fell to         |
| biting all her companions. In the course of a short time all the     |
| nuns of this convent began biting each other. The news of this       |
| infatuation among the nuns soon spread, and it now passed from       |
| convent to convent, throughout a great part of Germany, principally  |
| Saxony and Brandenburg. It afterwards visited the nunneries of       |
| Holland, and at last the nuns had the biting mania even as far as    |
| Rome.”—_Zimmermann_ on Solitude, Vol. II. Leipsig. 1784.—_Transl.    |
| note._                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [305] _Georg. Baglivi_, Diss. de Anatome, morsu et effectibus        |
| Tarantulæ. pp. 616, 617. Opp. Lugdun. 1710. 4to.                     |
|                                                                      |
| [306] _Ferdinando_, p. 257.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [307] Idem, pp. 256, 257, 258.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [308] _Ferdinando_, p. 258.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [309] _Adam Olearius._ Vermehrte Moscowitische und Persianische      |
| Reisebeschreibung. Travels in Muscovy and Persia. Schleswig, 1663.   |
| fol. Book IV. p. 496.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [310] _Geor. Baglivi_, Dissertatio VI. de Anatome, morsu et          |
| effectibus Tarantulæ. (written in 1595.) Opera omnia, Lugdun. 1710.  |
| 4to. p. 599.                                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [311] This physician once saw three patients, who were evidently     |
| suffering from a malignant fever, and whose illness was attributed   |
| by the bystanders to the bite of the tarantula, forced to dance by   |
| having music played to them. One of them died on the spot, and the   |
| two others very shortly after. Ch. 7. p. 616.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [312] Among the instances in which imposture successfully taxes      |
| popular credulity, perhaps there is none more remarkable at the      |
| present day than that afforded by the Psylli of Egypt, a country     |
| which furnishes another illustration of our author’s remark at       |
| the commencement of the next chapter. This sect, according to the    |
| testimony of modern writers, continues to exhibit the same strange   |
| spectacles as the ancient serpent-eaters of Cyrene, described by     |
| Strabo, 17 Dio. 51. c. 14. Lucan, 9. v. 894. 937. Herodot. 4. c.     |
| 173. Paus. 9. c. 28. Savary states that he witnessed a procession    |
| at Rosetta, where a band of these seeming madmen, with bare arms     |
| and wild demeanour, held enormous serpents in their hands which      |
| writhed round their bodies and endeavoured to make their escape.     |
| These Psylli, grasping them by the neck, tore them with their teeth  |
| and ate them up alive, the blood streaming down from their polluted  |
| mouths. Others of the Psylli were striving to wrest their prey from  |
| them, so that it seemed a struggle among them who should devour a    |
| serpent. The populace followed them with amazement, and believed     |
| their performance to be miraculous. Accordingly they pass for        |
| persons inspired, and possessed by a spirit who destroys the effect  |
| of the serpent.                                                      |
|                                                                      |
| Sonnini, though not so fortunate as to witness a public exhibition   |
| of such performances, yet gives the following interesting account    |
| of what he justly calls a remarkable specimen of the extravagance    |
| of man. After adverting to the superstitious origin of the sect,     |
| he goes on to say that a Saadi, or serpent-eater, came to his        |
| apartment accompanied by a priest of his sect. The priest carried    |
| in his bosom a large serpent of a dusky green and copper colour,     |
| which he was continually handling; and after having recited a        |
| prayer, he delivered it to the Saadi. The narrative proceeds:—“With  |
| a vigorous hand the Saadi seized the serpent, which twisted itself   |
| round his naked arm. He began to appear agitated; his countenance    |
| was discomposed; his eyes rolled; he uttered terrible cries, bit     |
| the animal in the head, and tore off a morsel, which we saw him      |
| chew and swallow. On this his agitation became convulsive; his       |
| howlings were redoubled, his limbs writhed, his countenance assumed  |
| the features of madness, and his mouth, extended by terrible         |
| grimaces, was all in a foam. Every now and then he devoured a fresh  |
| morsel of the reptile. Three men endeavoured to hold him, but he     |
| dragged them all three round the chamber. His arms were thrown       |
| about with violence on all sides, and struck every thing within      |
| their reach. Eager to avoid him, M. Forneti and I were obliged       |
| sometimes to cling to the wall, to let him pass and escape his       |
| blows. We could have wished the madman far away. At length the       |
| priest took the serpent from him, but his madness and convulsions    |
| did not cease immediately; he bit his hands, and his fury            |
| continued. The priest then grasped him in his arms, passed his hand  |
| gently down his back, lifted him from the ground, and recited some   |
| prayers. By degrees his agitation diminished, and subsided into a    |
| state of complete lassitude, in which he remained a few moments.     |
|                                                                      |
| “The Turks who were present at this ridiculous and disgusting        |
| ceremony were firmly persuaded of the reality of this religious      |
| fury; and it is very certain that, whether it were reality or        |
| imposture, it is impossible to see the transports of rage and        |
| madness exhibited in a more striking manner, or have before          |
| your eyes a man more calculated to inspire terror.”—_Hunter’s        |
| Translation of Sonnini’s Travels_, 8vo. 1799.—_Transl. note._        |
|                                                                      |
| [313] _Franc. Serao_, della Tarantola o vero Falangio di Puglia.     |
| Napol. 1742.—See _Thom. Fasani_, De vita, muniis et scriptis         |
| _Franc. Serai_, &c. Commentarius. Neapol. 1784. 8vo. p. 76. et seq.  |
|                                                                      |
| [314] _Thom. Fasani_, De vita, muniis et scriptis _Franc. Serai_,    |
| &c. Commentarius, p. 88.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [315] Idem, p. 89.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [316] _H. Mercurialis_, de Venenis et Morbis Venenosis, (Venet.      |
| 1601. 4to. Lib. II. ch. 6. p. 39.) repeats the silly tale, that      |
| those who were bitten continued, during their paroxysm, to be        |
| occupied with whatever they had been engaged in at the time          |
| they received the bite, and proves, by a fact which had been         |
| communicated to him, that already, in the sixteenth century,         |
| they were able to distinguish impostors from those who had been      |
| really bitten. _H. Cardani_, de Subtilitate Libri XXI. Basil.        |
| 1560. 8vo. Lib. IX. p. 635. The baneful effect of the venom of       |
| the tarantula was obviated, not so much by music as by the great     |
| exertion used in dancing. Compare _J. Cæs. Scaliger_. Exoteric.      |
| Exercitt. Libri XV. de Subtilitate, Francof. 1612. 8vo. Ex. 185.     |
| p. 610.—_J. M. Fehr_, Anchora sacra vel Scorzonera. Jen. 1666.       |
| 8vo. p. 127. From _Alexander ab Alexandro_, and several later        |
| writers.—_Stalpart van der Wiel_, Observatt. rarior. Lugdun. Bat.    |
| 1687. 8vo. Cent. 1. Obs. C. p. 424. According to _Kircher_.—_Rod.    |
| a Castro_, Medicus politicus. Hamburg, 1614. 4to. Lib. IV. ch.       |
| 16. p. 275. According to _Matthioli_.—_D. Cirillo_, Some account     |
| of the Tarantula, Philosoph. Trans. Vol. LX. 1770, describes         |
| Tarantism as a common imposture. So also does _J. A. Unzer_, The     |
| Physician, Vol. II. pp. 473. 640, Vol. III. pp. 466, 526, 528,       |
| 529, 530, 533, 553; likewise _A. F. Büsching_, Eigene Gedanken und   |
| gesammelte Nachrichten von der Tarantel, welche zur gänzlichen       |
| Vertilgung des Vorurtheils von der Schädlichkeit ihres Bisses,       |
| und der Heilung desselben durch Musik, dienlich und hinlänglich      |
| sind. Observations and statements respecting the Tarantula, which    |
| suffice entirely to set aside the prejudice respecting the venom     |
| of its bite, as also its cure by music. Berlin, 1772. 8vo. A very    |
| shallow criticism.—_P. Forest._ Observatt. et Curatt. medicinal.     |
| Libri 30, 31 et 32. Francof. 1509. fol. Ob. XII. p. 41. diligently   |
| compiled from his predecessors.—_Phil. Camerar._ Operæ horarum       |
| subcisivarum. Francof. 1658. 4to. Cent. II. cap. 81. p. 317.—_R.     |
| Mead_, a mechanical account of poisons: London, 1747. 8vo. p.        |
| 99. contends for the reality of Tarantism with _R. Boyle_. An        |
| essay of the great effects of even languid and unheeded motion,      |
| &c. London, 1685. ch. VI.—So also _J. F. Cartheuser_, Fundamenta     |
| pathologiæ et therapiæ. Francof. a. V. 1758. 8vo. Tom. I. p.         |
| 334. _Th. Willis_ de morbis convulsivis. cap. VII. p. 492. Opp.      |
| Lugdun. 1681. 4to. According to _Gassendi_, _Ferdinando_, _Kircher_  |
| and others.—_L. Valetta_, de Phalangio Apulo opusculum. Neapol.      |
| 1706.—_Thom. Cornelio_ (professor at Naples in the middle of the     |
| seventeenth century). Letter to _J. Dodington_ concerning some       |
| observations made of persons pretending to be stung by Tarantulas.   |
| Phil. Transactions, No. 83. p. 4066. 1672. considers Tarantism       |
| to be St. Vitus’s dance.—_Jos. Lanzoni_, de Venenis, cap. 57. p.     |
| 140. Opp. Lausann. 1738. 4to. Tom. I. mostly from _Baglivi_.—_J.     |
| Schenk_, a _Grafenberg_. Observatt. Medicar. Lib. VII. Obs.          |
| 122. p. 792. Tom. II. Ed. Francof. 1600. 8vo. was himself an         |
| eye-witness.—_Wolfg. Senguerd_, Tractatus physicus de Tarantula.     |
| Ludg. Bat. 1668. 12mo.—_Herm. Grube_, De ictu Tarantulæ et vi        |
| musices in eius curatione conjecturæ physico-medicæ. Francof.        |
| 1679. 8vo—_Athan. Kircher_, Musurgia universalis. Rom. 1650. fol.    |
| Tom. II. IX. ch. 4. p. 218.—_M. Köhler_, in den Svenska Vetenskaps   |
| Academiens Handlingar. 1758. p. 29. Transactions of the Swedish      |
| Academy of Sciences—Berlin Collection for the Furtherance of         |
| the Science of Medicine. Vol. V. Pt. I. p. 53. 1772.—_Burserii_      |
| Institutiones medic. pract. tom. III. p. 1. cap. 7. § 219. p. 159.   |
| ed. _Hecker_.—_J. S. Halle_, Gifthistorie. History of Poisons,       |
| Berlin, 1786. 8vo.—_Blumenbach_, Naturgeschichte, Natural History,   |
| p. 412.—_E. F. Leonhardt_, Diss. de Tarantismo, Berol. 1827. 8vo.    |
| and many others.                                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [317] This may, however, be considered merely as a conjecture,       |
| founded upon the following passage in _Ludolf’s_ Lexicon Æthiopic.   |
| Ed. 2da. Francof. 1699. fol. p. 142. _Astarāgaza_, de vexatione      |
| quadam diabolica accipitur. Marc. i. 26. ix. 18. Luc. ix. 39.        |
| Græcus habet σπαράττειν, vellicare, discerpere. _Sed Æthiopes,       |
| teste Gregorio, pro morbo quodam accipiunt, quo quis perpetuo pedes  |
| agitare et quasi calcitrare cogitur._ Fortassis est Saltatio S.      |
| Viti, vulgo St. Veitstanz.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [318] The Life and Adventures of _Nathaniel Pearce_, written by      |
| himself, during a residence in Abyssinia, from the year 1810 to      |
| 1819. London, 1831. 8vo. Vol. I. ch. ix. p. 290.                     |
|                                                                      |
| [319] The Evangelist and _St. John_ the Baptist have been at all     |
| times, and among all nations, confounded with each other, so that    |
| the relation of the latter to one and the same phenomenon in such    |
| different ages and climates is very probable.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [320] She was a native Greek.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [321] _Pearce_, p. 289. Compare p. 34.—_E. G. Förstemann_, Die       |
| christlichen Geisslergesellschaften. The Christian Societies of      |
| Flagellants. Halle, 1828. 8vo.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [322] Idem, loc. cit.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [323] Among the ancient Greeks βασκήσις. This superstition is more   |
| or less developed among all the nations of the earth, and has not    |
| yet entirely disappeared from Europe.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [324] _Paracelsus._                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [325] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1787, March, p. 268.—_F. B. Osiander_,   |
| Ueber die Entwickelungskrankheiten in den Blüthenjahren des          |
| weiblichen Geschlechts. On the disorders of young women, &c.         |
| Tübingen, 1820, Vol. I. p. 10.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [326] This account is given by _Fritze_. _Hufeland’s_ Journal der    |
| practischen Heilkunde, Vol. XII. 1801. Part I. p. 110. Hufeland’s    |
| Journal of Practical Medicine.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [327] Compare _J. G. Zimmermann_, Ueber die Einsamkeit. Leipsig,     |
| 1784. 8vo. Vol. II. ch. 6. p. 77. On Solitude.—_J. P. Falret_, De    |
| l’hypochondrie et du suicide. Paris, 1822. 8vo. and others.          |
|                                                                      |
| [328] This statement is made by _J. Cornish_. See _Fothergill_ and   |
| _Want’s_ Medical and Physical Journal, vol. xxxi. 1814. pp. 373–379. |
|                                                                      |
| [329] _Samuel Hibbert_, Description of the Shetland Islands,         |
| comprising an account of their geology, scenery, antiquities, and    |
| superstitions. Edinburgh, 1822. 4to. p. 399.                         |
|                                                                      |
| [330] About this time the following couplet was circulated:—         |
|                                                                      |
|     “De par le Roi, défense à Dieu                                   |
|      De faire miracle dans ce lieu.”                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [331] This kind of assistance was called the “Grands Secours.”       |
| _Boursier_, Mémoire Théologique sur ce qu’on appelle les             |
| Secours violens dans les Convulsions. Paris, 1788. 12mo. Many        |
| Convulsionnaires were seized with illness in consequence of this     |
| singularly erroneous mode of cure. A Dominican friar died from the   |
| effects of it—though accidents of this kind were kept carefully      |
| concealed. See _Renault_ (parish priest at Vaux, near Auxerre;       |
| obiit, 1796), Le Secourisme détruit dans ses fondemens, 1759. 12mo.  |
| and Le Mystère d’Iniquité, 1788. 8vo.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [332] _Arouet_, the father of _Voltaire_, visited, in Nantes, a      |
| celebrated Convulsionnaire, _Gabrielle Mollet_, whom he found        |
| occupied in pulling the bells off a child’s coral, to designate the  |
| rejection of the unbelievers. Sometimes she jumped into the water,   |
| and barked like a dog. She died in 1748.                             |
|                                                                      |
| [333] _J. Phil. Hecquet_ (obiit 1737). La Naturalisme des            |
| Convulsions. Soleure, 1733. 8vo.                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [334] De Melancholia et Morbis Melancholicis. Paris, 1765. 2 vols.   |
| 8vo.                                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [335] Especially from 1784 to 1788.                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [336] See _Grégoire_, Histoire des Sectes Religieuses, tome ii.      |
| ch. 13. p. 127. Paris, 1828. 8vo. The following words of this        |
| meritorious author, on the mental state of his countrymen, are       |
| very well worthy of attention. “L’esprit public est dans un état     |
| de fluctuation persévérante: _des âmes flétries par l’égoïsme        |
| n’ont que le caractère de la servitude_; l’education viciée ne       |
| forme guère que des êtres dégradés; la religion est méconnue ou      |
| mal enseignée; _la nation présente des symptômes alarmans de sa      |
| décrépitude_, et présage des malheurs dont on ne peut calculer       |
| l’étendue ni la durée.” P. 161.                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [337] “I had occasion to witness at Cairo another species of         |
| religious fanaticism. I heard one day, at a short distance from my   |
| residence, for several hours together, singing, or more properly     |
| crying, so uniform and fatiguing, that I inquired the cause of       |
| this singularity. I was told that it was some dervise or monk,       |
| who repeated, while _dancing_ on his heels, the name of Allah,       |
| till, completely exhausted, he sank down insensible. These unhappy   |
| visionaries, in fact, often expire at the end of this holy _dance_;  |
| and the cries of the one whom I heard, having commenced in the       |
| afternoon, and continued during the whole of the night, and part     |
| of the following morning, I doubt not that his pious enthusiasm      |
| cost him his life.”—_Recollections of Egypt, by the Baroness Von     |
| Minutoli._ London, 1827.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| In Arabia the same fanatical zeal exists, as we find from the        |
| following passage of an anonymous history of the Wahabis, published  |
| in Paris, in 1810: “La prière la plus méritoire consiste à crier     |
| le nom de Dieu, pendant des heures entières, et le plus saint est    |
| celui qui répète ce nom le plus long temps et le plus vite. Rien     |
| de plus curieux que le spectacle des Schekhs, qui, dans les fêtes    |
| publiques, s’essayent à l’envi, et hurlent le nom d’Allah d’une      |
| manière effrayante. La plupart enroués sont forcés de se taire, et   |
| abandonnent la palme au sainte à forte poitrine, qui, pour jouir     |
| de sa victoire, s’efforce et jette encore quelque cris devant ses    |
| rivaux réduits au silence. Epuisé de fatigue, baigné de sueur, il    |
| tombe enfin au milieu du peuple dévot, qui s’empresse à le relever   |
| et le porte en triomphe. Les principales mosquées retentissent,      |
| tous les Vendredis, des cris dictés par cette singulière émulation.  |
| Le Schekh, que ses poumons ont sanctifié, conserve son odeur de      |
| sainteté par des extases et des transports, souvent dangereux pour   |
| les Chrétiens que le hazard en rend témoins malgré cux.”—_Transl.    |
| note._                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [338] For examples see _Osiander_, Entwickelungskrankheiten. Loc.    |
| cit. p. 45.                                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [339] Among 108 cases of insanity, _Perfect_ mentions eleven of      |
| mania and methodistical enthusiasm, _in nine of which suicide was    |
| committed_. Annals of Insanity. London, 1808. 8vo.                   |
|                                                                      |
| [340] _Harris Rowland_ and _William Williams_.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [341] _John Evans_, Sketch of the Denominations of the Christian     |
| World. 13th edition. London, 1814. 12mo. p. 236.—See _Grégoire_,     |
| loc. cit. tome iv. chap. xiii. p. 483.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [342] _Mrs. Trollope’s_ Domestic Manners of the Americans. A         |
| Revival, pp. 108–112. Shaking Quakers, pp. 195–196. Camp Meeting,    |
| p. 233. London, 2 vols. 1832.—_Transl. note._                        |
|                                                                      |
| [343] In Kentucky, assemblies of from ten to twelve thousand have    |
| frequently taken place. Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and     |
| New York, are also the theatres of these meetings.—_Grégoire_, tome  |
| iv. p. 496.                                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [344] At one of these camp-meetings a traveller saw above eight      |
| hundred persons faint away. Idem. He nowhere met with more frequent  |
| instances of suicide in consequence of Demonomania, than in North    |
| America.                                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [345] Idem. p. 498. These are the _Barkers_. Numerous other          |
| convulsive Methodistical sects abound in North America. The          |
| _Shakers_, who are inimical to marriage, would also have been        |
| mentioned, were not their contortions much less violent than those   |
| of the Jumpers.—See _Grégoire_, tome v. p. 195. _Evans_, p. 267.     |
|                                                                      |
| [346] See _Perrin du Lac_, Voyage dans les deux Louisianes.          |
| Paris, 1805. 8vo. chap. ix. pp. 64, 65. chap. xvii. pp. 128,         |
| 129.—_Michaud_, Voyage à l’ouest des Monts Alleghanys. Paris,        |
| 1804. 8vo. p. 212.—_John Melish_, Travels in the United States of    |
| America. Philadelphia, 1812. 8vo. vol. i. p. 26.—_Lambert_, Travels  |
| through Canada and the United States. London, 1810. 8vo. vol. iii.   |
| p. 44.—_John Howison_, Sketches of Upper Canada. Edinburgh, 1822.    |
| 8vo. p. 150.—_Edward Allen Talbot_, Cinq Années de Résidence au      |
| Canada. Paris, 1825. 8vo. tome ii. p. 147.                           |
|                                                                      |
| [347] The substance of Nos. III. and IV. having been embodied in     |
| the text, it seems only necessary to insert here the original        |
| old German, which is couched in language too coarse to admit of      |
| translation.—_Transl. note._                                         |
|                                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+




                        THE SWEATING SICKNESS.

                               PREFACE.


The present work is a continuation of my treatises on collateral
subjects, and, like them, maintains the opinion, that great epidemics
are epochs of development, wherein the mental energies of mankind are
exerted in every direction. The history of the world bears indisputable
testimony to this fact. The tendencies of the mind, the turn of thought
of whole ages, have frequently depended on prevailing diseases; for
nothing exercises a more potent influence over man, either in disposing
him to calmness and submission, or in kindling in him the wildest
passions, than the proximity of inevitable and universal danger. Often
have infatuation and fanaticism, hatred and revenge, engendered by
an overwhelming fear of death, spread fire and flames throughout the
world. Famine and diseases, among which may be instanced the fiery
plague of St. Anthony, were no less powerful in calling forth the
chivalrous spirit of the crusades than the enthusiastic eloquence of
Peter the Hermit—the Black Death brought thousands to the stake, and
aroused the fearful penances of the Flagellants—while the oriental
leprosy cast a gloomy shade over society throughout the whole course of
the middle ages.

With all such commotions, the most striking events of the world are
in intimate relation, and unquestionably, amid the changing forms of
existence in the human race, more has always depended on the prevailing
tone of thought than on the rude powers by which those events were
produced. The historian, therefore, who would investigate the hidden
influence of mind, cannot dispense with medical research. The facts
themselves convince him of the organic union of the corporeal and the
spiritual in all human affairs, and consequently of the innate vital
connexion of all human knowledge. Hence, in a medical point of view,
how vast is the field for observation presented by the history of
popular diseases. Present bodily sufferings[348], are, collectively,
but a step in the development,—but one phase of morbid life amid a
long series of phenomena, and hence are not fully understood without
a previous knowledge of the past, and historical research. How can we
recognise the ring of Saturn as such, so long as our axis of vision
is in its plane, and we see it only as a line. Great pestilences
have vanished or been dispersed; from causes apparently the most
insignificant, the most important consequences have resulted, and
throughout the vicissitudes of danger and devastation, the operations
of mighty laws of nature are everywhere manifested in the social
tendencies of entire centuries.

This is no aërial realm of transitory conjectures—facts themselves
speak in a thousand reminiscences. If we do but investigate the
past with unprejudiced assiduity—if we do but consider even the few
successful researches which have hitherto been made in historical
pathology, (perhaps those who are kindly disposed will recognise even
mine,) we shall not fail to arrive at a centre of reality, which
the healing art, to its great detriment, has hitherto been far from
reaching, whilst it has occasionally penetrated into a less fertile
soil, or even encumbered itself with the accumulated rubbish of the
pedantic dogmas of the schools.

The state, which founds its legislation on a knowledge of realities,
which expects from the physical sciences information respecting human
life collectively, considered in all its relations, has a right to
demand from its physicians a general insight into the nature and
causes of popular diseases. Such an insight, however, as is worthy
the dignity of a science, cannot be obtained by the observation of
isolated epidemics, because nature never in any one of them displays
herself in all her bearings, nor brings into action, at one time, more
than a few of the laws of general disease. One generation, however
rich it may be in stores of important knowledge, is never adequate to
establish, on the foundation of actually observed phenomena, a doctrine
of popular diseases worthy of the name. The experience of all ages is
the source whence we must in this case draw, and medical investigation
is the only road which leads to this source, unless, indeed, we would
be unprepared to meet new epidemics, and would maintain the unfounded
opinion that medical science, as it now exists, is the full result of
all preceding efforts.

An insight, not only into general visitations of disease, which in
the course of ages have appeared in divers forms, but also into every
single disease, whether it occurs in intimate connexion with others
or not, is rendered more distinct by a knowledge of the contemporary
circumstances which attend its development. I would fain hope,
therefore, that the future research and diligence of physicians devoted
to the pursuit of truth and science, will be more generally directed
to historical investigation; and that universities and academies will
concede to it that prominent place, which, from its high importance, as
an extensive branch of natural philosophy, it justly demands.

Whether the following inquiry into one of the most remarkable diseases
on record corresponds with these views, I must leave my readers to
judge. The historian will discern what social feelings are produced
among nations by great events, and to the physician a picture of
suffering will be unveiled, to which the diseases of the present time
afford no parallel. I have throughout kept in view the spirit and the
dignity of the sixteenth century, which was as remarkable for military
triumphs as for tragic events; and I look with confidence for the same
indulgence and goodwill now, which, through the kindness of friends, I
have already enjoyed both at home and abroad, in a higher degree than
my sincere gratitude can find words to express.




                        THE SWEATING SICKNESS.

                              CHAPTER I.

               THE FIRST VISITATION OF THE DISEASE—1485.

    “Sound drums and trumpets, boldly and cheerfully,
     God and Saint George! Richmond and victory!”—SHAKESPEARE.


                          SECT. 1.—ERUPTION.

After the fate of England had been decided by the battle of Bosworth,
on the 22d of August, 1485[349], the joy of the nation was clouded
by a mortal disease which thinned the ranks of the warriors, and
following in the rear of Henry’s victorious army, spread in a few weeks
from the distant mountains of Wales to the metropolis of the empire.
It was a violent inflammatory fever, which, after a short rigor,
prostrated the powers as with a blow; and amidst painful oppression
at the stomach, headache and lethargic stupor, suffused the whole
body with a fetid perspiration. All this took place in the course of
a few hours, and the crisis was always over within the space of a
day and night[350]. The internal heat which the patient suffered was
intolerable, yet every refrigerant was certain death. The people were
seized with consternation when they saw that scarcely one in a hundred
escaped[351], and their first impression was that a reign commencing
with such horrors would doubtless prove most inauspicious[352].

At first the new foe was scarcely heeded; citizens and peasants went
in joyful processions to meet the victorious army. Henry’s march from
Bosworth towards London resembled a triumph, which was everywhere
celebrated by festivals; for the nation, after its many years of civil
war, looked forward to happier days than they had enjoyed under the
blood-thirsty Richard.

Very shortly, however, after the king’s entry into the capital on
the 28th of August[353], the Sweating Sickness[354], as the disease
was called, began to spread its ravages among the densely peopled
streets of the city. Two lord mayors and six aldermen died within one
week[355], having scarcely laid aside their festive robes; many who
had been in perfect health at night, were on the following morning
numbered among the dead. The disease for the most part marked for its
victims robust and vigorous men; and as many noble families lost their
chiefs, extensive commercial houses their principals, and wards their
guardians, the festivities were soon converted into grief and mourning.
The coronation of the king, which was expected to overcome the scruples
that many entertained of his right to the throne, was of necessity
postponed in this general distress[356], and the disease, in the mean
time, spread without interruption and over the whole kingdom from east
to west[357].

It is agreed that the pestilence did not commence till the very
beginning of August, 1485, and was in obvious connexion with the
circumstances of the times. To return to their native country had
long been the ardent desire of the Earl of Richmond and his faithful
followers. At the age of 15, (1471,) having escaped the vengeance of
the House of York, and the assassins of Edward, he was overtaken by
a storm, and fell into the hands of Francis II., Duke of Bretagne,
who long detained him prisoner, but on the death of Edward, in 1483,
supplied him with means to enforce his claims to the English throne, as
the last descendant of the House of Lancaster. This first undertaking
miscarried. A storm drove back the bold adventurer to Dieppe, and
compelled him once more to throw himself, with his five hundred English
followers, on the hospitality of Duke Francis. Richard’s influence
with the Duke, however, rendered his stay there somewhat dangerous.
Richmond withdrew privately, and endeavoured to gain over to his cause
Charles VIII., who was yet a minor. A small subsidy of French troops,
some pieces of artillery, and an adequate supply of money, were finally
granted to his repeated solicitations. This little band was quickly
augmented to 2000 men, who were all embarked, and on the 25th of July,
1485, they weighed anchor at Havre, and seven days after, the standard
of Richmond was raised in Milford Haven[358].

They landed at the village of Dale, on the west side of the harbour,
and on the evening of their arrival, or very early on the following
morning, Richmond hastened to Haverfordwest, where no messenger had
yet announced the renewal of the civil war. It appears that he reached
Cardigan, on the northern shore, on the 3d of August, and for the
first time granted to his small but increasing army the repose of an
encampment.

After a short halt, he set forward with confidence, crossed the Severn
at Shrewsbury[359], turned from thence to Newport and Stafford,
and pitched his camp at Litchfield, probably before the 18th of
August[360]. The distance to this place from Milford Haven is 170
miles, and the road leads over wooded mountains and cultivated fields,
without touching upon any swampy lands. Litchfield, however, lies low,
and it was here that the army encamped in a damp situation, till it
broke up for the neighbouring field of Bosworth. Thither Richmond, with
scarcely 5000 men, and having his right wing covered by a morass, went
to meet his deadly foe, whose army doubled his own. The combat was at
first furious, but in two hours Lord Stanley crowned the conqueror with
Richard’s diadem[361].

All these events so rapidly succeeded each other in the course of
three weeks, that the knights and soldiers of Richmond, more and
more excited every day by fear and hope, were scarcely equal to such
exertions. Yet the very rapidity of the movements of the army was the
cause why the disease could not spread so quickly, nor obstruct the
final decision of Bosworth, although the report of it had already,
before this event, spread universal terror; so that Lord Stanley, when
authoritatively summoned by Richard to repair to his standard, sought
to gain time, and, by way of excuse, alleged the prevalence of the new
disease[362].

After the victory of Bosworth, King Henry remained two days in
Leicester, and then without further delay hastened to London, which he
reached in less than four days, unaccompanied by military parade, and
attended only by a select body of followers. The remainder of his army,
which stood greatly in need of repose after its severe toils, were not
in a condition for marching, they therefore halted in the neighbouring
towns, and were probably disbanded, according to the custom of the
age[363].

The Sweating Sickness is said not to have made its appearance in London
till the 21st of September[364], but historians have most likely
intended by that day to mark the commencement of its virulence, which
continued to the end of the following month, and lasted, therefore, in
all, about five weeks.

During this short period a large portion of the population[365] fell
victims to the new epidemic, and the lamentation was without bounds
so long as the people were ignorant that this fearful disease, unable
to establish its dominion, would only pass through the country like a
flash of lightning, and then again give place to the active intercourse
of society and the cheering hope of life.

There was no security against a second attack; for many who had
recovered were seized by it, with equal violence, a second, and
sometimes a third time, so that they had not even the slender
consolation enjoyed by sufferers in the plague[366] and small-pox, of
entire immunity after having once surmounted the danger[367].

Thus by the end of the year the disease had spread over the whole
of England, and visited every place with the same severity as the
metropolis. Many persons of rank, of the ecclesiastical and the civil
classes, became its victims; and great was the consternation when, in
the month of August, it broke out in Oxford. Professors and students
fled in all directions: but death overtook many of them, and this
celebrated university was deserted for six weeks[368]. Three months
later it appeared at Croyland, and on the 14th of November, carried off
Lambert Fossedyke, abbot of the monastery[369]. No authentic accounts
from other quarters have been handed down to our times, but we may
infer, from the general grief and anxiety which prevailed, that the
loss of human life was very considerable.


                       SECT. 2.—THE PHYSICIANS.

The physicians could do little or nothing for the people in this
extremity[370]. They are nowhere alluded to throughout this epidemic,
and even those who might have come forward to succour their fellow
citizens, had fallen into the errors of Galen, and their dialectic
minds sank under this appalling phenomenon. This holds good even of
the famous Thomas Linacre, subsequently physician in ordinary to two
monarchs[371], and founder of the College of Physicians, in 1518.
In the prime of his youth he had been an eye-witness of the events
at Oxford, and survived even the second and third eruption of the
Sweating Sickness; but in none of his writings do we find a single word
respecting this disease, which is of such permanent importance. In
fact, the restorers of the medical science of ancient Greece, who were
followed by all the most enlightened men in Europe, with the single
exception of Linacre, occupied themselves rather with the ancient terms
of art than with actual observation, and in their critical researches
overlooked the important events that were passing before their
eyes[372]. This reminds us of the later Greek physicians, who for four
hundred years paid no attention to the small-pox, because they could
find no description of it in the immortal works of Galen[373].

No resource was therefore left to the terrified people of England but
their own good sense, and this led them to the adoption of a plan of
treatment, than which no physician in the world could have given them
a better; namely, not to resort to any violent medicines, but to apply
moderate heat, to abstain from food, taking only a small quantity of
mild drink, and quietly to wait for four-and-twenty hours the crisis
of this formidable malady. Those who were attacked during the day, in
order to avoid any chill, immediately went to bed in their clothes,
and those who sickened by night did not rise from their beds in the
morning; while all carefully avoided exposing to the air even a hand or
foot. Thus they anxiously guarded against heat or cold, so as not to
excite perspiration by the former, nor to check it by the latter—for
they well knew that either was certain death[374].

The report of the infallibility of this method soon spread over
the whole kingdom, and thus towards the commencement of 1486, many
were rescued from death. On New Year’s Day, a violent tempest arose
in the south-east, and by purifying the atmosphere relieved the
oppression under which the people laboured, and thus, to the joy of
the whole nation, the epidemic was swept away without leaving a trace
behind[375].


                           SECT. 3.—CAUSES.

It was thought remarkable, even at that time, that the Sweating
Sickness did not extend beyond the limits of England, and that,
remaining the unenviable property of that nation, it did not even
spread to Scotland, Ireland, or Calais which belonged to Britain. Much,
doubtless, was owing to the peculiarity of the climate, more still to
atmospherical changes, and something also to the habits of the people
and the circumstances of the times. It plainly appeared in the sequel
that the English Sweating Sickness was a spirit of the mist, which
hovered amid the dark clouds. Even in ordinary years, the atmosphere
of England is loaded with these clouds during considerable periods,
and in damp seasons they would prove the more injurious to health,
as the English of those times were not accustomed to cleanliness,
moderation in their diet, or even comfortable refinements. Gluttony
was common among the nobility as well as among the lower classes; all
were immoderately addicted to drinking[376], and the manners of the age
sanctioned this excess at their banquets and their festivities. If we
consider that the disease mostly attacked strong and robust men—that
portion of the people who abandoned themselves without restraint to
all the pleasures of the table—while women, old men, and children,
almost entirely escaped, it is obvious that a gross indulgence of the
appetite must have had a considerable share in the production of this
unparalleled plague.

To this may be added, the humidity of the year 1485, which is
represented by most chronicles as very remarkable[377]. Throughout
the whole of Europe the rain fell in torrents, and inundations were
frequent. Damp weather is not prejudicial to health if it be merely
temporary, but if the rain be excessive for a series of years, so that
the ground is completely saturated, and the mists attract baneful
exhalations out of the earth, man must necessarily suffer from the
noxious state of the soil and atmosphere. Under these circumstances
epidemics must inevitably follow. The five preceding years had been
unusually wet[378], 1485 proved equally so; the last hot and droughty
summer was that of 1479[379]. Extensive inundations of the Tiber,
the Po, the Danube, the Rhine, and most of the other great rivers,
took place in 1480, and were attended with the usual consequences,
the deterioration of the air, misery and disease[380]. The greatest
inundation ever remembered in England was that of the Severn, in
October, 1483. It was long afterwards called the Duke of Buckingham’s
Great Water[381], because it frustrated the rebellion of this powerful
subject against Richard III., whom he had been instrumental in placing
upon the throne; and consequently defeated also the first enterprise
of Henry VII. It lasted full ten days, and the tremendous ravages
occasioned by the overwhelming torrent dwelt long in the memory of the
people.


                       SECT. 4.—OTHER EPIDEMICS.

During the whole of this period the nations of Europe were visited
with various and destructive plagues. In 1477, the Bubo-plague
broke out in Italy, and raged without interruption till 1485[382].
It was accompanied by striking natural phenomena, among which we
may reckon an enormous flight of locusts in 1478[383] and 1482, and
remarkable inter-current diseases, such as inflammatory pain in the
side, throughout the whole of Italy in 1482[384]. In Switzerland and
Southern Germany malignant epidemics[385] appeared in the train of
drought and famine in 1480 and 1481, while putrid fever accompanied by
phrenites[386], prevailed in Westphalia, Hesse and Friesland. There had
never been in the memory of the inhabitants of these districts so many
ignes fatui as during this period. There too the people suffered from
the failure of the harvest, so that it was necessary to obtain supplies
from Thuringen[387]. France, where, under the fearful reign of Louis
XI., oppression and misery seemed to mock the gifts of heaven, became
in 1482, after a two years’ scarcity, the scene of a devastating
plague. It was an inflammatory fever with delirium, accompanied by such
intense pain in the head, that many dashed out their brains against
the wall, or rushed into the water; while others, after incessantly
running to and fro, died in a state of the greatest agony. According
to the notion of the age, this disease was attributed to astral
influences, for it could not have been brought on only by famine,
which left to the poor peasantry, south of the Loire, nothing but the
roots of wild herbs to support their miserable existence[388], since
the higher classes were also frequently attacked[389]. This fever was
without doubt accompanied by inflammation of the meninges, or even of
the brain itself, and was, perhaps, identical with that which at the
same period desolated the north-west of Germany as far as the shores
of the North Sea, only that it was heightened by the greater natural
vivacity and miserable situation of the French people, who were kept
in a state of perpetual dread by the cruel executions of Louis[390].
This pestilence occasioned the king to follow the advice of his morose
physician[391] in ordinary, and to keep himself closely confined within
the town of Plessis des Tours. It was prohibited under a heavy penalty
to speak in his presence of death which was carrying off its victims in
all directions, and forty crossbowmen kept guard in the fosse of the
castle to put to death every living thing which might approach[392].
Two years after, in 1484, virulent diseases[393] again visited Germany
and Switzerland; and thus it seemed as if the nations were everywhere
threatened with death and destruction.


                       SECT. 5.—RICHMOND’S ARMY.

From these data, which might easily be extended[394], it is evident
that the Sweating Sickness of 1485 did not make its appearance without
great and general premisory events, which for a series of years
imparted to the people of England a susceptibility to dangerous and
unusual diseases. If, besides this, we take into account the gloomy
temperament of the English, and the general depression of their
spirits, in consequence of the sanguinary wars of the red and white
roses, a series of events which seems to have shaken their faith
in an overruling Providence, we may readily conceive that it would
require but a very slight impulse to excite a powerful commotion
in the mysterious mechanism of the human body. This impulse was
evidently given by the landing of Richmond’s army in the very year
when great and portentous evils were anticipated; for on the 16th of
March, the same day when Queen Ann, the unfortunate wife of Richard
III., expired, a total eclipse of the sun enveloped all Europe in
darkness, and gave rise to gloomy prognostications[395]. Even under
ordinary circumstances, wars beget pestilential disorders—how much
more inevitably must these have arisen in the then existing state
of affairs! Richmond’s army consisted not of brave men animated by
zeal to avenge their dishonoured country or to serve a good cause.
It was composed of wandering freebooters, “vile landskneckte,” as
they were called in Germany, who assembled under his banner at
Havre,—sharpshooters formed under Louis XI., who recklessly pillaged
Normandy, and whom Charles VIII. gladly made over to Henry, in order to
free his own peaceful territories from so great a scourge[396]. This
army may not have been worse than others of the same period[397]; but
cooped up as they were for a whole week in dirty ships, they doubtless
carried about with them all the material for germinating the seeds of a
pestilential disorder, which broke out soon after on the banks of the
Severn and in the camp at Litchfield.


               SECT. 6.—NATURE OF THE SWEATING SICKNESS.

                      PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION.

Before we proceed further, some account is here required of the
nature of this disease. It was an inflammatory rheumatic fever, with
great disorder of the nervous system. This assumption is supported
by the manner of its origin and its especial characteristic of being
accompanied by a profuse and injurious perspiration. From the judgment
that we are now capable of forming of the pernicious influences which
prevailed in the year 1485, it may, without hesitation, be admitted
that the humidity of that and of the preceding years affected the
functions of the lungs and of the skin, and disturbed the relation
of this very important tissue to the internal organs of life. This
is the usual commencement of rheumatic fevers, which bear the same
relation to the Sweating Sickness as slight symptoms bear to severe
ones of the same kind. The predominance of affections of the brain
and of the nerves, however, gave to the English epidemic a peculiar
character. The functions of the eighth pair of nerves were violently
disordered in this disease, as was shewn by oppressed respiration and
extreme anxiety with nausea and vomiting, symptoms to which the moderns
attach much importance[398]. The stupor and profound lethargy shew
that there was injury of the brain, to which, in all probability, was
added a stagnation of black blood in the torpid veins. We must also
take into the account a previous corruption and decomposition of the
blood, which, even if we should be disinclined to infer their existence
from the offensive perspiration of the disease itself, were proved
by striking phenomena of a similar nature that occurred in Central
Europe about the same time; for the scurvy prevailed as an epidemic,
more especially in Germany, in the year 1486, and with such severe
and unusual symptoms, that people were inclined to regard it as a
totally new malady[399]. Now such is the vital connexion of different
functions that every impediment to respiration, whether in consequence
of pressure from without, or through spasm and irritation of the nerves
from within, or even from a morbid condition of the circulating fluid,
infallibly calls forth the compensating activity of the skin, and the
body becomes suffused with an alleviating perspiration.

Thus it plainly appears that the profuse perspiration in the disease
of which we are treating, notwithstanding its apparently injurious
tendency, was the result of a commotion excited on the part of the
lungs, which was critical with respect to the disease itself; and
this is in accordance with all the causes of which we still have any
knowledge. Noxious and even stinking fogs penetrated into the organs
of respiration, and as the blood was thus so much affected in its
composition and in its vitality that its corrupt state was only to
be obviated by profuse perspiration, the inevitable consequence was
an interference with the extensive functions of the eighth pair of
nerves, which interference, as later writers relate, extended in many
cases to the spinal marrow, and brought on violent convulsions[400].
We have here only one essential cause, out of many, for this gigantic
disease, and one too which accounts for its advance and spread. It
is highly probable, for the reasons stated, and as according with
all human experience, that it first broke out in the army of Henry
the VIIth, and beyond all doubt that it spread from west to east,
and afterwards in a retrograde course from east to west. With the
perfectly equable operation of the predisposing causes, from which
the disease ought indubitably to have broken out all over England
at the same time, had the condition of the atmosphere been its sole
occasion, we must additionally presume a special cause for its progress
through towns and villages. This, according to all appearance, was to
be found in the air, impregnated with foul odours, which surrounded
the sick, and abounded in the tents and dwellings in which Henry the
VIIth’s soldiers, after various privations and hard service, amid
storms and rain, were closely crowded together. Of both causes modern
observation furnishes analogous examples. Intermittent fevers spread
more easily in air which is contaminated by sick people, and bands
of soldiers, themselves in perfect health, have not unfrequently
conveyed camp fever to remote places. It signifies very little by
what expressions of the schools these occurrences are designated; it
is best perhaps to abstain from them altogether, for they are all
inadequate, and occasion misconceptions. Contemporaries, however,
were certainly justified in not admitting the notion of contagion in
the same sense as when the term is applied to the plague, with which
they were well acquainted[401]. For very frequently cases which were
not to be explained on the principle of contagion communicated by
persons diseased, occurred among people of rank, and manifestly arose
independently of the usual causes. In these cases the fear of death,
which everywhere was the harbinger of the disease, and threw the nerves
of the chest into spasmodic commotion, gave an impulse to the malady
for which the quality of the atmosphere and luxury had long made
preparation. Had this view of contemporaries been even less impartial
than it really was, it would have found the most striking confirmation
in the sudden cessation of the pestilence throughout the whole country.
For the destructive spirits of air, which would not have been discerned
even by the proud naturalists of the nineteenth century, dispersed and
vanished for half an age in the fury of the tempest which raged on the
1st of January, 1486.




                              CHAPTER II.

              THE SECOND VISITATION OF THE DISEASE.—1506.

    “The times were rough and full of mutations and rare
     incidents.”—_Bacon_.


                      SECT. 1.—MERCENARY TROOPS.

At the commencement of the sixteenth century, society was very
differently constituted from what it was at the period when Henry the
VIIth unfurled his banner for victory. The darkness of the middle ages
had receded, as at the approach of a sun still hidden behind a cloud.
The mind unconsciously expanded in the unwonted light of day—the whole
earth was on the eve of renovation—new energies were to be called into
action—events more stupendous had never occurred, nor had more creative
ideas ever aroused the spirit of man. The invention of Gutenberg
burst through the bonds of mental darkness, and gave to freedom of
thought imperishable wings; unsuspected powers successively developed
themselves; and, while in Western Europe an ardent desire arose boldly
to overstep the ancient limits of human activity, the hopes of the more
enlightened fell far short of the actual result of such unexpected
events. The discovery of the New World, and the circumnavigation of
Africa, laid the foundation for great improvements; yet the events
in Central Europe, though less striking to contemporaries, were in
their consequences, infinitely more important and beneficial. The
establishment of civil order among all the nations of the West took
place at this period, which forms so important a boundary between the
middle ages and modern times. Regal power was fixed on a firm basis,
and when the castles had fallen before the artillery of the princes
and imperial cities, so that the petty feudal barons were compelled to
swear obedience to the laws, an end was put to the incessant predatory
feuds which had so long desolated Europe, and the establishment of
internal peace was followed by the security of life and property—the
first essential of refinement in manners and of the free development of
human society.

This great result of a concatenation of circumstances was not, however,
brought about without violent struggles and innovations, the effects of
which were felt for centuries; but it was probably _the establishment
of standing armies_ which had the greatest influence on European
civilization. They became indeed the pillars of civil order, but having
proceeded immediately from the pernicious mercenary system, they long
nourished the seeds of unrestrained depravity, and transmitted to later
generations the corruptions of the middle ages. The Lansquenets[402]
(Landsknechte) of the emperor, and the mercenaries of the kings of
France and England, who, during the war, had joined the smaller
branches of the standing army, were homeless adventurers from every
country in Europe, and were allured, not by military ambition, but
solely by the prospect of booty[403]. In whatever country the drum
beat to arms, they flocked together like swarms of locusts—no one knew
from whence—and defying the feeble restraints of military discipline,
indulged, during the continuance of the war, in all the unbridled
licence of a predatory life.

Hence the unbounded barbarity of their mode of warfare, which was
restrained only by the individual exertions of more humane commanders.
There was, however, a decided contrariety between this system and
the moral condition of the people of Western Europe: a contrariety
which was never entirely removed by the subsequent introduction of a
more strict military discipline, and which has been done away only
in modern times, by the establishment of regular armies on a system
more congenial to the feelings of the people. Hence the consequences
were the more pernicious, for when the armies were disbanded on the
conclusion of peace, the Landsknechts dispersed in all directions, not
to follow the plough again, or to resume their former occupations, but
to pass their time in idleness and dissipation, if enriched by booty,
and if reduced to poverty by intemperance and gambling, to infest the
country as mendicants or robbers, till a new war again summoned them
from their dishonourable mode of life[404]. Probably but very few were
ever able to rise from such deep degradation, and many fell early
victims to their vices[405], while the infection of their example
brought fresh accessions from every town and village to the mercenary
legions.


                      SECT. 2.—NEW CIRCUMSTANCES.

It is evident that in such a condition of affairs, the effect which
the plague produced on civil society must have been different from
that of former times. Pernicious influences which, during the middle
ages, had endangered the health of the inhabitants of towns, and had
often rendered disorders, naturally slight, in the highest degree
malignant, were for ever removed. Under this head may be mentioned
more particularly the ill-contrived construction of the houses and
streets, which even yet, in large cities, destroys the comfort of the
inhabitants of whole districts, and those not of the poorest class
only. As people acquired confidence in the security of peace, it ceased
to be necessary to protect every country town by fortifications.
The walls were thrown down, the stagnant moats were filled up, and
as people were no longer limited to a narrow space, they built more
convenient houses in airy streets; the dark alleys and damp dwellings
under ground were gradually abandoned, and a more comfortable mode of
living superseded the former misery. By this means the mortality was
considerably diminished, and the power of epidemics was checked; nor
can it be doubted, that the better administration of the laws greatly
obviated the dissolution of social ties in times of plague, and the
effects of superstition and religious animosity, which had formerly
been so frightful. These inestimable national improvements, however,
took place but gradually, and were not a little retarded for a time by
the new evil of the employment of mercenaries. For as the germs of vice
were scattered in all directions by the wandering Lansquenets, so also
the infection of noxious diseases found easier entrance into the towns
and villages through the medium of this dissolute and widely spread
class of men. The Lansquenets of the sixteenth century, as spreaders
of contagion, supplied the place of the former Romish pilgrims and
flagellants; they even proved a more permanent scourge than those
wanderers of the middle ages, who only made their appearance on
extraordinary occasions. We need here only call to mind the malignant
and beyond measure noisome lues which at the end of the fifteenth
century spread with the rapidity of lightning over all Europe. It was
not an importation from the innocent inhabitants of the New World, nor
was it bred by the ill-treated Marrani[406], the victims of the Spanish
Inquisition. It was the mercenary army of Charles the VIIIth in Naples
(1495), whose excesses gave to the already existing poison a malignity
till then unknown, and prepared for the deeply rooted depravity, a
scourge at which all the world shuddered with horror. It is, moreover,
in place here to observe that, in the larger armies which the new
military system now brought into the field, the ordinary camp diseases,
to which another very fatal one was added[407], were of course much
more extensively propagated than in the less numerous forces of
preceding centuries, and consequently that the peaceful inhabitants
of the towns and of the country at large were thereby exposed to much
danger.


                      SECT. 3.—SWEATING SICKNESS.

Meantime Europe was frequently and very severely visited by the
epidemics of the middle ages, the terrors of the constantly recurring
plague being borne with gloomy resignation to the inevitable evil
with which, as a merited chastisement, the anger of God, according
to the notion of the times, afflicted the human race. Even the
English were not exempt from this fearful visitation, which, in the
year 1499, carried off 30,000 people in London alone, so that the
king found it advisable to retire with all his court to Calais[408].
Thus the recollection of the Sweating Sickness of 1485 was gradually
obliterated. No one thought of its possible return, and all the world
was occupied with other matters, when the old enemy unexpectedly again
raised his head in the summer of 1506, and scared away this comfortable
state of false security. The renewed eruption of the epidemic was not,
on this occasion, connected with any important occurrence, so that
contemporaries have not even mentioned the month in which it began
to rage. Towards the autumn it had again disappeared, and as no new
symptoms were added to the disease, the form of which was identified
by a reference to the old descriptions, it was immediately treated by
the same means, the efficacy of which those who had witnessed the
epidemic of 1485 lauded with so much reason[409]. Every exposure to
heat or cold was, as at that time, avoided, and the malignant fever
was left to the curative powers of nature, the patient being kept
moderately warm in bed; and no powerful medicines being administered.
The result was beyond all expectation favourable, for in few houses did
any fatal cases occur. The victory over this dreaded enemy was now, by
a pardonable error, attributed more to human skill than to the mildness
of the malady on this occasion, which, even under a less judicious
treatment of the sick, would certainly not have been marked by any
considerable degree of severity.

The disease broke out in London, but whether it penetrated to the
west or not, contemporary writers, being soon convinced of its slight
character, have left us no intelligence. However widely it may have
spread, it certainly was confined to England, and nowhere occasioned
any great mortality.


                   SECT. 4.—ACCOMPANYING PHENOMENA.

As the epidemic was on this occasion so very mild, it was not
accompanied by any remarkable phenomena in England, but the case was
otherwise in the rest of Europe, as will be proved by the following
details. After a wet summer, in the year 1505, a severe winter set
in[410]. Comets were seen in this as in the following year. An
eruption of Vesuvius also took place in 1506[411], which may be
mentioned, although it is well established that volcanic commotions
are to be taken into account only in great pestilences, not in less
extensive epidemics. In England there blew a violent storm from the
south-west, from the 15th till the 26th of January, 1506, which drove
the king of Castille, Philip of Austria, with his consort Johanna,
from the Netherlands to Weymouth; and as, some days before, a golden
eagle falling from St. Paul’s church, in London, had crushed a black
eagle which ornamented some lower building, evil predictions were
promulgated among the people respecting the fate of this son of the
emperor[412]. This event, however, could not be considered as at all
connected with the pestilence which broke out about half a year
afterwards. More consideration is due to the gloom and anxiety which
at that time depressed the spirit of the English nation. The reckless
avarice of Henry the VIIth, named the English Solomon[413], gave just
ground for doubts regarding the security of property; and the pious
foundations—those accustomed means of softening the dreaded wrath of
heaven, which the king, who became gradually more and more broken
down by disease, established, could not efface the recollection of
the arbitrary violence and extortions of his corrupt servants[414].
Although these extortions principally affected the wealthy nobility,
who were much in need of restraint, yet dark mistrust was general,
and all cheerfulness was banished from the minds of the people. This
state of feeling might have been favourable to the propagation of the
returning disease, but the genius of the year 1506 would not suffer it
to be more than a slight and transient reminiscence of a mystically
hidden danger, the import of which was not apparent to any medical
inquirer of the 16th century.


               SECT. 5.—PETECHIAL FEVER IN ITALY, 1505.

Thus, if we paid attention, as usual, only to the palpable occurrences
which take place on the earth and beneath its surface, the Sweating
Sickness of the above-mentioned year might appear to be unconnected
with more considerable commotions of organic life. The powers of
nature, however, are in their operations too subtle to be comprehended
by our dull senses and by the coarse mechanism of our organs; nay,
precisely at a time when neither the one nor the other indicate
any alteration around us, those operations bring to light the most
extraordinary phenomena in the human frame—that most sensitive index
of secret influences on life. This observation was fully confirmed at
the time of the first return of the sweating fever. For whilst this
disease remained confined to England, there appeared in the southern
and central parts of Europe a new and fatal epidemic, which thenceforth
visited these nations almost continually with intense malignity. This
was the petechial fever, a disease unknown to the older physicians,
which was first observed in 1490, in Granada, where it threatened to
annihilate the army of Ferdinand the Catholic, and made great havoc
also among the Saracens[415]. The bubo plague had immediately preceded
it, (1483, 1485, 1486, 1488, 1489, and 1490[416],) and it may with no
small probability be assumed that the petechial fever had resulted from
this as a peculiar variety, since in other countries also, fifteen
years later, the bubo plague degenerated in various ways, and examples
are not wanting in which particular forms or constituent parts of great
epidemics thus branch off from them, in the same manner as, under
favourable circumstances, these will combine together, and united into
one destructive whole, multiply the sources of danger.

Yet some contemporaries were of opinion that the petechial fever had
been brought over to Granada[417] by Venetian mercenaries from Cyprus,
where they had fought against the Turks, and where this disorder was
said to have been indigenous. Notwithstanding some good works[418]
already existing, this matter has need of a more thorough examination,
which might bring to light important and instructive results,
respecting the rise and spread of the petechial fever, and especially
respecting its relation to other plagues. Whatever may be held with
regard to the true origin of this fever, thus much is established,
that it was at first an independent European disease, and that, at the
commencement, having occupied the southern part of this quarter of the
world, it then became connected, in a manner as extraordinary as it was
worthy of observation, with the sweating sickness of the north; since
the nearly simultaneous eruption of the sweating fever in England, with
the great epidemic petechial fever in the year 1505, may be justly
attributed to an influence common to both, although unquestionably of
greater power in the latter.

The epidemic petechial fever, of which we are now treating, prevailed
principally in Italy, and is described by Fracastoro as the first
plague of this kind which ever appeared in that country. Of this new
disease[419], which was placed by this great physician midway between
the bubo plague and the non-pestilential fever, the contagious quality
showed itself from the beginning; yet it was plainly perceived, that
the contagion did not take effect so quickly as in the bubo plague,
that it was not conveyed so easily by means of clothing and other
articles, and that physicians and attendants on the sick were the
only persons who incurred much danger of infection. The fever began
insidiously, and with very slight symptoms, so that the sick in
general did not so much as seek medical aid. Many persons, and even
physicians among the number, suffered themselves to be deceived by this
circumstance, and thus, not being aware of the danger, they hoped to
effect an easy cure, and were not a little astonished at the sudden
development of malignant phenomena. The heat was inconsiderable, in
proportion to the fever, yet those affected felt a certain inward
indisposition, a general depression of all the vital powers, and a
weariness as if after great exertion. They lay upon their backs with an
oppressed brain, their senses were blunted, and in most cases delirium
and gloomy muttering, with bloodshot eyes, commenced from the fourth
to the seventh day. The urine was usually clear and copious at the
beginning, it then became red and turbid, or resembling pomegranate
wine, (granatwein,) the pulse was slow and small, the evacuations
putrid and offensive, and either on the fourth or seventh day red
or purple spots, like flea-bites, or larger, or resembling lentils,
(lenticulæ,) which also gave a name to the disorder, broke out on the
arms, the back, and the breast. There was either no thirst at all, or
very little; the tongue was loaded, and in many cases a lethargic state
came on. Others, on the contrary, suffered from sleeplessness, or from
both these symptoms alternately. The disease reached its height on
the seventh or on the fourteenth day, and in some cases still later.
In many there existed a retention of urine with very unfavourable
prognosis. Women seldom died of this fever, elderly people still more
rarely, and Jews scarcely ever. Young people, on the other hand, and
children died in great numbers, and especially from among the higher
ranks, while the plague, on the contrary, used generally to commit its
ravages only among the poorer classes. An inordinate loss of power in
the commencement betokened death, as also a too violent effect from
mild aperient means, and a failure in alleviation after a complete
crisis. Patients were seen to die who had lost to the extent of three
pounds of blood from the nose. It was also a very bad sign when the
spots disappeared, or broke out tardily, or were of a blackish-blue
colour. Phenomena of an opposite character, on the contrary, afforded
hope of recovery.

The best physicians were agreed on the importance of the petechiæ as an
indication of the nature of the crisis; for those cases in which they
were abundant and of a good quality were cured much more easily than
those in which the eruption was suppressed. An abundant perspiration
also was particularly conducive to recovery, whereas all other
evacuations, especially a flux from the bowels, proved to be injurious
and even fatal.

If we keep these phenomena in view, and consider, moreover, that in
the widely extending lues venerea of those times cutaneous eruptions
predominated over the other symptoms, the English sweating sickness
in the north of Europe will appear, as in connexion with this
circumstance, of a very important character; and the supposition,
that the morbid activity of the system during the whole of this age,
maintained a decided determination to the skin, may thence be fairly
considered as something more than a mere conjecture.

This fact speaks for itself, but the causes of this altered temperament
of the body it is not an easy matter to discover. Fracastoro, who knew
much better than his modern followers how to manage his sagacious
doctrine of contagion, looked for these causes in the quality of the
air, which was manifest by much more evident phenomena in the epidemic
petechial fever of 1528 than in that of 1505, and he traced an active
connexion between this quality, which he called “infection of the
atmosphere,”[420] and the condition of the blood; thus indicating
unknown influences by an obscure notion. He considered the altered
quality of the blood according to the established views of that period,
which the petechial spotted fever seemed clearly to confirm, as a
putrefaction; and he even assumed that, in the non-epidemic petechial
fevers, which, from the year 1505 forward, frequently occurred,
isolated causes must have given rise to changes in the blood, as well
as that quality of the air, to which this great physician attributed
the general and continued alterations which take place in the nature of
diseases.

The petechial fever made the same impression on the physicians of Italy
as new disorders have ever made; for although they were the best in
Europe, their view was bounded by the horizon of Galen, within the
limits of which the novel phenomenon was not to be found. They were
therefore soon perplexed, and whilst they sought to entrammel the
dreaded enemy with scholastic doctrines of repletion and acrimony and
occult qualities, and betook themselves first to one remedy and then
to another, they exposed themselves to the derision of the people,
who soon perceived their disagreement and indecision, and, as usual,
charged on the whole medical profession the well merited blame of
individuals[421].


                       SECT. 6.—OTHER DISEASES.

About the same period, in October, 1505, a very fatal disease broke out
in Lisbon, the further progress of which was marked by the terror, the
flight, and the confusion of the inhabitants[422]. Of what kind it was,
whether a petechial fever or a bubo plague, and what connexion it had
with a pestilence in Spain which had just preceded it, it would perhaps
be difficult now to ascertain. This latter pestilence had spread from
Seville, following an earthquake, and violent storms of wind and rain
in 1504, and may very likely have been a bubo plague. Similar notices
are met with of pestilences occurring in that country in 1506, the
year of the English Sweating Sickness, in 1507 and 1508, in which
years mention is made of swarms of locusts in the neighbourhood of
Seville, and finally in 1510, the year of a great influenza[423], and
1515. Exact descriptions, however, of these disorders are entirely
wanting[424].

With all the above phenomena, the epidemics which took place in
Germany and France at the commencement of the sixteenth century,
evidently unite to form a connected whole. Varying in intensity and
extent, they continued without intermission for full five years, and
moreover were accompanied by unusual circumstances, such as occur only
in the time of great pestilences. The century was ushered in by the
appearance of a comet[425], which, on this occasion, seemed to confirm
the long cherished belief that the appearance of these heavenly bodies
was prognostic of evil. For mankind are in the habit of concluding that
phenomena which are simultaneous must have some internal connexion, and
many examples were called to mind in which great pestilences affecting
the whole world had been either preceded or accompanied by comets[426].
Immediately afterwards a great murrain among cattle took place,
which may have proceeded from some injurious quality in their food.
A notion immediately arose that the pastures were poisoned, and of
this there was so firm a conviction, that the most violent resentment,
as of old, in the time of the Black Death, prevailed against the
supposed poisoners, and in the neighbourhood of Meissen some “böse
Buben” (wicked knaves) who had fallen under suspicion, were actually
executed[427].

A very considerable blight of caterpillars which, in the north
of Germany, stripped the gardens and woods far and wide of their
foliage, deserves to be here mentioned as a phenomenon appertaining
to the lower grades of the animal kingdom[428]. Natural history has
shewn that occurrences of this kind are by no means occasioned by
new and wonderful influences, but rather by unusual combinations of
circumstances, appearing to occur together almost accidentally, at a
given time; especially by the simultaneous union of warmth and humidity
in the atmosphere, whereby sometimes one and sometimes another of the
lower grades of animal existences becomes extraordinarily developed. It
is on this account that unusual phenomena in the insect world, whether
it be the appearance or the disappearance of particular kinds, take
place much more frequently when the order of succession in the seasons
and the condition of the atmosphere are in a greater degree than
usual and more permanently disturbed; and thus those phenomena have,
with much reason, ever been considered as forerunners of pestilences,
whenever the human frame has become, through atmospherical causes,
generally susceptible of disease. Swarms of locusts have appeared
before and during most great pestilences, and indeed the exuberant
production of this insect appears, at least in Europe, to require the
most unusual combination of causes.


                         SECT. 7.—BLOOD SPOTS.

Of rarer occurrence, but quite as important in reference to the
general tendencies of life, are _the luxuriant growths of the minutest
cryptogamic plants in the water, and on damp things of all kinds_,
which, from their spots of various forms and colours, produced the
utmost horror both before and during great pestilences, and excited
superstitious fears, as appearing to be something miraculous. These
spots (signacula), and especially the _blood-spots_, were seen at a
very early period, as for instance during the great general plague
in the sixth century[429], and again, during the plague of the years
786[430] and 959, when it is said to have been remarked, that those
on whose clothes they frequently appeared, and seemingly imparted to
them a peculiar odour, were more susceptible than other people of
attack from leprosy, on which account this spotted appearance was
inconsiderately called the clothes leprosy[431], (Lepra vestium;) not
to mention other examples[432] in which plagues affecting the human
species did not take place. The same signs also, in the years from
1500 to 1503, threw the faithful into great consternation, because,
as on former occasions, they fancied they recognised in them the form
of the cross[433]. The phenomenon on this occasion spread throughout
Germany and France, and from its great extent and long duration, may
be reckoned among the most remarkable of the kind. The spots were of
different colours, principally red, but also white, yellow, grey,
and black, and arose, often in a very short time on the roofs of
houses, on clothes, on the veils and neck handkerchiefs of women, on
various household utensils, on the meat in larders, &c. A historian,
who speaks also of blood-rain[434], recounts that they could not be
got rid of in less than ten or twelve days, and that they frequently
occurred in closed chests, on linen and on articles of clothing[435].
Much information is not to be expected from the researches of the
naturalists of those times, but there is no doubt that what is
described was some one or more kinds of mould[436], inasmuch as the
whole phenomenon evidently corresponds with modern observations[437].
Scientific physicians of the sixteenth century, among whom the
naturalist George Agricola, who was born in 1494, and died in 1555,
ought especially to be mentioned, recognised, even then, these spots
as lichens, and without seeking to account for them by supernatural
agencies, or lending credence to popular superstition, they gave them
their just interpretation as indications of extensive disease[438].
Should the too bold notion of Nees v. Esenbeck, that fungi of the most
minute forms have their origin in the higher regions of the firmament,
and descending to the surface of the earth, produce spots and stains,
be confirmed, which is not yet the case, these “signacula” would have
a much more important connexion with epidemics than can be otherwise
conceded to them; for though it be highly probable that they have
their origin only in the dissemination of germs in the lower strata
of the atmosphere, it must yet be granted, that if they appear over
a considerable space, and during a long time, as at the commencement
of the sixteenth century, the causes favouring their generation and
spread, must be ranked among those of an extraordinary kind, and on
this very account may exercise an influence over human organism, as was
then evident.

For so early as the fruitful year 1503, the plague, which had already
appeared partially, made great advances, and France in particular
was visited by so fatal a pestilence, that the inhabitants of towns
and villages, in order to escape the infection, fled in bodies
to the woods, and even the house-dogs became wild, which never
happens, unless a country be extensively depopulated[439]. They were
obliged to establish great hunts, in order to free the country from
these new beasts of prey, and from wolves which appeared in great
multitudes[440]. The dry and continued heat of the following year,
1504, having given rise to still more extensive sickness, and caused
a failure in the crops, the bubo plague raged in Germany with such
violence, that in some places a third part, and in others as many as
half the inhabitants perished. Various kinds of fevers accompanied
this overwhelming disease, among which there was one distinguished
by headache and phrensy similar to that which appeared in France, in
1482[441]. Various putrid fevers and putrid inflammations of the lungs
with bloody expectoration, are also no less plainly discernible from
the accounts[442]. This diversified and general sickness throughout
the whole of Germany, terminated in the cold winter of 1504–5 and the
following summer, during which there was a continued murrain among
cattle. It is certain, that at that time the petechial fever in Italy,
had not yet passed the Alps.

_From all these facts it is a probable conjecture, that the Sweating
Sickness which visited England in the year 1506, although accompanied
in that country itself by no prominent circumstances, was not without
connexion with the morbid commotion of human and animal life in the
south and middle of Europe, and may perhaps be regarded as having
been the last feeble effort of mysterious agencies in the domain of
organized being._




                             CHAPTER III.

               THE THIRD VISITATION OF THE DISEASE.—1517

    “This learned Lord, this Lord of wit and art,
     This metaphysick Lord, holds forth a Glasse,
     Through which we may behold in every part
     This boisterous prince.”—HOWELL[443].


                           SECT. 1.—POVERTY.

The ordinances of Henry the VIIth, which, although adapted to the
times, bore hard upon the people, soon produced their fruits. The great
diminished the number of their servants, and as, moreover, many of the
peasantry were thrown out of employment in consequence of a conversion
of large tracts of arable land into pasture[444], the population of
towns increased even to an overflow, and the consequent activity of
trade gradually rendered the towns flourishing. But this change took
place too rapidly. Wealth and luxury engendered, it is true, numerous
wants which were a source of gain, so that the English were at this
time considered luxurious and effeminate[445], but there was a general
scarcity of workmen and artists, and hence it happened, that from
Genoa, Lombardy, France, Germany and Holland, innumerable foreigners
immigrated and took possession of the most lucrative branches of
employment. This was a peculiar hardship on the natives, who from
their imperfect knowledge of the arts, could not compete with the more
skilful foreigners, and were besides treated by them with insolence and
contempt. The distresses of the poor thus increased yearly, and their
indignation at length broke out. A great insurrection of the English
artisans arose throughout London, and might have proved destructive to
the foreigners, had affairs been in a less orderly state. The popular
commotion was, however, suppressed without any considerable sacrifice,
and Henry the VIIIth on a solemn day, appointed at Westminster, for
passing judgment upon the prisoners, bestowed a pardon on them; for he
saw into the causes of their discontent, and very soon after caused
restrictive alien laws to be enacted[446].


                      SECT. 2.—SWEATING SICKNESS.

All this took place in April and May of the ever memorable year 1517,
and London was again indulging in hopes of better days, when the
Sweating Sickness once more broke out quite unexpectedly in July, and
in spite of all former experience, and the most sedulous attention,
inexorably demanded its victims. On this occasion it was so violent and
so rapid in its course, that it carried off those who were attacked in
two or three hours, so that the first shivering fit was regarded as the
announcement of certain death. It was not ushered in by any precursory
symptoms. Many who were in good health at noon, were numbered among
the dead by the evening, and thus as great a dread was created at
this new peril as ever was felt during the prevalence of the most
suddenly destructive epidemic: for the thought of being snatched away
from the full enjoyment of existence without any preparation, without
any hope of recovery, is appalling even to the bravest, and excites
secret trepidation and anguish. Among the lower classes the deaths
were innumerable[447]. The city was moreover crowded with poor; but
even the ranks of the higher classes were thinned, and no precaution
averted death from their palaces. Ammonius of Lucca, a scholar of
some celebrity, and in this capacity private secretary to the king,
was cut off in the flower of his age, after having boasted to Sir
Thomas More, only a few hours before his death, that by moderation
and good management he had secured both himself and his family from
the disease[448]. Also of those immediately about the king, Lords
Grey and Clinton were carried off, besides many knights, officers and
courtiers. Mourning supplanted the hilarity and brilliancy of the
festivals, and the king, while in miserable solitude, into which he
had retired with a few followers, received message after message from
different towns and villages, announcing, that in some a third, in
others even half the inhabitants were swept off by this pestilence.
It had never before raged with so much fatality. The minds of men had
never before been so frightfully appalled. The festival of Michaelmas,
(29th September,) which in England was always kept with much religious
pomp, was of necessity postponed; nor was the solemnity of Christmas
observed, for there was a dread of collecting together large assemblies
of people[449], on account of the contagion; and just about this time,
when the Sweating Sickness had abated, the plague, according to the
account of some historians, began, which, although probably not very
virulent, prevailed during the whole winter in most English towns,
and continued to keep up the distress of the people. The king on this
occasion also quitted his capital, and retreated, in company with a few
attendants, before the contagion, frequently shifting his court from
place to place. It was during this period of trouble (11th of February,
1518) that the Princess Mary, afterwards Queen, was born[450].

Thus the Sweating Sickness lasted full six months, reached its
greatest height[451] about six weeks after its appearance, and
probably spread from London over the whole of England. In Oxford and
Cambridge it raged with no less violence than in the capital. Most of
the inhabitants of those places were, in the course of a few days,
confined to their beds, and the sciences, which then flourished, for
they were never more zealously cultivated in England than at that time,
suffered severe losses by the death of many able and distinguished
scholars[452]. Scotland, Ireland and all other countries beyond sea,
were on this occasion spared. The neighbouring town of Calais alone was
reached[453] by the pestilence; and according to later observations,
it may be considered as certain, that only the English who resided
there, and not the French inhabitants, were affected, as it is also
ascertained that the rest of France continued throughout free from
the disease. Had this not been the case, contemporary writers would
undoubtedly not have omitted to make mention of so important an
occurrence.


                           SECT. 3.—CAUSES.

The influences which gave rise to this third eruption of the disorder
among the English nation are obscure, and do not altogether correspond
with those of the years 1485 and 1506. Thus it is especially
remarkable, that, on this occasion, there is no express mention of
the humidity which had so decided a share in the origin of the two
former visitations of the Sweating Sickness, and the year 1517 was in
most respects one of an ordinary kind. The English Chronicles state
nothing remarkable on the subject, and from those of Germany we only
learn that the winter of 1516 was very mild, and that a fruitful summer
with an abundant vintage[454] and a cold winter followed. The summer
of 1517 was unfruitful, although not on account of wet weather, so
that in some parts, especially in Swabia, provision was made against
a scarcity[455]. A great comet appeared in 1516[456], and in 1517 an
earthquake was felt at Tübingen, Nördlingen, and Calw, during a violent
storm, whereupon the “Haupt Krankheit”[457] (encephalitis), accompanied
by fever, became more prevalent, although not remarkably fatal[458].
This phenomenon (the earthquake) was by no means unimportant[459] in
its effects, and there is reason to suppose that it was followed by
subterraneous commotions of still greater extent, for earthquakes
occurred also in Spain[460]. As the date of this event is specified as
the 16th of June, and as earthquakes occurring in unusual localities,
that is to say, in districts not volcanic, are frequently cited as
prognostics of great diseases, although in volcanic districts they
evidently betoken nothing of the kind, we may hence with some reason
assume a telluric influence, which perhaps reached the locality of the
pestilence that broke out at the beginning of July, if not earlier.
Besides, we cannot find any greater phenomenon, which, according to
human conception, could have had a more immediate connexion with the
English Sweating Sickness; and in this instance too, inquiry the most
circumspect does not penetrate through the thick veil which envelopes
the inscrutable causes of epidemics.


                    SECT. 4.—HABITS OF THE ENGLISH.

That next to the peculiar constitution which England imparts to her
inhabitants, the predisposing causes of the Sweating Sickness lay in
the habits of the English of those times, no one can possibly doubt.
The limitation of the pestilence to England plainly indicates this.
Not a single ship conveyed it to the French, or to the Dutch, who
breathed a much moister atmosphere; and yet the intercourse between the
English seaports and these immediately neighbouring nations was very
frequent. Of intemperance, which most generally lays the foundation
for disorders, both high and low were at this time accused. This vice
of the English was proverbial in foreign countries[461]. Flesh meats
highly seasoned with spices were indulged in to excess; noisy nocturnal
carousings were become customary, and it was also the practice to
drink strong wine[462] immediately after rising in the morning. Cyder,
which in some parts, as for instance in Devonshire, is the common
beverage[463], was, even in those times, considered by medical men
as injurious, for it was observed that its use caused debility with
paleness, and sapped the vigour of youth in both sexes[464]. Other
similar facts respecting the mode of living at that time might perhaps
be adduced, from which it would appear that, owing to the total want
of refinement in diet, much that was improper was employed in English
cookery, and that on this account the constitution was much injured.
Horticulture, which the French had already brought to a state of
great improvement[465], was still quite in its infancy in England.
It is even said that Queen Catherine had pot-herbs brought from
Holland for the preparation of salads, as they were not procurable in
England[466]. Allowing that this account may not be strictly true,
since it admits of other explanations, still it proves in itself what
we would here enforce, and leaves us to draw conclusions from it beyond
the mere fact of there being a scarcity of culinary vegetables. Much
more important, however, as respects our subject, was the custom of
wearing immoderately warm clothing, of which we have accounts worthy
of credence. From youth upwards the head was covered with thick
caps, in order to secure it from every chance of cold, and from the
least draught of air; and as, by this injurious practice, the brain
was subjected to a continual determination of blood, and a tenderness
of the skin was induced, there was no disorder more frequent among
the English in this century than catarrh[467], which was constantly
reproduced by relaxing perspirations and heating medicines. If this
malady be complicated with a scorbutic habit, or if it befall persons
of debauched habits, whose vessels contain nourishment not properly
concocted, the preservative vital power seeks a vent through the
relaxed skin, and that which in itself is a needful and alleviating
excitement of this tissue becomes a disease; the wholesome excretion
degenerates into a colliquative drain, which forcibly carries off
with it unusual animal matters that ought not to pass away through
such an outlet, and the body yields to an attack to which it has been
thus long predisposed. When we consider this debilitated state of the
skin as the general complaint in England, taking into account the
prejudicial influence of hot baths[468], which were much in use, and
the diaphoretic medicines employed in most disorders; when we bear in
mind the rare use of soap at that time, and the high price of linen, as
also the extreme indigence of the lower classes, which almost always
breeds pestilences, the utterly miserable condition and truly Scythian
filth of the English habitations[469], and finally, the crowded state
of London in the year 1517, we shall, as far as human research can
penetrate, find the origin of the Sweating Sickness in this very year
explicable from causes which have long been known to be capable of
producing such effects. Something remains in the background, of which
hereafter.


                          SECT. 5.—CONTAGION.

The rapid spread of the Sweating Sickness all over England as far as
the Scottish borders, and across to Calais, now demands a more especial
consideration. Most fevers which are produced by general causes, as
well transient (epidemic) as constant and peculiar to the country
(endemic), or a union of both, which almost always takes place, and was
here evidently the case, propagate themselves for a time spontaneously.
The exhalations of the affected become the germs of a similar
decomposition in those bodies which receive them, and produce in these
a like attack upon the internal organs; and thus a merely morbid
phenomenon of life shews that it possesses the fundamental property
of all life, that of propagating itself in an appropriate soil. On
this point there is no doubt,—the phenomena which prove it have been
observed from time immemorial, in an endless variety of circumstances,
but always with a uniform manifestation of the fundamental law. All
nations too, and from the most ancient times, have invented ingenious
designations for these occurrences, which, however, seldom represent
the general notion, but commonly only the peculiar propagation of
individual diseases. Certainly one of the best and the most ingenious
is that which is conveyed by the German word “Ansteckung,” “setting
on fire,” which compares the exciting a disease in the appropriate
body, with the inflammation of combustible matter by the application
of fire, or with the kindling of powder by a spark. But how various
are these “Ansteckungen!”, from the purely mental, on the one hand,
which, through the mere sight of a disagreeable nervous malady—through
an excitement of the senses that shakes the mind, penetrates into the
nerves, those channels of its will and of its feelings, and produces
the same disorder in the beholder, to those, on the other hand, which
propagate diseases that principally operate only upon matter, and are
distinguishable but little, if at all, from animal poisons. The reader
must not here expect all the features of a doctrine which extends
through the whole immeasurable domain of life. They are clearly
derived from the confirmed and well applied experience of _the past_,
and have been delineated by men[470] who had not forgotten, like their
modern successors, to take a comprehensive view of epidemic diseases.
It may, however, be permitted me just to call to mind the difference
between those infectious diseases which are _permanent_ and for
centuries together _unchangeable_, and those which are _temporary_ and
_transient_. The infecting matter of the former may aptly be called
the perfect or unchangeable in contradistinction to the imperfect or
mutable character of the latter. The former, when once formed, whether
in diseased persons or inanimate substances (fomites), are always
in existence, and are but called into activity by those causes of
general disease (epidemic constitutions) which are favourable to their
propagation; and it is to be remarked that under all circumstances, and
at all times, they excite the same unchangeable diseases, and, varying
only in particular ramifications or degenerations and mild forms, never
lose their proper essence. Examples are furnished in the small-pox, the
plague, the measles, and, if we may include diseases not febrile, the
leprosy, the itch, and the venereal disease. The latter, on the other
hand, are not always in existence, they are called forth from nonentity
by the causes of general diseases or epidemic constitutions, and they
disappear again after the extinction of the epidemic diseases by which
they were bred; they likewise vary in their development and their
course in each particular epidemic. Examples are found in the yellow
fever, in catarrh or influenza, in nervous and putrid fever, and, among
many other disorders, in miliary fever, a disease which first grew
to a national pestilence in the 17th century, and which, in the kind
and manner of its infecting power, approaches nearest to the sweating
fever. To this latter category the English Sweating Sickness likewise
belongs; a disease altogether of a temporary character, which, after
its cessation, left no infecting material behind, and consequently was
incapable of propagating itself after the manner of those diseases
which are completely contagious. The animal matters, which were
expelled along with the profuse perspiration, and spread so horrible a
stench around the sick, contained amid their alkaline salts, (probably
ammonia in various states of combination,) and their superabundant
acid, the ferment of the disease; and this penetrated into the
lungs of the bystanders as they breathed, and provided they were but
predisposed for its reception, as above stated, continually produced
it. It may be considered as certain that mere manual contact was not
sufficient to communicate the infection, and that this was propagated,
either by the pestilential atmosphere which surrounded the beds of the
sick, or by exhalations generated in unclean situations where there was
no vent for their escape. On this account it was that the residence at
common inns and public-houses was looked upon as dangerous[471].

I would not, however, be understood to maintain that, during the
three epidemics with which, up to the present stage of our inquiry,
we have become acquainted, the spread of the sweating fever alone
was occasioned by infection; for if the general epidemic causes
were powerful enough to excite the disease, without any previously
existing poison, why might they not produce the same effect still more
independently throughout the course of the pestilence, since, as is
the case in all epidemics, those causes in all probability continued
to increase in intensity? That the plague grew worse on the occasion
of any great assemblages of the people, was at that time known, and
the notion of contagion thence very naturally arose. Yet, must it
here be taken into account, that even without this notion, and merely
from the assemblage itself of many people in whom the like malady
was germinating, and already had shewn tokens of its approach, that
approach might easily be accelerated, and the disease increased among
those merely slightly indisposed, by the reciprocal communication of
morbid exhalations. For as the predisposition to any malady, which
is an intermediate condition between that malady and the previous
state of good health[472], plainly displays the properties of the
disease in those whom it _threatens_ to attack, so these exhalations
(or epidemic causes which give rise to Sweating Sickness in the first
instance) certainly differ from those which occur in a sweating
sickness which has already broken out, only in unessential respects,
and might consequently stimulate the mere disposition to the disease
more and more, even to the actual eruption of the disease itself.
Yet a contagion was likewise in operation at the same time which was
destructive even to the temperate, and to those who were apparently
in health, nay, even to foreigners, who were living in an English
atmosphere and on English food, as the example of the Italian Ammonius
plainly proves[473].

In all epidemics which increase to such a degree as to become
contagious, it is of importance to distinguish which of these causes
are the more powerful, the predisposing or epidemic causes, which
originate the proneness to the disease, or the proximate causes, among
which, in the generality of cases, contagion is the most prominent. The
predisposing were here evidently the more operative; contagion was not
added till the disease was at its height, and although it contributed
not a little to its spread, yet it always remained subordinate to
the other sources of the disease, and all the matter of infection
vanished without a trace, on the cessation of the disorder, so that the
subsequent eruptions of it were always produced by the renewal of those
general causes which are in operation upon and under the earth. It is,
however, as little within the compass of human knowledge to discover
the essential foundation of this renewal, as the proximate causes of
the appearance of the mould spots at the commencement of the sixteenth
century, or any other of those processes which are prepared and brought
into activity by the hidden powers of nature.


                         SECT. 6.—INFLUENZAS.

Several epidemics thus originating in causes beyond human comprehension
appeared in the 16th century. Among the most remarkable was a violent
and extensive catarrhal fever in 1510, of that kind which the Italians
call Influenza, thus recognising an inscrutable influence which affects
numberless persons at the same time. It prevailed principally in
France, but probably also over the rest of Europe, of which, however,
the accounts do not inform us, for in those times they took little
pains to record the particulars of epidemics which were not of a
character to affect life. According to recent experience we should be
warranted even in supposing that this malady had its origin in the
remotest parts of the East. During the whole of the winter, which was
very cold, violent storms of wind prevailed, and the north and middle
of Italy were shaken by frequent earthquakes; whereupon there followed
so general a sickness in France, that we are assured by the historians
that few of the inhabitants escaped it. The catarrhal symptoms,
which on the appearance of disorders of this kind usually form their
commencement, seem to have been quite thrown into the background by
those of violent rheumatism and inflammation. The patient was first
seized with giddiness and severe headache; then came on a shooting
pain through the shoulders, and extending to the thighs. The loins
too were affected with intolerably painful dartings, during which
an inflammatory fever set in with delirium and violent excitement.
In some the parotid glands became inflamed, and even the digestive
organs participated in the deep-rooted malady; for those affected had,
together with constant oppression at the stomach, a great loathing for
all animal food, and a dislike even to wine. Among the poor as well as
the rich many died, and some quite suddenly, of this strange disease,
in the treatment of which the physicians shortened life not a little by
their purgative treatment and phlebotomy, seeking an excuse for their
ignorance in the influence of the constellations, and alleging that
astral diseases were beyond the reach of human art[474].

From this prejudicial effect of our chief antiphlogistic remedy,
bleeding, as well as of evacuations from the bowels, we may conclude
that the disease, though in its commencement rheumatic, yet had an
essential tendency to produce relaxation and debility of the nerves,
and in this respect, as well as in its extension to all classes,
accorded with the modern influenzas, in which the same phenomena have
manifested themselves only much less vividly and plainly. The French,
who, from the levity of their character, have always called serious
things by jocose names, designate this disease “Coqueluche” (the monk’s
hood), because, owing to the extreme sensibility of the skin to cold
and currents of air, this kind of hood was generally necessary, and
was a protection against an attack of the malady, as well as against
its increase. That in the accounts, which are, to be sure, very
incomplete, there should be no express mention of any affection of the
air-passages, is remarkable, since this could not in all likelihood
have failed to exist; although it might perhaps have been only slightly
manifested. Nearly a century before (1414), this affection appeared
far more prominently on the occurrence of a no less general disorder
of the same kind; so that all those who had the complaint, suffered
from a considerable hoarseness, and all public business in Paris
was interrupted on this account[475]. It was on that very occasion
that the name Coqueluche was first employed, and this having, as is
well known, been transferred to the whooping-cough, it is easier to
suppose, with respect to the influenza of 1510, which was similarly
named, an omission in the account, than the real absence of a symptom
so very generally prevalent; for in these kinds of comparisons and
denominations, the common sense of the people errs much less than the
learned profundity of political historians.

We must not omit here to remark that three years before (1411), and
thirteen years afterwards, two diseases entirely similar and equally
general, made their appearance in France, of which we nowhere find that
any notice has been taken up to the present time. The first was called
_Tac_, the second _Ladendo_, which designations have since entirely
gone out of use. Both were accompanied by very severe cough, so that
in the former, ruptures not unfrequently occurred, and pregnant women
were in consequence prematurely confined, and by the latter, from
its universality, the public worship was disturbed. In the ladendo,
there seems to have been an affection of the kidney of an inflammatory
character, and much more severe than in the coqueluche of 1510, a
memorable example of epidemic influence, and without a parallel in
modern times. This pain in the kidneys, which was as severe as a
fit of the stone, was followed by fever with loss of appetite, and
an incessant cough that terminated in disagreeable eruptions about
the mouth and nose. The disorder ran a course of about fifteen days,
and was generally prevalent throughout October, being unattended
with danger, notwithstanding the severity of its symptoms. One might
almost be tempted to regard the tac of 1411 as the coqueluche of 1414,
which is only slightly alluded to by Mezeray, and whereof the author
from whom we are now quoting, has made no mention; for a false date
might easily occur here. Yet this must remain undecided until we can
obtain fuller information, for we have experienced, even in the most
recent times, an example of influenzas (1831 and 1833) following each
other in quick succession. Gastric symptoms and an inordinate degree
of irritability accompanied the spasmodic cough, and the complaint
terminated with evacuations of blood. However, the disease was
unattended with danger, and lasted upon the whole only three weeks[476].

Four other epidemics similar to that of 1510 appeared in the sixteenth
century, two which were quite general in the years 1557 and 1580, and
two less extensively prevalent in the years 1551 and 1564[477]. Of
the two former we possess accurate descriptions; it will therefore
aid us in forming a correct judgment respecting the influenza
of 1510, if we here take a review of these also, since the most
experienced contemporaries classed all these disorders together as of
a similar kind. During the dry unfavourable summer of 1557, invalids
were suddenly seized with hoarseness and oppression at the chest,
accompanied with a pressure on the head, and followed by shivering and
such a violent cough, that they thought they should be suffocated,
especially during the night. This cough was dry at first, but about the
seventh day, or even later, an abundant secretion took place either
of thick mucus or of thin frothy fluid. Upon this the cough somewhat
abated, and the breathing became freer. During the whole course of
the disorder, however, patients complained of insufferable languor,
loss of strength, want of appetite and even nausea at the sight of
food, restlessness and want of sleep. The malady ended in most cases
in abundant perspiration, but occasionally in diarrhœa. Rich and
poor, people of every occupation and of all ages, were seized with
this disease in whole crowds simultaneously, and it passed easily
from a single case to a whole household. On this occasion death
rarely occurred, except in children who had not power to endure the
severity of the cough, and medicine was of little avail, either in
alleviating the disorder or arresting its destructive course. The
already established name of this disease was immediately called to
mind again in France. It was not, however, confined to that kingdom,
but prevailed as generally, with some considerable varieties of form,
in Italy, Germany, Holland, and doubtless over a still wider range of
country[478]. The same was the case with the influenza of 1580, which
spread over the whole of Europe, and seems to have been less severe;
thus bearing a closer resemblance[479] to that of 1831 and 1833,
which is still in the recollection of most of our readers from their
own experience. A more elaborate research into this very important
subject would far surpass the limits of this treatise, for phenomena
deeply affecting the whole system of human collective life are here
to be considered, which can only become apparent when received as a
connected whole, yet we must at least point out the relation which the
influenzas bear to the greater epidemics. This is quite apparent; for
as catarrhs are not unfrequently the forerunners, accompaniments or
sequelæ of important diseases in individual cases[480], excitement of
the mucous membrane being often merely an outward sign of more deeply
seated commotion, so also are influenzas usually only the _first
manifestations, but sometimes also the last remains of extensive
epidemics_. The most recent example is still fresh in our memories. The
influenza of 1831 was immediately followed by the Indian cholera, and
scarcely had this, after its revival in Eastern and central Europe,
vanished, when the influenza of 1833 appeared, as if to announce a
general peace. After the influenza of 1510, a plague followed in
the north of Europe, which in Denmark carried off the son of King
John[481]; 1551 was the year of the fifth epidemic sweating sickness.
In 1557, the influenza in Holland, was followed by a bubo plague, which
lasted the following year, and carried off 5000 of the inhabitants at
Delft[482]. In 1564, a very destructive plague raged in Spain, of which
10,000 people died at Barcelona, and finally, in 1580, the last year
of influenza in that century, a plague of which 40,000 died in Paris,
appeared over the greater part of Europe and in Egypt[483].


                      SECT. 7.—EPIDEMICS OF 1517.

We now revert to the year 1517, and shall consider the epidemics
which accompanied the English sweating sickness. First of all, the
_Hauptkrankheit_, that brain fever which so often recurred in the
central parts of Europe, appeared extensively throughout Germany. Many
died of this dangerous disease, and we are assured by contemporaries
that other inter-current inflammatory fevers were also very fatal[484].
Such was the case in Germany, the heart of Europe. Another disease,
however, much more important, and till that time wholly unknown to
medical men, appeared in Holland, which broke out in January, 1517,
and from its dangerous and quite inexplicable symptoms, spread fear
and horror around. It was a malignant, and, according to the assurance
of a very respectable medical eye-witness, an infectious inflammation
of the throat, so rapid in its course that, unless assistance were
procured within the first eight hours, the patient was past all hope
of recovery before the close of the day. Sudden pains in the throat,
and violent oppression of the chest, especially in the region of the
heart, threatened suffocation, and at length actually produced it.
During the paroxysms the muscles of the throat and chest were seized
with violent spasm, and there were but short intervals of alleviation
before a repetition of such seizures terminated in death. Unattended
by any premonitory symptoms, the disease began with a severe catarrhal
affection of the chest, which speedily advanced to inflammation of the
air passages, and where death did not occur on the day of the attack,
ran on to a dangerous inflammation of the lungs, which followed the
usual course, but was accompanied by a very high fever. Occasionally
a less perilous transition into intermittent fever was observed, but
in no case did a sudden recovery take place; for even when the fever
subsided, the patient continued to suffer, for at least a month, from
pain in the stomach and great debility, which symptoms admit of easy
explanation to a medical man of the present day, from the fissures and
small ulcers of the tongue, which appeared when the fever was at its
height, and obstinately resisted the usual treatment.

The remedies employed shew the circumspection and ability of the Dutch
physicians. They had recourse, as soon as possible, at the latest
within six hours, to venesection, and followed this up immediately
by purgatives, of which, however, some eminent men disapproved,
and this to the great detriment of their patients, for without the
combined effect of both these means, the sudden suffocation could not
be averted. Moreover, the employment of detergent gargles, whereby
the extension of the affection to the lungs was prevented, as also
of demulcent pectoral remedies, was decidedly beneficial, and it is
affirmed that all who were thus treated were easily restored[485].

Extraordinary and peculiar as this disease, for which contemporaries
found no name, was, its rapid onset and its sudden disappearance were
still more so. Most of those affected were taken ill at the same time,
and eleven days of suffering and misery had scarcely elapsed when not
another case occurred; the numbers who had fallen victims were buried;
and but for the journal of the worthy Tyengius[486], no distinct
record would have existed of this remarkable epidemic, which however,
it is certain, spread further than merely over the misty territory of
Holland, and apparently with still greater malignity; for in the same
year we find it in Basle, where, within the space of eight months, it
destroyed about 2000 people, and its symptoms would seem to have been
still more strongly marked. Respecting the intermediate countries,
which it is highly probable that the disease passed through from
Holland before it reached Basle, we unfortunately have no information.
The tongue and gullet were white as if covered with mould, the patient
had an aversion to food and drink, and suffered from malignant fever,
accompanied with continued headache and delirium. Here also, in
addition to an internal method of cure which has not been particularly
detailed, the cleansing of the mouth was perceived to be an essential
part of the treatment: the viscous white coating was removed every two
hours, and the tongue and fauces were afterwards smeared with honey of
roses[487], whereby patients were restored more easily than when this
precaution was omitted[488].

It appears, according to modern experience, to admit of no doubt that
this disease consisted of an inflammation of the mucous membrane which,
accompanied by a secretion of lymph, spread from the œsophagus to the
stomach, and likewise through the air passages to the lungs, being
thus identical with pharyngeal croup, which was represented a few
years ago as a new disease, and has in consequence been designated by
a special name[489]. Its subsequent appearance in the memorable year
1557, respecting which we have a still more complete account, gives
additional weight to this supposition. In that year it broke out in
October, and was observed by Forest, who was himself the subject of
it, at Alkmaar, where it attacked whole families, and in the course of
a few weeks destroyed more than 200 people. It was not, however, so
excessively rapid in its course as in 1517, but began with a slight
fever like a common catarrh, and shewed its great malignity only by
degrees. Sudden fits of suffocation then came on, and the pain of the
chest was so dreadfully distressing that the sufferers imagined they
must die in the paroxysm. The complaint was increased still more by
a tight convulsive cough, and until this was relieved by a secretion
of mucus, proved dangerous, especially to pregnant women, sixteen of
whom died within the space of eight days, whilst those who survived
were all prematurely brought to bed. The fever which accompanied the
inflammation was very various in its course. It was rarely observed
to continue without intermission, but where this was the case, was
attended with the greatest peril. Yet death did not take place on this
visitation until the ninth or fourteenth day, whereas in the year 1517
as many hours would have sufficed to produce a fatal termination.
After this period the danger diminished, and those patients were most
secure from suffocation, provided they had good medical attendance,
whose complaint had been accompanied throughout its course by fever
of only an intermittent character. So marked was the influence of the
Dutch soil, that until this intermittent passed into continued fever
of different gradations, it appeared of the purest and most unmixed
type. In these cases the inflammation was less completely formed, so
that even bleeding, a remedy otherwise indispensable, was sometimes
unnecessary. Those affected all suffered most at night and in the
morning, the latter generally bringing with it the inflammation of
the larynx and trachea, which, however, they had not at that time
experience enough to recognise as such, perceiving as they did only
a slight redness in the fauces. The painful affection of the stomach
was also in this epidemic very distinctly marked, so that a sense of
pressure at the præcordia, accompanied by continual acid eructations,
continued to exist even after a succession of six or seven fits of
fever; and convalescents were troubled for a long time with dyspepsia,
debility and hypochondriasis. The inflammation of the mucous membrane,
no doubt, affected the nervous plexuses of the abdomen, as is usually
the case, and totally changed the secretion. This was proved by the
treatment, for, by administering the necessary purgative remedies, a
vast quantity of offensive mucus, mixed with bile, was evacuated.

Our excellent eye-witness assures us that the people sickened as
suddenly as if they had inhaled a poisonous blast, so that more than a
thousand people in Alkmaar betook themselves to their beds in a single
day, a thick stinking mist having previously for several days spread
over the land. This pestilence did not terminate so speedily as that of
the year 1517; on the contrary, it delayed until the winter, and seems
to have formed the conclusion of a whole series of morbid phenomena,
particularly of the already mentioned influenza throughout Europe, and
of the bubo plague in Holland, which had occurred in the middle of
the summer,—phenomena that were accompanied by the usual attendants
of epidemics, namely great scarcity, and unusual occurrences in the
atmosphere, such, for instance, as electric illuminations of prominent
objects, and so forth[490].

The close connexion between this inflammation of the air-passages
and gullet and the epidemic catarrh is quite apparent; for these
are but gradations and gradual transitions in the affection of the
mucous membrane, as also in the power of atmospherical causes, which
especially influence the organs of respiration. We believe, therefore,
that we are fully justified in classing the epidemic described to have
taken place in Holland and Germany in 1517, with the influenzas; and
in declaring the morbid commotion in human collective life which thus
manifested itself, to have been a forerunner of the English pestilence,
which was simultaneously prepared by the altered condition of the
atmosphere, and broke out a few months later.

We ought not to omit here to mention that, in this same year, 1517, the
small-pox, and with it, as field-poppies among corn, the measles, was
conveyed by Europeans to Hispaniola, and committed dreadful ravages at
that time, as afterwards, among the unfortunate inhabitants. Whether
the eruption of these infectious diseases in the new world was favoured
by an epidemic influence or not, can no longer be ascertained; yet the
affirmative seems probable from the fact, that the small-pox did not
commit its greatest ravages in Hispaniola[491] until the following
year, and, according to recent experience, those epidemic influences
which extend from Europe westward, always require some time to reach
the eastern coasts of America.

But even without this phenomenon in the New World, which is now for the
first time placed within the pale of observations on epidemics, we have
facts at hand sufficiently numerous and worthy of credit to prove—_that
the English Sweating Sickness of 1517, made its appearance, not alone,
but surrounded by a whole group of epidemics, and that these were
called forth by general morbific influences of an unknown nature_.




                              CHAPTER IV.

           THE FOURTH VISITATION OF THE DISEASE.—1528, 1529.

    “Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel wär’,
     Und wollten uns verschlingen;
     So fürchten wir uns nicht so sehr,
     Es soll uns doch gelingen!”—LUTHER.


     SECT. 1.—DESTRUCTION OF THE FRENCH ARMY BEFORE NAPLES, 1528.

The events to which we are now about to allude, demonstrate, by their
surprising course, that the fate of nations is at times far more
dependent on the laws of physical life than on the will of potentates
or the collective efforts of human action, and that these prove utterly
impotent when opposed to the unfettered powers of nature. These powers,
inscrutable in their dominion, destructive in their effects, stay the
course of events, baffle the grandest plans, paralyse the boldest
flights of the mind, and when victory seemed within their grasp, have
often annihilated embattled hosts with the flaming sword of the angel
of death.

To obliterate the disgrace of Pavia[492], Francis I. in league with
England, Switzerland, Rome, Genoa and Venice against the too powerful
Emperor of Germany, sent a fine army into Italy. The emperor’s troops
gave way wherever the French plumes appeared, and victory seemed
faithful only to the banners of France and to the military experience
of a tried leader[493]. Every thing promised a glorious issue; Naples
alone, weakly defended by German lansquenets and Spaniards[494],
remained still to be vanquished. The siege was opened on the 1st of
May, 1528, and the general confidently pledged his honour for the
conquest of this strong city, which had once been so destructive to the
French[495]. It was easy with an army of 30,000 veteran warriors[496]
to overpower the imperialists; and a small body of English[497] seemed
to have come merely to partake in the festivals after the expected
victory. The city too suffered from a scarcity, for it was blockaded
by Doria, with his Genoese galleys; and water, fit to drink, failed
after Lautrec had turned off the aqueducts of Poggio reale; so that the
plague, which had never entirely ceased among the Germans since the
sacking of Rome[498], began to spread.

But amidst this confidence in the success of the French arms, the means
for ensuring it were gradually neglected. The valour of the intrepid
and prudent commander was doubtless equal to the minor vicissitudes
of war, but whilst the length of the delay paralysed his activity,
nature herself suddenly proved fatal to this hitherto victorious army:
pestilences began to rage among the troops, and human courage could
no longer withstand the “far-shooting arrows of the god of day.” The
consequence was, that within the space of seven weeks, out of the whole
host which up to that period had been eager for combat, a mere handful
remained, consisting of a few thousands of cadaverous figures, who were
almost incapable of bearing arms or of following the commands of their
sick leaders. On the 29th of August the siege was raised, fifteen
days after the heroic Lautrec, bowed down by chagrin and disease, had
resigned his breath; the wreck of the army retreated amid thunder and
heavy rain[499], and were soon captured by the imperialists, so that
but few of them ever saw their native land again.

This siege brought still greater misery upon France than even the fatal
battle of Pavia, for about 5000 of the French nobility, some from the
most distinguished families, had perished under the walls of Naples;
its remoter consequences too were humiliating to the king, and the
people; since owing to its failure all those hitherto feasible schemes
were blighted, which had for their object the establishment of French
dominion beyond the Alps. It behoves us, therefore, to pay so much the
more attention to those essential causes of this event, which fall
within the province of medical research.

The mortality which occurred in the camp, began probably as early as
June, after the usual calamities which surround an army in an enemy’s
country. The French and Swiss were insatiable in their indulgence in
fruit, which the gardens and fields furnished them in abundance, whilst
there was a scarcity of bread and of other proper food[500]. Hence
fevers soon broke out, which increased in malignity the longer they
existed, accompanied no doubt by debilitating diarrhœas, which never
fail to make their appearance under circumstances of this kind, and are
in themselves among the most pernicious of camp diseases, since they
not only destroy in the individual case by the exhaustion which they
occasion, but likewise by infecting the air, prepare the way for the
worst pestilences.

These diseases were, however, little noticed, and there was
consequently no attempt made to diminish their causes. It became daily
more and more apparent, that the cutting off of the sources near Poggio
reale, which Lautrec had commanded, in order to compel the besieged
to a more speedy surrender, was in the highest degree injurious to
the besiegers themselves; for the water, having now no outlet, spread
over the plain where the camp was situated, which it converted into a
swamp, whence it rose, morning and evening, in the form of thick fogs.
From this cause, and while a southerly wind continued to prevail, the
sickness soon became general. Those soldiers, who were not already
confined to bed in their tents, were seen with pallid visages, swelled
legs, and bloated bellies, scarcely able to crawl; so that, weary
of nightly watching, they were often plundered by the marauding
Neapolitans. The great mortality did not commence until about the 15th
of July, but so dreadful was its ravages, that about three weeks were
sufficient to complete the almost entire destruction of the army[501].
Around and within the tents vacated by the death of their inmates,
noxious weeds sprang up. Thousands perished without help, either in
a state of stupor, or in the raving delirium of fever[502]. In the
entrenchments, in the tents, and wherever death had overtaken his
victims, there unburied corpses lay, and the dead that were interred,
swollen with putridity, burst their shallow graves, and spread a
poisonous stench far and wide over the camp. There was no longer any
thought of order or military discipline, and many of the commanders and
captains were either sick themselves, or had fled to the neighbouring
towns, in order to avoid the contagion[503].

The glory of the French arms was departed, and her proud banners
cowered beneath an unhallowed spectre. Meanwhile the pestilence broke
out among the Venetian galleys under Pietro Lando. Doria had already
gone over to the Emperor[504], and thus was this expedition, begun
under the most favourable auspices, frustrated on every side by the
malignant influence of the season.

No medical contemporary has described the nature of this violent
disease, and historians have on this point preserved only general
outlines, which do not afford sufficient materials to ground an
investigation. Certain it is, that in the year 1528, a very malignant
_petechial fever_ extended throughout Italy, and in the proper
sense of the word prevailed so decidedly, that it even followed the
Italians abroad in the same way as the Sweating Sickness did the
English, as is proved by the case of the learned Venetian Naugerio,
who, being dispatched on an embassy to Francis the 1st, died at
Blois on the Loire, of this very disease, with which the French
had yet no acquaintance[505]. Contemporaries assure us, that this
epidemic committed great ravages in the country, already distracted
by wars and feuds, and it is therefore hardly to be doubted, that,
occurring as it did in those same years, it was the disease of
which we have been treating, the malignity of which was increased
on extraordinary occasions. A pestilence which, just before the
siege of Naples, destroyed one-third of the inhabitants of Cremona,
was in all probability the petechial fever[506]. Yet, here and
there, the old bubo plague made its appearance. This it was which
in the year 1524 carried off 50,000 people in Milan[507], and this
appears likewise to have been the disease which, after the sacking
of Rome, broke out among the German lansquenets, and in a short time
annihilated two-thirds of these troops. Contemporaries saw therein
God’s just punishment of their desecration of the Holy See, for in the
succeeding years, all the remaining participators in the storming of
the eternal city, also met with an end worthy of their crimes[508].
They did not take into account, however, the beastly intemperance
and excesses of the soldiery, whose eagerness after plunder led them
to encounter the plague poison in the most secret holes and corners;
nor did they reflect, that the plague penetrated the Castle of St.
Angelo itself, and destroyed some of the courtiers almost under the
eyes of the Pope[509]. Of these lansquenets, many went to Naples in
the following year under the Prince of Orange, and it may with good
ground be supposed, that they took with them to that city fresh germs
of plague; to which may be added, the by no means incredible story,
that the besieged sent infected and sick soldiers to the French, in
order to cause poisonous pestilences to break out among them[510].
This very circumstance tells in favour of bubo plague, for the decided
certainty of its contagious nature was known, and seemed beyond all
comparison greater than the more conditional communicability of the
new disease[511]. Moreover, the same attempt at impestation had been
already often made in earlier times.

It is, however, also to be considered, on the other side, that the
French army was more exposed to the epidemic influence of the air, the
water, and the general powers of nature, than any other assemblage
of men, and, that this influence was probably more powerful in the
year 1529, than at any other time during the sixteenth century. The
formation of fog in the heat of summer is at all times an extraordinary
phenomenon[512], which decidedly indicates a disproportion in the
mutual action of the components and powers of the lower strata of the
atmosphere. This was not dependent merely on the local peculiarities
of Naples, for during the summer of 1528, grey fogs were observed
throughout Italy, which rendered the unwholesome quality of the air
visible to the eye[513]. This was increased by the prevalence of
southerly winds, which are always, in Italy, prejudicial to health,
as also by the thousand privations of a camp, so that a disease which
was already prevalent all over Italy,—we allude to the _petechial
fever_,—might well break out on the damp soil of Poggio reale. In the
history of national diseases, we find a moral proof of the predominance
of epidemic influence which plainly and intelligibly manifests itself
under the greatest variety of circumstances. This is a belief, that the
water, and even the air is poisoned[514]. Nor is this proof wanting
in the deplorable history of the French army before Naples, for it
was generally believed, that some Spaniards of Moorish descent, to
whom was attributed an especial degree of skill in the management of
poison, and some Jews from Germany, who, for the sake of gain, had
followed the lansquenets to truckle for their booty, had stolen out
of the city under cover of the night, in order to poison the water
in the neighbourhood of the camp[515]. It was also surmised, that
an Italian apothecary had administered to the French knights poison
in their medicine[516]. We will not anticipate on this occasion the
researches of naturalists, whose experiments on air and water, during
important epidemics, have not yet led to any results; it is, however,
not improbable that pond and spring water, under such circumstances as
are here described to have occurred, might become impregnated with a
noxious quality not inherent in it, which would very naturally give
rise to the belief that a poison had been thrown into it. On the whole,
this accusation may certainly be judged according to the same views
which have been stated in our treatise on the Black Death.

From all these circumstances, the notion is highly probable that it
was the petechial fever which raged in the French camp; and if we may
attach any importance to the incidental accounts of historians, it may
perhaps be to the purpose to state that Prudencio de Sandoval, who has
written from authentic materials, calls the disease “las bubas.”[517]
This name, it is true, presupposes a rather strange confusion of
petechial fever with lues; and, indeed, the diseases among the French
troops from 1495 to 1528, have been oddly jumbled together by Sandoval.
It shews, however, that there still existed a recollection of the
prevalent eruptions which occurred in the pestilence of 1528; and,
therefore, this whole account might perhaps be the more justly applied
to petechial fever, as this same historian states, that the French
called the disease after the village of Poggio reale “les Poches,”[518]
by which name the well known bubo plague would hardly have been
designated. If, however, we choose to suppose that at one and the same
time _different diseases_ prevailed in the French army, this notion is
not only supported by the express testimony of a contemporary[519], but
also by many observations ancient and modern[520], that have been made
in cases where the circumstances have been similar to those which then
prevailed. It is ever to be regretted that there was no intelligent
Machaon to be found in the camp before Naples; such a one would
undoubtedly have left us some pithy observations on the combination and
affinity of petechial fever and bubo plague.


   SECT. 2.—TROUSSE-GALANT IN FRANCE.—1528, AND THE FOLLOWING YEARS.

Deeply as the irreparable loss of such an army was felt by the French,
yet were they destined to suffer still greater misfortunes at home.
The dark power which threatened all Europe regarded neither distance
nor limits. It seized on the French nation in their own country whilst
their military youth were destroyed before Naples. The cold spring
and wet summer of 1528 destroyed the growing corn[521], and a famine
was thus produced throughout France, even more grievous, on account
of its duration, than the period of scarcity in the time of Louis the
XIth[522], for the failure of the harvest continued for five years
in succession, during which all order of the seasons seemed to have
ceased. A damp summer heat prevailed in autumn and winter, a frost of
a single day only occasionally intervening. The summer, on the other
hand, was cloudy, damp, and ungenial. The length of the days alone
distinguished one month from another. It appears plainly from detached
accounts how much the usual course of vegetation was disturbed.
Scarcely had the fruit trees shed their leaves in the autumn when they
began to bud again, and to bear fruitless blossoms. No returns rewarded
the toil of the husbandman, and the longed-for harvest again and again
deceived the hopes of the people. Thus, even during the first of these
calamitous years, the distress became general, and the increasing
indigence was no longer to be checked by human aid. Bands of beggars
wandered over the country in lamentable procession. The bonds of civil
order became more and more relaxed, and people soon had to fear not
only robbery and plunder on the part of these unfortunate beings, but
the contagion of a pestilence, the offspring of their distress, which
followed in their train.

This disease was a new production of the French soil, and when it
spread generally throughout the country, was the more sensibly felt,
as it especially carried off young and robust men; on which account it
was designated by the very significant name of Trousse-Galant[523].
It consisted of a highly inflammatory fever, which destroyed its
victims in a very short time, even within the space of a few hours;
or, if they escaped with their lives, deprived them of their hair
and nails, and from a long-continued disinclination for all animal
food, left behind it, as sequelæ, a protracted debility and diseases
which endangered the recovery of the sick, whose constitutions were
already so much shaken. Hence it appears that this fever was combined
with a great decomposition of the fluids, and a very morbid condition
of the functions of the bowels, not to mention the effects produced
by continued hunger, which contemporaries paint in the most dreadful
colours.

The stock of provisions was already so far consumed in the first year
that people made bread of acorns, and sought with avidity all kinds of
harmless roots, merely to appease hunger. These miserable sufferers
wandered about, houseless and more like corpses than living beings, and
finally, failing even to excite commiseration, perished on dunghills
or in out-houses. The larger towns shut their gates against them, and
the various charitable institutions proved, of necessity, insufficient
to afford relief in this frightful extremity! It was the lot of very
few to obtain the tender care and attendance of the Sisters of Charity.
In most of those affected their livid swollen countenances, and the
dropsical swelling of their limbs, betrayed the sickly condition in
which they dragged on their languishing existence. Every one fled from
these pestiferous spectres, for they were saturated with the poison of
this deadly disease, and the remark was no doubt made a thousand times
over, that this poison might be conveyed to persons in health without
affecting the carrier, since want and ill health occasionally afford a
miserable protection against disease of this kind[524].

The necessary data for furnishing a complete account of the
Trousse-galant of 1528 do not exist, for physicians passed over this
epidemic with the same coolness and indifference which unfortunately
they may be justly accused of having shewn with respect to other
important phenomena. But it returned once again in 1545–46, appearing
in Savoy and over a great part of France; and we possess from
Paré[525], and from Sander, a Flemish physician[526], though still a
defective, yet a more satisfactory description of its symptoms on this
occasion. Its course was, as before, very rapid, so that it destroyed
the patient in two or three days; again it attacked the strong rather
than the weak, as if in justification of its old name, and those who
recovered remained for a long time distinguishable by the loss of their
hair and their wretched appearance. Patients felt at the commencement
an insufferable weight in the body, with extremely violent headache,
which soon deprived them of all consciousness and passed into a
profound stupor, even the sphincter muscles losing their power. In
other cases a continued state of sleeplessness was followed by feverish
delirium, so violent that it was necessary to have recourse to means
of restraint. Such opposite states are usual in all typhous fevers.
_Sander_ expressly mentions that in most of those affected, eruptions
made their appearance. He does not, however, state their nature or
describe the course and crisis of the disease otherwise than that it
terminated about the fourth or the eleventh day. Even the eruptions
that did appear, which were probably petechiæ, and perhaps also (rother
friesel) red miliary vesicles, came at an indefinite period; either
at the commencement, when they afforded an unfavourable prognosis,
or later, when they betokened a favourable crisis. Thread-worms, in
great numbers, were evacuated alive under great torment, and generally
increased the sufferings of the patient. The disease was scarcely less
contagious than plague, and with respect to its treatment, bleeding,
copious and even ad deliquium, was decidedly successful, which coupled
with the attacks on the head just described[527], leads to the
conclusion that there existed a fulness of blood and an inflammatory
state of circulation, together, perhaps, with inflammation of the
brain. We must not omit to observe that, during the pestilence of 1546,
the bubo plague made its appearance here and there, especially in the
Netherlands[528]; and in the following year, broke out and spread to a
greater extent in France[529], whence it seems to follow, with respect
to the malady of which we are now treating, that its nature resembled
the petechial fever, since that disease usually precedes the occurrence
of pestilences[530].

The assertion of historians, that in 1528, and the following years,
France lost a fourth part of her inhabitants by famine and pestilence,
seems, according to our representation, not to be by any means
exaggerated. The consequences, as regarded the future destinies of that
country, were likewise very important. For Francis the 1st saw that no
new sacrifices could be borne by his people, who were already so sorely
afflicted; and therefore abandoned his schemes of greatness and foreign
power, consenting, on the 5th of August, 1529, to the disadvantageous
treaty of Cambray.


             SECT. 3.—SWEATING SICKNESS IN ENGLAND, 1528.

Whoever, following the above facts, will represent to himself the
state of Europe in 1528, will readily believe, that a poisonous
atmosphere enveloped this quarter of the globe, and continually brought
destruction and death over its nations. Ruin broke in upon them in a
thousand forms, destroying their bodies and benighting their minds, and
if to this we add the discord and the deadly party hatred which at that
time prevailed in the world, it seems as if every circumstance that
could affect mankind was implicated in this gigantic conflict, which
threatened in its fatal result to annihilate all traces of the times
that were past.

A heavier affliction than has yet been described was in store for
England: for in the latter end of May, the Sweating Fever broke out
there in the midst of the most populous part of the capital, spreading
rapidly over the whole kingdom; and fourteen months later, brought
a scene of horror upon all the nations of northern Europe, scarcely
equalled during any other epidemic. It appeared at once with the same
intensity as it had shewn eleven years before, was ushered in by no
previous indications, and between health and death there lay but a
brief term of five or six hours. Public business was postponed: the
courts were closed, and four weeks after the pestilence broke out,
the festival of St. John[531] was stopped, to the great sorrow of the
people, who certainly would not have dispensed with its celebration
had they recovered from the consternation arising from the great
mortality. The king’s court was again deserted, and to the various
passions and mental emotions which had been clashing there since
the year 1517, as, for instance, those arising from the theological
zeal which had been excited by Henry VIIIth’s defence of the faith,
was added once more the old alarm and distress, which seemed to be
justified by the death of some favoured courtiers; particularly of two
chamberlains[532], and of Sir Francis Poynes, who had just returned
from an embassy to Spain. The king left London immediately, and
endeavoured to avoid the epidemic by continually travelling, until at
last he grew tired of so unsettled a life, and determined to await his
destiny at Tytynhangar. Here, with his first wife and a few confidents,
he resided quietly, apart from the world, surrounded by fires for
the purification of the air, and guarded by the precautions of his
physician, who had the satisfaction to find that the pestilence kept
aloof from this lonely residence[533].

How many lives were lost in this, which some historians have called
_the great mortality_, can be estimated only by the facts which
have been stated, and which betoken an uncommonly violent degree of
agitation in men’s minds. Accurate data are altogether wanting, yet
it is quite evident that the whole English nation, from the monarch
to the meanest peasant, was impressed with a feeling of alarm at the
uncertainty of life, to which neither the rude state of society, nor a
constant familiarity with the effects of laws written in blood[534],
had blunted their sensibility. Such a state does not exist without
very numerous cases of mortality which bring the danger home to
every individual, so that it is to be presumed that the churchyards
were everywhere abundantly filled. Nor did this destructive epidemic
come alone. Provisions were scarce and dear, and whilst hundreds of
thousands lay stretched upon the bed of death, many perished with
hunger[535], and the same scenes would have been experienced as in
France, had not the corn trade afforded some relief[536].

As soon as the occurrences of this unfortunate year could be more
closely surveyed, a conviction was at once felt, that _it was one and
the same general cause of disease which called forth the poisonous
pestilence in the French camp before Naples, the putrid fever among
the youth in France, and the sweating sickness in England, and that
the varying nature of these diseases depended only on the conditions
of the soil and the qualities of the atmosphere in the countries which
were visited_[537]. If, in opposition to these notions, a narrow view
of human life in the aggregate should raise a doubt, this would be
strikingly refuted by the wonderful coincidence, in point of time,
of all these phenomena, occurring in such various parts of Europe;
for while the French army, after an exposure of four weeks to the
miseries and poisonous vapours of its camp before Naples, perceived
the first forebodings of its destruction, the great famine with the
Trousse-galant in its train was in full advance on the other side the
Alps, and almost on the same day the Sweating Sickness broke out upon
the Thames.


              SECT. 4.—NATURAL OCCURRENCES.—PROGNOSTICS.

The chronicles of all the nations of Europe are full of remarkable
notices respecting the commotions of nature in these particular years,
which were so utterly hostile to the animal and vegetable kingdoms. In
England the period of distress was already approaching; towards the end
of the year 1527. Throughout the whole winter, (November and December,
1527, and January, 1528,) heavy rains deluged the country, the rivers
overflowed their banks, and the winter seed was thus rotted. The
weather then remained dry until April; but scarcely was the summer seed
sown, when the rain again set in, and continued day and night for full
eight weeks, so that the last hope of a harvest was now destroyed[538],
and the soaked earth, in the thick mists that arose from its surface,
hatched the well known demon of the Sweating Disease. It was now of no
avail that the torrents of rain ceased, for the softened soil gave the
pestilence constant nourishment, and the damp warmth which, alternating
with unseasonable cold, remained prevalent during the following years
all over Europe, rendered men’s bodies more and more susceptible to
severe diseases.

The historians of that time were too much occupied with the intricate
affairs of the court and of the church to devote any attention
to nature, and on this account they have left us no satisfactory
information of the state of the weather and the course of the seasons
of those years in England, yet there is no reason to suppose that they
were essentially different from those of the rest of Europe. This may
be proved by the following collection of important natural occurrences,
when taken in conjunction with the circumstances already stated
respecting France and Italy.

In Upper Italy such considerable floods occurred in all the river
districts, in the year 1527, that the astrologers announced a new
Deluge. There was a repetition of them to an equal extent, and
with equal damage, in the following year, so that it may have been
concluded, not without some ground, that there was an accumulation
of snow on the highest mountain ranges of Europe. On the 3rd of
July, 1529, there followed a violent earthquake in Upper Italy, and
immediately afterwards a blood-rain, as it was called, in Cremona[539].

In October, 1530, the Tiber rose so much above its banks that in Rome
and its neighbourhood about 12,000 people were drowned. A month later,
in the Netherlands, the sea broke through the dykes, and Holland,
Zealand, and Brabant suffered very considerably from the overflow of
the waters, which again took place two years afterwards[540].

In 1528 there appeared in the March of Brandenburg, during the
prevalence of a south-east wind and a great drought[541], (the rains
did not commence in Germany before 1529,) _swarms of locusts_[542],
as if this prognostic too of great epidemics was not to be wanting.
Of fiery meteors, which also frequently appeared in the following
years, and in the aggregate plainly indicated an unusual condition
of the atmosphere, much notice, after the manner of the times, is
occasionally taken[543]. Particular attention was excited by a long
fiery train which was seen on the 7th of January, 1529, at seven
o’clock in the morning, throughout Mecklenburg and Pomerania[544].
Another fiery sign (chasma) was seen in the March on the 9th
of January, at ten o’clock at night[545], as likewise similar
atmospherical phenomena in other localities.

Comets appeared in the course of this year in unusual number[546].
The first on the 11th of August, 1527, before daybreak; it was seen
throughout Europe, and it has often been confounded by more recent
writers with an atmospherical phenomenon resembling a comet which
appeared on the 11th of October[547]. The second was seen in July and
August, 1529, in Germany, France, and Italy. Four other comets are also
said to have made their appearance this year at the same time; but it
is probable that these were only fiery meteors of an unknown kind[548].
The third was in 1531, and was visible in Europe from the 1st of
August till the 3rd of September. This was the great comet of Halley,
which returned in the year 1835[549]. The fourth was in 1532, visible
from the 2nd of October to the 8th of November; it appeared again in
1661[550]. Lastly, the fifth, in 1533, seen from the middle of June
till August[551].

Contemporaries agree remarkably in their accounts of the insufferable
state of the weather in the eventful year 1529. The winter was
particularly mild, and the vegetation was far too early, so that all
the world was rejoicing at the mildness and beauty of the spring. The
people wore violets, at Erfurt, on St. Matthew’s day, (the 24th of
February,) little expecting that this friendly omen was to precede
so severe a calamity[552]. Throughout the spring and summer wet
weather continued to prevail. Constant torrents of rain overflowed the
fields, the rivers passed their banks; all hopes of the cultivation
were entirely frustrated[553], and misery and famine spread in all
directions. A heavy rain of four days’ continuance, which took place
in the south of Germany in the middle of June, and was called the St.
Vitus’s Torrent, is still remembered in modern times as an unheard-of
event. Whole districts of country were completely laid under water,
and many persons perished who had not time to save their lives[554].
A similar, very widely extended, and perhaps universal, storm again
occurred on the 10th of August, and occasioned great floods, especially
in Thuringia and Saxony[555]. Upon the whole, the sun rarely broke
through the heavy dark clouds. The latter part of the summer and the
whole of the autumn, with the exception of a series of hot days which
commenced the 24th of August[556], remained gloomy, cold, and wet.
People fancied they were breathing the foggy air of Britain[557].

We ought not to omit here to notice that in the north of Germany, and
especially in the March of Brandenburg, eating fish, which were caught
in great abundance, was generally esteemed detrimental. Malignant and
contagious diseases were said to have been traced to this cause, and it
was a matter of surprise that the only food which nature bounteously
bestowed was so decidedly injurious[558]. It might be difficult now
to discover the cause of this phenomenon, of which we possess only
isolated notices, yet, passing over all other conjectures, it is quite
credible either that an actual fish poison was developed[559], or,
if this notion be rejected, that a disordered condition of life,
such as must be supposed to have existed in a great famine, rendered
fish prejudicial to health, in the same way as sometimes occurs after
protracted intermittent fevers, when the functions of the bowels are
disturbed in a manner peculiar to this disease.

But it was not the inhabitants of the water alone which were affected
by hidden causes of excitement in collective organic life; the fowls
of the air likewise sickened, who, in their delicate and irritable
organs of respiration, feel the injurious influence of the atmosphere
much earlier and more sensitively than any of the unfeathered tribes,
and have often been the harbingers of great danger, ere man was aware
of its approach. In the neighbourhood of Freyburg in the Breisgau,
dead birds were found scattered under the trees, with boils as large
as peas under their wings, which indicated among them a disease, that
in all probability extended far beyond the southern districts of the
Rhine[560].

The famine in Germany, during this year, is described by respectable
authorities in a tone of deep sympathy. Swabia, Lorraine, Alsace, and
the other southern countries bordering on the Rhine, were especially
visited, so that misery there reached the same frightful height as
in France. The poor emigrated and roved over the country, solely
to prolong their wretched existence. Above a thousand of these
half-starved mendicants came to Strasburg out of Swabia. They obtained
shelter in a monastery, and attempts were made to revive them, yet many
were unable to bear the food that was placed before them. Attention and
nourishment did but hasten their death. Another body of more than eight
hundred came in the autumn from Lorraine. These unfortunate people
were kept in the city, and fed during the whole winter[561], yet it is
easy to conceive that this benevolence, which was no doubt likewise
exercised in other cities[562]—for when was humanity ever found wanting
in Germany?—could only occasionally alleviate this deeply rooted
calamity. In the Venetian territories, many hundreds are said to have
perished with hunger, and a like distress probably prevailed all over
Upper Italy.

In the north of Germany, including the extensive sandy plains, on
which wet weather is not so injurious in its effect as on a heavy
clayey soil, the state of the country was upon the whole more
tolerable[563]; yet, independently of the innumerable evils to which
a scarcity gives rise, _suicide was more frequent_[564], which was
certainly a rarity in the sixteenth century, and only explicable by
supposing, that the powers of the mind became exhausted by the many and
various passions, which in every individual locality, excited a spirit
of hatred and party feeling. The consequence of such a state of turmoil
is a cold disgust of life, which finds, in the first adverse event that
may occur, a pretext for self-destruction, that want alone would seldom
if ever occasion: for man, if his spirit be unbroken, runs the chance
of starvation in times of famine, and trusts to the faintest gleam of
hope, rather than, of his own accord, abandon the enjoyment of life.

It is no less in point here to notice a kind of faint lassitude,
which, to the great astonishment of the people, was felt, especially
in Pomerania, in June and July[565], up to the very period when the
Sweating Sickness broke out. In the midst of their work, and without
any conceivable cause, people became palsied in their hands and
feet, so that even if their lives had depended upon it, they were
incapable of the slightest exertion[566]. The treatment which was found
successful, was to cover the patients warmly, and to supply them with
nourishing food, of which they ate plentifully, and thus recovered
again, in three or four days. Phenomena of this kind, which in the
present instance evidently depended on atmospherical influence, are but
the extreme gradations of a generally morbid dullness of vital feeling,
which might easily pass into an actual disgust of life, such as would
lead to suicide.

The following years were by no means all marked by a complete failure
in produce. The year 1530 was, on the contrary, plentiful, there being
only some partial failures, as, for example, that which arose from a
great flood in the district of the Saal, which occurred in the midst
of the harvest time[567]. A very cold spring and a wet cold summer
followed in 1531, with only occasional fine days; yet the ground
was not altogether unproductive, and the great distress which would
otherwise have been felt in Thuringia and Saxony, was checked by the
establishment of granaries, so that the people were not obliged, as
they often were in Swabia, to mow the green corn that they might dry
the ears in ovens, and support life upon the yet unripe grain.

The years 1532 and 1533, were again very sterile, as also 1534, in
consequence of the great heat and dryness of the summer. Finally,
in the year 1535, the regular change of the seasons, and with it
a prosperous state of cultivation, seemed to be restored, and the
scarcity ceased[568]. The reports from different localities in Germany
vary much, but the scarcity prevailed for full seven years[569], (from
1528 to 1534,) and since its causes were not discoverable, because it
was only seen by each observer in his own narrow circle, the old German
adage was often called to mind: “If there is to be a scarcity, it is of
no avail even should all the mountains be made of flour.”[570]


             SECT. 5.—SWEATING SICKNESS IN GERMANY, 1529.

These facts are sufficient for a preliminary sketch of the background
on which moved the spectre of England, to which we now return. How
long the sweating sickness may have raged there after Henry the
VIIIth quitted his secluded place of refuge in order to return to his
capital, no one has left any written account to show. That it spread
very rapidly over the whole kingdom is decidedly to be presumed, and
might probably still be easily ascertainable from the written records
of different places. The notion that it did not rage violently in any
town more than a few weeks, is justified by corresponding phenomena
of more recent occurrence, yet no doubt it continued to exist among
the people, though in a mitigated degree, till the mild winter season.
But there are not even the slightest data by which it can be made
out that it was still in England during the summer of 1529. As an
epidemic it certainly existed no longer, yet on a consideration of the
state of the air in that year, it is not to be denied that isolated
cases of Sweating Fever may have appeared; for in pestilences of this
kind, provided their original causes continue, there always occur some
straggling cases[571]. The Sweating Sickness did not advance westward
to Ireland, nor did it pass the Scottish border; the historians, who
would certainly have recorded so calamitous an event, are entirely
silent respecting such an occurrence. The tragedy was, however,
destined to be enacted elsewhere; other nations were to play their part
in it.

Hamburgh was the first place on the continent in which the Sweating
Sickness broke out. Men’s minds were still in great excitement
there in consequence of the events of the few preceding months. The
Protestants had, after long and stormy contests, at length vanquished
the Papists. Under the wise direction of _Bugenhagen_ the great work
of Reformation was just completed. The monasteries were abolished, the
monks dismissed, schools were established, and peace again returned
with the enjoyment of ecclesiastical freedom. Just at this moment[572]
the dreaded pestilence, of which wonderful accounts had been so long
and so often heard, unexpectedly made its appearance. It immediately
excited, as it had ever done in England, general dismay, and before any
instructions as to its treatment could be obtained, either from the
English or from Germans who had been in England, it destroyed daily
from forty to sixty, and altogether, within the space of twenty-two
days[573], about 1100 inhabitants, for such was the number of coffins
which were at this time manufactured by the undertakers. The duration
of _the great mortality_, for thus we would designate the more violent
raging of this pestilence, was, however, much shorter, and may be
roughly estimated at about nine days, for from the fragment of a
letter received from Hamburgh, which was dispatched to Wittenberg on
the 8th of August, by a person who was at that time burgomaster, it
appears that, for some days past, no one had died of the Sweating
Fever, excepting one or two drunkards, and that the citizens were
then beginning to take breath again. We may thus judge, from the
unauthenticated account here mentioned, that the disease lasted about a
fortnight longer, and that the loss of lives amounted to 2000. At all
events, however, the pestilence manifested itself on the continent with
the same malignity which was peculiar to it from the first, and if the
assertion made at a distance respecting the mortality in Hamburgh, were
overcharged[574], yet there certainly existed sufficient foundation for
exaggerations of this sort, which are never wanting in times of such
great danger. The historians of this, even at that time, powerful and
civilized commercial town, have on the whole said but little regarding
this important event—a circumstance easily explicable from the constant
occupation of men’s minds in religious affairs, and from the well known
short visitation of the epidemic, which, like a transient meteor,
needed quick and cautious observation if any valuable information
respecting the occurrence was to be transmitted to posterity. Some
particulars of its first origin have, however, been preserved amid a
mass of general assertions which convey no information. Thus it appears
that the Sweating Sickness did not show itself in the town until a
Captain Hermann Evers, just about the time mentioned, (the 25th of
July,) returned from England, bringing on board with him a number of
young people, (probably travellers as well as sailors,) of whom at
least twelve died of this disease within two days[575]. According to
another account, those who died were not taken ill in England, but on
the voyage, and the pestilence broke out after the rest of the crew had
disembarked. On this point we have further a most respectable testimony
to the fact, that in the night after the landing of Hermann Evers, four
men died in Hamburgh of the Sweating Sickness[576].

If we examine a little more closely these very valuable accounts, the
credibility of which there is no reason to doubt, it must especially
be taken into account, that at this time the Sweating Sickness had
ceased to exist as an epidemic in England for at least half a year,
that its appearance in single cases, although not contradictory to
general views, is nevertheless by no means borne out by proof from
historical evidence, and that thus it is a gratuitous and unsupported
assumption that the return of Hermann Evers’ crew was connected with
any Sweating Sickness at all in England. If we consider, on the other
hand, that the North Sea, even in ordinary years, is very foggy, so
that, owing to the prevalence of north-west winds, it precipitates very
heavy rain clouds over Germany; and if we bear in mind, that in the
year 1529 it produced far heavier fogs than usual, we shall perceive in
its waters the principal cause why the English Sweating Sickness was
then developed in its greatest violence, and we may thence assume, with
a greater degree of probability, that this pestilence broke out among
the crew of Hermann Evers spontaneously, and without any connexion with
England, in the same way, perhaps, as it did formerly on board Henry
the VIIth’s fleet. This supposition is strengthened by the circumstance
that the ships of those times were excessively filthy, and the kind of
life spent on board them was, independently of the wretched provision,
uncomfortable in the highest degree, nay, almost insupportable, so that
even in short voyages, the scurvy, which was the dread of sailors in
those days, was of very common occurrence. Finally, we still possess
the most distinct accounts, that unusual occurrences took place in the
North Seas. Thus during Lent it was observed with astonishment at
Stettin, that porpoises came in numbers up the frische Haff as far as
the bridge, and that the Baltic cast on its shores many dead animals of
this kind[577], so that we are fully justified in concluding that there
existed at that time a more intense development than usual of morbific
influences in the marine atmosphere.

With respect, however, to the influence which the companions of
Hermann Evers, impregnated as they were with the odour of the Sweating
Sickness, had on the inhabitants of Hamburgh, it cannot be denied,
that their intercourse with those inhabitants, in the filthy and
narrow lanes of that commercial city, may have given an impulse to the
eruption of the pestilence, so far as to make the already existing fuel
more inflammable, or to furnish the first sparks for its ignition:
yet it is equally undeniable that, under the existing circumstances,
the epidemic Sweating Sickness would have broken out in Germany even
without the presence of Captain Evers, although it might, perhaps,
have been some weeks later, and not have made its first appearance in
Hamburgh, whose inhabitants, owing to the constant prevalence of the
North Sea fog, were, to all appearance, already prepared for the first
reception of this fatal disease.

To determine to a day when epidemics which have been long in
preparation have broken out, is, even for an observer who is present,
exceedingly difficult, nay, sometimes, under the most favourable
circumstances, impossible; for there occur in these visitations,
certain transitions into the epidemic form, of diseases which are
allied to it, as well as a gradual conversion into it of morbid
phenomena, which have usually begun some time before. Unless we are
greatly mistaken, such was the case in the pestilence of which we are
now treating; although it must be confessed, that we can obtain no
precise information on this point from the physicians of those times.
The following statements, for the absolute precision of which we cannot
pledge ourselves after a lapse of 300 years, must therefore be judged
according to this general experience; and though singly they may prove
little, yet taken altogether, they are capable of demonstrating the
peculiar and almost wonderful manner in which the Sweating Fever spread
over Germany.

In Lübeck, the next city in the Baltic, the Sweating Sickness appeared
about the same time; for so early as the Friday before St. Peter _in
vinculis_ (30th of July), it was known, that on the preceding night
a woman had died of it[578]. On the following days cases of death
fearfully increased, and the disorder soon raged so violently, that
people were again reminded of the Black Death of 1349. The inhabitants
died without number, as well in the city as in the environs, and the
consternation was equal to that felt in Hamburgh[579]. In general, as
was everywhere the case, robust young people of the better classes were
affected, while, on the other hand, children and poor people living in
cellars and garrets almost all of them escaped[580].

Now one might, either on the supposition of a progressive alteration
in the atmosphere, such as occurs in the influenza, or on that of a
communication of the disease from man to man, which, however, cannot
be considered as a principal cause of this epidemic, have expected a
gradual extension of the Sweating Sickness from Hamburgh and Lübeck
to the surrounding country. This did not, however, in fact, take
place; for the disease next broke out at Twickau, at the foot of the
Erzgebirge, distant from Hamburgh fifty German miles, and without
having previously visited the rich commercial city of Leipzig. By
the 14th of August, nineteen persons who had died of it, were buried
at Twickau; and on one of the following nights above a hundred[581]
sickened, whence it is to be deduced that the pestilence was severe at
that place.

Possibly the great storm on the 10th of August may have given
an impulse to the development of this very remarkable epidemic;
for an highly electrical state of the atmosphere increases the
susceptibility for diseases. It is likewise not to be overlooked,
that on the 24th of August, while the sky was overcast, there came
on an insufferable heat[582], which must have debilitated the body
after such long-continued cold wet weather. At all events, in the
beginning of September, we find that the Sweating Fever broke out at
the same time at _Stettin_, _Dantzig_, and other Prussian cities; at
_Augsburg_, far to the south on the other side of the Danube, at
_Cologne_ on the Rhine, at _Strasbourg_, at _Frankfort_ on the Maine,
at _Marburg_[583], at _Göttingen_, and at _Hanover_[584]. The position
of these cities gives an impressive notion of the extent of country
of which the English Sweating Sickness took possession, as it were by
a magic stroke. It was like a violent conflagration, which spread in
all directions; the flames, however, did not issue from one focus, but
rose up everywhere, as if self-ignited; and whilst all this occurred in
Germany and Prussia, the inhabitants of the other northern countries,
Denmark, Norway and Sweden, perhaps also Lithuania, Poland and Russia,
were likewise visited by this violent disease.

The malady appeared in Stettin on the 31st of August, among the
servants of the Duke[585]. On the 1st of September, the Duchess herself
sickened, in common with many people about the court, and burgesses in
the city. A few days afterwards several thousands were affected by the
disease, so that there was not a street from which some corpses were
not daily carried out. This dreadful period of terror, however, did
not last much longer than a week, for about the 8th of September the
pestilence abated in its violence, so as no longer to be regarded with
terror; and after this time only a few isolated cases occurred[586].

On the same day, namely, the 1st of September, the disease appeared
in Dantzig, fifty German miles further to the eastward, and was
here also so destructive, that it carried off in a short time 3000
inhabitants[587], some say even 6000—but this seems certainly too high
an estimate for Dantzig, and probably includes the greater part of
Prussia. If we were to give credence to an anonymous reporter[588],
this plague abated _in five days_, and relieved the inhabitants from
the mortal anxiety which, until they recovered their senses, led them
everywhere to commit acts of injustice and injury to avert the danger.

In Augsburg we find the Sweating Sickness on the 6th of September.
It lasted there also only _six days_, affected about 1500 of the
inhabitants, and destroyed more than half that number, or, as it is
said, about 800[589].

At Cologne it appeared precisely at the same time, as we learn from
the expressions of the Count von Newenar, a prelate of that place, who
finished his account of this disorder on the 7th of September[590]. At
Strasburg it broke out some ten or twelve days earlier, namely, on the
24th of August. In this place about 3000 people sickened in one week,
but very few of them died[591]. At Frankfort on the Maine they were
holding the autumn fair (which began on the 7th of September) just at
the time when the Sweating Sickness prevailed[592], whence arose the
opinion, which has been broached again in more modern times[593], that
the traders on their return carried the disease thence throughout the
whole of Germany, and that in the intercourse by means of this fair,
the main cause of the spread of the epidemic was to be found. After
the facts which have been brought forward, such a narrow view needs no
refutation. The Sweating Sickness was fleeter than the conveyances of
goods and people, which at that time made their way along the pathless
and unbeaten roads; for “no sooner did a rumour of the approach of the
disease reach anyplace than the disease itself accompanied it.”[594]

Between the boundaries which have been indicated, only a few isolated
towns and villages escaped, and there are probably few of the
chronicles of that age, so prolific of great events, in which the
dreadful scourge of the year 1529 is not expressly mentioned; yet the
sweating fever, like other great epidemics, spread, doubtless, very
unequally, and it is ascertained that the further south it extended,
the milder it was upon the whole; and also that all those places where
it broke out late suffered beyond comparison less than those which were
visited early in September and in the latter part of August; for not
to lay much stress on the sultry heat from the 24th of August, which
probably did not last long, the chief cause of its great malignity at
first was the violent method resorted to in the treatment of the sick,
the inapplicability of which was fortunately soon perceived. Only one
citizen was affected with the Sweating Sickness in Marburg, and even
he recovered[595], whilst at Leipzig, the pestilence either never
broke out at all, or very much later, perhaps in October or November;
for the physicians of that place gave it clearly to be understood in
their pamphlets, that they knew nothing of the disease from their own
observations[596], and no sooner did the report get abroad that the
dreaded enemy had not penetrated within the walls of this commercial
city, than crowds of fugitives came thither from far and near in order
to seek protection and security, although the place in itself was by
no means fitted for a place of refuge, for the swampy atmosphere which
rose from the city ditches begot, even in those days, in the narrow and
dark streets, many lingering diseases[597].


                     SECT. 6.—IN THE NETHERLANDS.

It is remarkable that the Netherlands were visited by the Sweating
Fever[598] full four weeks later, although the commercial intercourse
with England, if we were to attach any especial importance to this
circumstance, was far more considerable than that of the German cities
in the North Sea. It appeared for the first time in Amsterdam on the
27th of September in the forenoon, whilst the city was enveloped in a
thick fog[599], and just at the same time, perhaps a day earlier, in
Antwerp, where, on the 29th of September, they made a solemn procession
in order by prayer to avert greater harm from the city; for in the
last days of September 400 to 500 people died of the English Sweating
Sickness at that place[600]. It might have been supposed that the damp
soil of Holland, and its impenetrable fogs, would invite the pestilence
much earlier than the high and serene country between the Alps and the
Danube, or the far distant land of Prussia, but the development of
epidemics follows no human calculation or medical views! In the towns
around Amsterdam the Sweating Fever appears not to have broken out
until the mortality had ceased in that city, that is to say, five days
after the 27th of September, so that we cannot be far wrong in assuming
that in the latter end of that month, and the commencement of October,
it had spread over the whole territory of the Netherlands including
Belgium[601]. Alkmaar and Waterland remained free[602], as doubtless
had been the case with particular places both in England and Germany.

_The exceedingly short time that the Sweating Sickness lasted_ in the
different places that it visited, was as astonishing as its original
appearance. For since it raged in Amsterdam for only five days, and not
much longer, as we have shewn, in Antwerp and many German towns, it
could hardly have continued more than fifteen days in any other places;
thus displaying the same peculiarity on this occasion by which it had
already been marked in its former visitations. This short period,
however, must not be understood to include the sporadic occurrence of
the disease, otherwise, as a contemporary of credit assures us, that
the sweating fever attacked some persons twice and others three or even
four times[603], we might thence conclude, that, although perhaps in
some places the pestilence did, after raging for a certain number of
days, suddenly cease, so that no isolated cases afterwards occurred,
yet that the general duration of its prevalence was longer than has
been stated.


                 SECT. 7.—DENMARK, SWEDEN, AND NORWAY.

The eruption of the Sweating Fever in Denmark[604], took place at _the
latter end of September_, for on the 29th of that month, four hundred
of the inhabitants died of it at Copenhagen[605]. Elsinore was likewise
severely visited[606], and probably, about the same time, most of the
towns and villages in that kingdom. But the accounts on this subject
in the Danish Chronicles are extremely defective[607], as owing to
the extraordinary rapidity of this mortal malady, contemporary writers
neglected to record, for the information of posterity, the details of
a phenomenon, which there, as in other countries, must certainly have
been striking from its general prevalence. Even from the imperfect
notices that were given respecting it, thus much, however, is clearly
perceptible, that it was the same well-known disease as elsewhere,
which was now observed to pass through Denmark. In proof of this, it
was principally young and strong people, as had been originally the
case in England, who sickened, the old and infirm being less affected,
and in the course of four and twenty hours, or at most, within two days
(?) the life or death of the patient was decided.

At the same period as in Denmark, the Sweating Sickness spread over
the _Scandinavian Peninsula_, and was productive of the same violent
symptoms in the sick, the same terror, and the same mortal anguish in
those who were affected by it, not only in the capital of Sweden, where
_Magnus Erikson_, brother of king _Gustavus Wasa_, died of it, but also
over the whole kingdom, and in Norway. The northern historians gave
graphic accounts of it, which, on a careful examination of manuscript
documents, might perhaps gain still more in colouring and spirit[608].
That the Sweating Sickness likewise penetrated into Lithuania, Poland,
and Livonia, if not into a part of Russia, we know only in a general
way[609], but doubtless there are written documents still in existence
in these countries, which only need some careful enquirer to bring
them to light. In the mean time, however, it is to be presumed, from
the early appearance of the disorder in Prussia, that it prevailed
in those countries at the same time as in Germany, Denmark, and the
Scandinavian Peninsula. No certain trace is anywhere to be discovered
that the Sweating Sickness appeared so late as December, 1529, or in
January of the following year, so that, after having lasted upon the
whole a quarter of a year, it disappeared everywhere without leaving
behind it any sign of its existence, or giving rise to the development
of any other diseases. Among these, it pursued its course as a comet
among planets, without interfering either with the French Hunger Fever,
or the Italian Petechial Fever, proving a striking example to all
succeeding ages of those general shocks to which the lives of the human
race are subject, and a fearful scourge to the generation which it
visited.


                           SECT. 8.—TERROR.

The alarm which prevailed in Germany surpasses all description, and
bordered upon maniacal despair. As soon as the pestilence appeared on
the continent, horrifying accounts of the unheard-of sufferings of
those affected, and the certainty of their death, passed like wild-fire
from mouth to mouth. Men’s minds were paralysed with terror, and the
imagination exaggerated the calamity, which seemed to have come upon
them like a last judgment. The English Sweating Sickness was the theme
of discourse everywhere, and if any one happened to be taken ill of
fever, no matter of what kind, it was immediately converted into this
demon, whose spectre form continually haunted the oppressed spirit. At
the same time, the unfortunate delusion existed, that whoever wished to
escape death when seized with the English pestilence, _must perspire
for twenty-four hours without intermission_[610]. So they put the
patients, whether they had the Sweating Sickness or not, (for who had
calmness enough to distinguish it?) instantly to bed, covered them
with feather-beds and furs, and whilst the stove was heated to the
utmost, closed the doors and windows with the greatest care to prevent
all access of cool air. In order, moreover, to prevent the sufferer,
should he be somewhat impatient, from throwing off his hot load, some
persons in health likewise lay upon him, and thus oppressed him to such
a degree, that he could neither stir hand nor foot, and finally, in
this rehearsal of hell, being bathed in an agonizing sweat, gave up the
ghost, when, perhaps, if his too officious relatives had manifested a
little discretion, he might have been saved without difficulty[611].

There dwelt a physician in Zwickau—we no longer know the name of this
estimable man—who, full of zeal for the good of mankind, opposed this
destructive folly. He went from house to house, and wherever he found
a patient buried in a hot bed, dragged him out with his own hands,
everywhere forbad that the sick should thus be tortured with heat, and
saved by his decisive conduct, many, who but for him, must have been
smothered like the rest[612]. It often happened, at this time, that
amidst a circle of friends, if the Sweating Sickness was only brought
to mind by a single word, first one, and then another was seized
with a tormenting anguish, their blood curdled, and certain of their
destruction, they quietly slunk away home, and there actually became a
prey to death[613]. This mortal fear is a heavy addition to the scourge
of rapidly fatal epidemics, and is, properly speaking, an inflammatory
disease of the mind, which, in its proximate effects upon the spirits,
bears some resemblance to the nightmare. It confuses the understanding,
so as to render it incapable of estimating external circumstances
according to their true relations to each other; it magnifies a gnat
into a monster, a distant improbable danger into a horrible spectre
which takes a firm hold of the imagination; all actions are perverted,
and if during this state of distraction, any other disease break out,
the patient conceives that he is the devoted victim of the much
dreaded epidemic, like those unfortunate persons, who, having been
bitten by a harmless animal, nevertheless become the subjects of an
imaginary hydrophobia. Thus, during the calamitous autumn of 1529,
many may have been seized with only an imaginary Sweating Sickness,
and under the towering heap of clothing on their loaded beds have met
with their graves[614]. Others among these brain-sick people who had
the good fortune to remain exempt from bodily ailments, many of them
even boasting of their firmness, fell, through the violent commotions
in their nerves, into a state of chronic hypochondriasis, which, under
circumstances of this sort, is marked by shuddering, and a feeling
of uneasiness and dread at the bare mention of the original cause of
terror, even when there is no longer any trace of its existence[615].
A person thus disordered in his mind, was recently seen to destroy
himself[616] on receiving false intelligence of the return of the
late epidemic; thus betraying conduct even more dastardly than those
cowardly soldiers, who, when the cannon begin to roar, inflict on
themselves slight wounds that they may avoid sharing the dangers of the
battle.

To have a full notion how men’s minds were previously prepared for this
state, we have but to think on the monstrous events which took place
in Germany. Twelve years earlier the gigantic work of the reformation
had been begun by the greatest German of that age, and, with the
Divine power of the gospel, triumphantly carried through up to that
period. The excitement was beyond all bounds. The new doctrine took
root in towns and villages, but nevertheless the most mortal party
hatred raged on all sides, and as usually happens in times of such
empassioned commotion, selfishness was the animating spirit which ruled
on both sides, and seized the torch of faith, in order, for her unholy
purposes, to envelop the world in fire and flames.

So early as the year 1521, during Luther’s concealment within the
walls of Wartburg, false prophets[617] arose, and desired, without the
aid of their great Master, who was the soul of that age, to complete
a work with the spirit of which they were not imbued. They brought
the wildest passions into action, but, destitute of innate firmness,
and incapable of curbing themselves, they became incendiaries and
iconoclasts. Immediately upon this the unhappy peasant-war broke out—a
consequence of the arbitrary conduct and oppression practised from
times of old, for which the abettors of Dr. Eck’s sentiments would
charge Luther himself as answerable; not perceiving that it was the
excitement of the times and of the false prophets which had given
occasion to the rebellion. Events occurred, from the recollection of
which human feeling still recoils. Never was the fair soil of Germany
the scene of more atrocious cruelties; and after vengeance had played
her insane part without opposition, the melancholy result was, that
hundreds of thousands of once peaceful, and for the most part misled
peasants, fell by the sword of the Lansquenets and of the executioner,
while their numerous survivors became a prey to the dearth which
visited the country in the following years. The battle of Frankenhausen
on the 15th of May, 1525, and Münzer’s subsequent execution, closed
this bloody scene. The consequences of such intestine commotions
continued however to be felt long after, and considered apart from
their highly prejudicial influence on the prosperity of the people,
conduced not a little to break the spirit of mankind, signs of which
the wise men of those times have plainly pointed out[618].


                     SECT. 9.—MORAL CONSEQUENCES.

The dejection was increased by the universally active spirit of
persecution with which it was still hoped to eradicate the new
doctrine. Even whilst the English pestilence was raging, two
Protestants were burnt at Cologne[619]. In the same year faggots
blazed at Mecklin, Verden, and Paris, by the flames of which the
ancient faith was to be protected against the pestilence of freedom
of thought. Sentences of death were also quite commonly pronounced
against the Anabaptists in Protestant countries. The University of
Leipzig pronounced a condemnation of this sort in the year 1529, and
in Freistadt eleven women were drowned after a nominal trial and
sentence, because they acknowledged that they were of this sect[620].
Amidst these dissensions, and when the empire was in this helpless
condition, came the fear of the barbarians of the south, who had
already conquered Hungary under their Sultan Soliman, and, whilst the
English Sweat was raging in the countries of the Danube, threatened to
overwhelm Germany. It was a time of distress and lamentations, in which
even the most undaunted could scarcely sustain their courage[621];
but to the everlasting honour of the Germans it must be acknowledged
that they withstood this purifying fire with unsullied honour, and in
a manner worthy of themselves. For their noble spirits were aroused
to unheard-of exertions of energy, and whilst the pusillanimous gave
themselves up to despair, they impressed on the gigantic work of their
age the stamp of imperishable truth.

The siege of Vienna began on the 22d of September, after the English
pestilence had broken out in this capital of Austria, yet nobody
regarded this internal danger. The repeated attempts made by the
Turks to storm the town were repulsed with great courage, and, on
the 15th of October, Soliman raised the siege, after the Sweating
Sickness had raged with as much violence among his troops as among the
besieged[622]. There is no accurate intelligence extant upon this
subject, because the pestilence was less regarded here than elsewhere,
in consequence of the great distress of the country from other causes,
yet the mortality in Austria under such unfavourable circumstances, was
doubtless more considerable than in the neighbouring states[623].

In the north of Germany another struggle was to be decided. The
evangelical party wished to declare their faith before the empire and
its ruler, to reveal the object of their efforts, and to defend the
purity of their creed against danger and assault. For this purpose
they prepared themselves with wise discretion, and in the measures
taken by the reformers for the fortification of the great work, not
the slightest trace was to be observed of the anxiety which at that
time agitated the people. In the midst of a country whose inhabitants
trembled at the new disease, and were perhaps already severely
afflicted with it, did Luther, whilst at Marburg[624], sketch the first
outlines of a profession of faith, which, as filled up by Melancthon,
has become the foundation-stone of the evangelical church; and in the
following spring, during his stay at Cobourg, he composed his sublime
hymn, “Eine feste burg ist unser Gott,” a strong fortress is our God.

It could not but happen that, in the religious struggles which took
place in these years, especial importance would be attributed to
the English pestilence. Epidemics readily appear to man, in the
narrow circle of his view, as scourges of God; and, indeed, this
representation of them has ever been the prevailing one in all
religions. For it is easier to estimate the ever-existing sins of
humanity than the grand commotions comprehending both mind and body,
of a terrestrial organism, which can only be perceived by a superior
insight into things; and the mean selfishness of mankind and their
delusions respecting their own qualities induce them to adopt the more
easily the partial view, that the Supreme Being allows pestilences to
exist only to destroy their enemies of another faith. On this account,
not only do most contemporary writers speak of the just wrath of God,
and of the chastisement thus prepared for the sins of the world[625],
but the papal party took every possible pains to represent the English
pestilence as a punishment for heresy and an evident warning against
the triumphant doctrines of Luther. The cases in Hamburgh, where the
eruption of the Sweating Sickness almost immediately followed the
abolition of the monasteries, may certainly have obtained credit for
such representations among the wavering and short-sighted, and, in a
hundred other towns also, the Papists may have taken advantage of a
similar occurrence of circumstances, for 1529 was a year when great
and important questions were decided. At Lübeck, the monks in general
preached that the English sweating fever was but a punishment which
heaven inflicted on the Martineans, for so they called the followers
of Luther, and the people were not undeceived until they saw with
astonishment that Catholics also fell sick and died[626]. They went,
however, much further, and did not hesitate to employ even falsehood
and cruel revenge to gain their ends. Thus it was asserted that the
meeting of the reformers at Marburg, on the 2d of October, had led to
no union among them, because a panic at the new disease had seized the
heretics[627]. Never did a dastardly fear of death enter the heart
of Luther, who, when the plague broke out at Wittenburg in 1527,
cheerfully and courageously remained at his post whilst all around him
fled, and the high school was removed to Jena. Moreover, as we have
seen, the Sweating Sickness never once came near Marburg, and the union
of the two evangelical churches failed on totally different grounds.

In Cologne the zealots were of opinion that they ought to endeavour to
appease the visible wrath of God by the punishment of the heretics,
and it was this sanguinary delusion, worthy of savage barbarians,
which hastened the burning of Flistedt and Clarenbach[628]. To the
completion of this picture of the times, many other minor touches might
be added, of which the following may be taken as an example. In the
March of Brandenburg the evangelical faith, notwithstanding great
obstacles, spread every day more and more, and the Catholic priests
soon found themselves deserted. Just as the Sweating Sickness broke out
at Friedeberg, in the Newmark, a curate there delivered a sermon full
of enthusiasm and passion, and endeavoured to convince his apostate
congregation that God had invented a new plague in order to chastise
the new heresy. A solemn procession, according to ancient usage and
orthodox prescription, was to be held on the following day, and thus
the congregation was to be led back into the bosom of the only true
church. But behold, in the course of the night, the zealous curate died
of some sudden disease; and as mankind are ever ready to interpret even
the thunders of the Eternal according to their own wishes and narrow
notions, the Protestants, it seems, did not fail in their turn to
represent this event as a miracle[629].


                       SECT. 10.—THE PHYSICIANS.

Under these circumstances, the faculty had a very difficult problem
before them, for the very imperfect solution of which they cannot
justly be reproached. A learned and active physician is certainly one
of the noblest of the diversified forms of humanity; for he unites in
himself the power arising from an insight into the works of nature,
with the exercise of a pure philanthropy inseparable from his office.
Few men, however, of this ideal perfection lived in those times, and
their mitigating influence over the violence of the epidemic, which
was generally past before they could closely examine their new enemy
and give any deliberate advice, was doubtless but very inconsiderable.
By so much the more busy were the ignorant and covetous, who, from
time immemorial, the more numerous body in the profession, have always
injured it in its moral dignity. They attacked the disease with bold
assertions, alarmed the people with inconsiderate representations,
lauded the infallibility of their remedies, and were the promulgators
of injurious prejudices. In the Netherlands, as we are assured
by _Tyengius_, a physician whom we reckon among the learned and
benevolent, a vast number of patients died of the effects produced by
the distribution of pernicious pamphlets, with which the Sweating
Sickness was to be combated by those ignorant interlopers, who many
of them gave it out that they had been in England, boasting to the
inhabitants of their experience and skill, and with their pills and
their “hellish electuaries,” flitting about from place to place[630],
especially where rich merchants were to be found, from whom, should
they be restored, they obtained the promise of mines of gold[631]. The
like occurred in Germany, where, at the commencement, the sound sense
of the people was overcome by this officiousness, and violent remedies
were recommended as certain means of cure, in a deluge of pamphlets,
some of which were written by persons not in the profession.

From this impure source was derived the prescription of the
compulsory[632] perspiration for twenty-four hours, which, in the
districts of the Rhine, was called the Netherlands regimen[633]; and
it is unpardonable, that the physicians, either with blind pride
disregarded, or were totally unacquainted with the prior experience of
the English, which advocated discretion and the most appropriate line
of treatment. This neglect, which was not compensated until thousands
had already fallen, may possibly have arisen from the blameable silence
of the English physicians, of whom, as if England had not yet been
enlightened by the dawn of science, not an individual had written on
the Sweating Sickness, or proposed a reasonable line of treatment,
since the year 1485. Between England and Germany there existed,
nevertheless, a constant intercourse; and it is incredible that that
mode of procedure, which did not originate from a formal medical
school, but from the sound sense of the people, should not have become
earlier known on this side of the North Sea.

We must not here overlook the habits and domestic manners of the
Germans, for these favoured not a little the baneful prejudice with
regard to heat, for which we would not altogether make the physicians
responsible. Housewives, even at that time, set far too much store
by high beds, which annually received the feathers of the geese
consumed at the table. The comforts of a warm feather bed were highly
appreciated, and least of all were they disposed to deny them to the
sick. Thus all inflammatory disorders were stimulated to much greater
malignity, because such a bed either caused a dry heat, even to the
extent of burning fever, or a useless debilitating perspiration. To
this effect the very extensive misuse of hot baths conduced; and no
less so the custom of clothing much too warmly. Upon the whole the
notion was prevalent, as well with the people as with medical men,
that diseases were to be combated by warmth and sudorifics. To new
epidemics, however, the prevailing notions and customs are always
applied; for the great mass of mankind, among whom may be included
medical men, are entirely ruled by them; so that in this instance, the
Sweating Sickness fell upon a country in which its utmost malignity
would be called forth.

Yet after the first few days, in which many unfortunate cases occurred,
people became aware of the error they had committed. An advocate of the
twenty-four hours’ sudation, who, though not a medical man, had lauded
this practice in a pamphlet on the subject[634], died in Zwickau on the
5th of September, the victim of his own imprudence. A few days after
him died an apothecary, likewise treated with the heated bed. Upon
this the physicians immediately abandoned the practice, directed that
their patients should be sweated only for five or six hours, and in a
more moderate degree: and the estimable anonymous writer to whom we
have already alluded, thus seemed to meet with converts to his belief.
In Hamburgh also, men became convinced of the pernicious effects of
feather beds, and gave the preference to coverings of blankets[635];
for the English plan of treatment was presently known, and intelligent
philanthropists, who saw its curative powers, made it public[636] in
all quarters, through the medium of their correspondence. In Lübeck
there lived at the time of the Sweating Fever a learned Protestant
Englishman, Dr. Anthony Barns, who, with great kindness, made known
everywhere the English treatment of the disease. He was, however, after
the cessation of the pestilence, banished from the city, because he
had petitioned the bigoted Catholic senate to tolerate his Protestant
brethren. Many were saved by him; for it was the practice in this city
also, _to stew to death_[637] those affected with the disease. In
Stettin the English treatment was promulgated in good time, and two
travelling artisans who had come thither from Hamburgh, were of the
greatest assistance to the inhabitants of this city, by advising them
to take the feathers out of their upper beds; they made known likewise
how the sickness had been treated with success. They had seen cases
themselves, and could therefore distinguish by their odour those who
were suffering from the true sweating epidemic, from those who were
seized with fever arising from panic. They were constantly besieged by
persons asking questions and seeking assistance; and when the disease
was at its greatest height, the streets were quite illuminated at
night by the lights of the relatives of the patients[638], who were
running in all directions in a state of distraction. The abhorrence
of feather beds, and the hot plan, now followed so quickly the blind
recommendation of the twenty-four hours’ sweat, that by the middle
of September, and in many places still earlier, more correct views
were generally adopted, and some intelligent men, after the sad
experience which had been gained, seized the opportunity of doing more
good to the public than their noisy predecessors, who had by this
time so abundantly supplied the churchyards with bodies. Among these
literally and truly _beneficent_ physicians may be reckoned Peter
Wild, at Worms[639], who warned his countrymen against the Netherlands
practice[640]; as also an anonymous person, (the names of the best
often remain unknown in times of confusion,) who, in popular language,
strenuously dissuaded the people against the use of feather beds[641].
It also soon became a common saying, ”the Sweating Sickness will bear
no medicine.”[642]

There is no ground for supposing that the influence of the faculty
was much greater in the country where the Sweating Sickness originated
than it was in Germany, for the number of learned physicians there was
still fewer, and the knowledge of medicine not nearly so extended as it
was in Italy, Germany, and France. The learned Linacre had already died
in the year 1524. John Chambre[643], Edward Wotton[644], and George
Owen[645], were the King’s body physicians about the time of the fourth
epidemic visitation of the Sweating Sickness. William Butts[646] of
whom Shakespeare[647] has made honourable mention, in all probability
likewise held a similar office. These were certainly distinguished and
worthy men[648], but posterity has gained nothing from them on the
subject of the English Sweating Sickness. All these physicians were
well informed, zealous, and doubtless also cautious followers of the
ancient Greek school of medicine, but their merits were of no advantage
to the people, who, when they departed from the dictates of their own
understanding, and did not content themselves with domestic remedies,
to which they had been accustomed, fell into the hands of a set of
surgeons so rude and ignorant that they could only exist in the state
of society which then prevailed[649].


                         SECT. 11.—PAMPHLETS.

Inexplicable as the silence of the learned physicians of England, on
the Sweating Sickness, appears at first view, (for where is the use
of learning if it fail to throw any light on the stormy phenomena
of life?) we may yet find, perhaps, its cause in a perfectly simple
external circumstance. The reformation had not yet begun in England,
the Catholic Church still stood on its ancient foundations, and an
intellectual intercourse between the learned and the people was not
by any means among the acknowledged desiderata. The faculty would
hence have been able to treat of the new disorder only in ponderous
Latin works, for they wrote unwillingly in their own language, and the
subject could not seem to them an appropriate one for this purpose,
because they found it unnoticed and uninvestigated by their highly
revered masters the Greeks. They were ignorant that a sweating fever
had ever appeared among the ancients, which, otherwise, might have
incited them to make researches of their own on the subject; for
Aurelian, who describes it to the life, was either unknown to them, or,
what at that time was a valid ground, was despised by them, on account
of his bad (unclassical) language.

In Germany, on the contrary, the intellectual wants of the people
and of the educated classes had already manifested themselves very
differently. Twelve years before, the age of pamphlets had there
commenced. The thoughts of Luther and of his disciples, as also of
his opposers were winged by the rapid press, and the people took an
impassioned part in the endeavours of the learned to affect their
conviction, and by this altogether novel and authoritative mode of
religious instruction, became gradually educated and guided. Hence
it is not to be wondered at that people began to investigate, in
pamphlets, other important subjects likewise, and thus we see this
weighty branch of intellectual commerce, with all its advantages and
defects, also turned towards the discussion of popular diseases, and
for the first time unfolding its numerous leaves on the subject of the
English epidemic. In the maritime cities nothing of this kind happened,
because the eruption of the pestilence took them by surprise, and as it
was over again in the course of a few weeks, it seemed no longer worth
while to instruct the people respecting it.

This surprise was very plainly shewn in the answer of the doctors and
licentiates who were assembled together at the bedside of the Duchess,
at Stettin: “the disease was new and unknown to them: they were at a
loss what to advise, excepting strengthening medicines.”[650] In the
central parts of Germany, on the contrary, where, as early as the
month of August, the report of the new plague had excited the utmost
alarm, and where an eruption of the pestilence in Zwickau had caused
a general flight, publications on the Sweating Sickness were even
within that month, and still more numerously in September, disseminated
in all directions. As scientific productions, they are almost all
of them worthless. Many of them, indeed, did harm, and but very few
promulgated correct views. Most of them are now lost, as, for example,
that which was published by the printer Frantz, at Zwickau, on the 3rd
of September: but in what vast numbers they were published appears
from the circumstance that Dr. Bayer, at Leipzig, who brought out his
own on the 4th of September, states that he has read many of them, and
expresses his indignation against these “new unfounded little books,”
by which the people were misled to their own sorrow and suffering[651].
This same Dr. Bayer writes in the style of an intelligent practical
physician, inveighs boldly against the prejudices of mankind, and
the ignorance of medical _journeymen_, and against their senseless
bleedings whenever they see the barber’s basin and his pole. Some of
his advice too is not bad, especially where he is speaking of the
Arabian use of harmless syrups. He, however, religiously preserves
all the rubbish of his age, and has a great opinion of preventive
bleedings, purgatives, and powerful medicines, of which he prescribes
so many that his reader is necessarily confused by their multiplicity.
His precepts respecting the sweat are very appropriate, for he gives
a caution against forcing perspiration, prescribes according to the
circumstances, and even commences the treatment with an emetic, if the
state of the stomach seems to indicate its employment. In order to
guard against contagion, he recommends, at the approaching autumnal
fair, that foreigners from “_dying lands_” _should be accommodated in
distinct inns_, that fumigation should be carefully employed, and that
before each booth at the fair a fire should be kept up.

Another pamphlet by Caspar Kegeler, of Leipzig, is a melancholy
monument of the credulity which, from Herophilus to the present day,
has pervaded the whole medical art. It is a regular pharmacopœia for
the Sweating Sickness, thrown together at a venture, without any
insight into the nature of the disease. A mine of wonderful pills
and electuaries composed of numberless ingredients wherewith this
“mysterious worthy” undertakes to raise a commotion in the bodies of
his patients. If he had but seen even a single case of the disease he
would at least have known how impossible it would be to administer,
within the space of four-and-twenty hours, the hundredth part of his
pills and draughts. With what approbation this little pharmacopœia
was received by physicians of equal penetration and understanding as
himself, is shewn by the eight editions which it passed through[652],
and the melancholy reflection is therefore forced upon us, that
possibly thousands of sick persons were maltreated and sacrificed from
the employment of Kegeler’s medicines.

A third physician at Leipzig, Dr. John Hellwetter, states in his
pamphlet, that he has become acquainted with the Sweating Fever in
foreign countries, and on the subject of perspiration gives some very
good advice, evidently the result of his own experience, which reminds
us of the original English mode of treatment. His notion that fish
is injurious seems to have originated in the fact that the continued
employment of fish as an article of diet gives rise to offensive
perspirations, and his admonition to his medical brethren not to flee
from the sick, but to visit them sedulously and give them consolation,
furnishes ground for supposing that some of them had been pusillanimous
and dishonourable enough to withdraw themselves or to refuse their
assistance to the poor.

Almost all the medical men of those times were in possession of arcana
which they employed either in all or at least in most diseases, in
a very unprofessional manner, and the efficacy of which the sweet
delusions of self-interest did not permit them to call in question. The
severe metallic remedies of the Spagyric school, which was then in its
infancy, were not yet introduced, but there were not wanting strong
heating medicines from the ancient stores of the empyrics, which almost
universally obtained the preference over the mild potions and syrups of
the Arabians. Hellwetter sold a powder of unknown composition, and a
number of distilled waters, which Dr. Magnus Hundt, of Leipzig, notices
with much approbation. The pamphlet of this physician is in every
respect of the most ordinary kind; it affords no proof that the author
had any sound comprehension of the disease, and belongs to that class
of low medical compositions which, in times of danger, is so easily
derided by the public, and so much diminishes the estimation of the
profession, to the material injury of the general welfare.

It must not, however, be supposed that the people, who in such times
of commotion often confound together the good and the bad, listened
everywhere so readily to these pamphleteers. The composition of one
Dr. Klump, at Ueberlingen, who, on the breaking out of the disease,
attacked his patients with theriac and all kinds of heating plague
powders, excited great derision[653], and it cannot be denied that the
people had on their side, at least occasionally, the advantage of sound
sense, as opposed to the endless prescriptions of the physicians, and
it is gratifying to observe how this sound sense, which doubtless was
guided by respectable medical men, operated in a great many towns to
the advantage of those affected.

This is proved by a pamphlet, written in popular language, by a
physician in Wittenberg[654], which contains such correct medical
views, that our highest approbation is, even now, justly due to its
unknown author, as shewing, throughout, great judgment and a very
competent knowledge of the Sweating Fever. His whole treatment is
mild and cautious; he forbids the use of feather beds, but strongly
inculcates the necessity of avoiding every kind of chill, and therefore
recommends a practice in use at that time, called, “_the sewing of
the sick_,” that is to say, fastening the edge of the bed clothes to
the bed with a needle and thread. He orders his patients a moderate
quantity of warm but not heating beverage[655], refreshes them with
syrup of roses, and impresses upon his readers that the majority of
those affected will recover without medicine. In order to guard against
the stupor which was so exceedingly fatal, in addition to continual
conversation, refreshing odours of rose water and aromatic vinegar were
held before the patient’s nose, in a moderately damp cloth, or their
temples were cautiously bathed with them. Convalescents were watched
with great care, and it is not the least excellence of this very
sterling pamphlet that it likewise combated the timidity of the sick
with the inculcation of mild, but manly, religious principles, such as
corresponded with the spirit of that age. The rules here laid down are,
in essentials, the original English precepts which had already broken
the force of the epidemic Sweating Sickness in the year 1485, and the
author does not conceal his having in this matter received information
from Hamburgh, so far back as the 7th of August. That by this mode of
treatment not only individual patients[656] were saved, but also that
whole cities were protected against any very great mortality, we are
willing with the author to believe, and on this account we cannot but
lament the more, that the medical science of the rigid schools of those
days so completely mistook its office as the guardian of life, and
that it caused greater sacrifices by its hazardous remedies than the
pestilence would otherwise have occasioned.

How soon the English treatment met with the recognition which it
deserved may be gathered from a Latin composition nearly of the same
tenour as the above, and which appears to be an extract from some
German pamphlets[657]. Besides aromatic odoriferous waters, the
very harmless and only remedies therein recommended are pearls and
corals given internally by tablespoonfuls in warm rose water. As a
prophylactic, treacle, which was in very common use, was recommended to
be taken in the juice of roasted onions, but only in very small doses.
Similar just views with respect to the excitement of perspiration were
also subscribed to by other physicians[658], and finally the great
council at Berne, on the 18th of December, published an exhortation to
patience and unshaken courage, in which the use of feather beds, and
of all medicines, except cinnamon water, was earnestly deprecated[659]
during the disease. The court of Holland also recommended a method
of cure[660] apparently English, these two documents being the only
traces, on the part of any governments, of a paternal solicitude for
their subjects.

The learned and accomplished _Euricius Cordus_[661], of Marburg, had,
when he wrote[662], no information respecting the successful English
mode of treatment, and, with all his celebrity, only followed in the
ranks of ordinary advisers. He could not free himself from the medical
precepts which he brought from Italy and gave to the only patient
at Marburg, who was the subject of the Sweating Sickness, the very
disagreeable, though much employed potion of “Benedetto.”[663] His
prophylactic ordinances were very burthensome, though with respect
to the frequent employment of purgatives, which at that time almost
all physicians recommended, it must be taken into account, that the
intemperance so prevalent in those days, rendered them in general more
necessary, perhaps, than they are at the present time. Bishop Ditmar of
Merseburg, has betrayed to posterity, that this celebrated man had a
great dread of the new disorder, and did not conceal his anxiety[664].

There is still extant a very complicated prescription of _Achilles
Gasser_[665], the learned physician of Augsburg, which he employed
with childish confidence[666] during the prevalence of the sweating
pestilence. We might class this with a thousand others of a similar
character, were it not evident how little medical art, at that time in
its ancient Greek garb, was suited to the exigency of the age, being
dull, inefficient, and long since robbed of its original spirit; for
thus alone was it taught in the universities.

In the copious epistle of Simon Riquinus to the Count of Newenar at
Cologne[667], traces of better principles are indeed observable,
which were soon disseminated from Hamburgh all over Germany, yet the
prophylactic measures recommended are not much better than those in use
in the time of the Emperor Antoninus, when the Theriaca of Andromachus
was among the necessaries at the Roman court. Riquinus incidentally
tells a story of a peasant in the neighbourhood of Cleve, who, having
become affected by the English Sweating Sickness, crept as quickly
as he could into a baker’s oven that was still hot, and after some
time, again made his appearance in an exhausted state[668]. This very
circumstance proves that the man laboured under only an imaginary and
not a real sweating fever, but the belief that the bread which was
afterwards baked in this oven was infected with the poison, can only be
attributed to the credulity of the learned physician.

The Count of Newenar[669] expresses himself on the subject of the
sweating fever, like a person well informed, and not unacquainted
with medical subjects, and endeavours to prove the critical nature of
the sweat by the frequent practice of the empyrics, to throw persons
afflicted with the plague, at the very beginning of the attack, into
a profuse perspiration[670]. He takes the opportunity to relate of
an unprincipled physician, that he freed himself in this manner from
the plague, in a public bath, while those who came after him became
every one of them affected with the disease and died. According to his
account, the English Sweating Sickness was by no means fatal in and
about Cologne[671], yet we find it with all its original malignity on
the banks of the Scheldt, and in the maritime towns of the Netherlands.

This plainly appears from the pamphlet of a physician in great practice
at Ghent, Tertius Damianus, from Vissenaecken, near Tirlemont[672],
whose own wife fell sick of the sweating fever, and fortunately was
again restored[673]. The cases whereof Damianus gives an account,
are among the most marked of which any mention is made, and it also
seems, that the disease, contrary to the opinion of many, arose from
fear alone, and manifested in the Netherlands a much greater power
of contagion than in Germany, to which the hot treatment may have
contributed[674]. The manner in which Damianus restrained his patients
from indulging in their propensity to sleep, is worthy of notice. When
the usual means failed, he directed that their hair should be torn
out, that their limbs should be tied together in painful positions,
and that vinegar should be dropped into their eyes[675]: the danger
justified these means, but violence does not easily attain its end. For
the rest, the views of this physician do not differ from those commonly
entertained, and if he complains[676] of the great extortions of the
apothecaries, this was a natural effect of the customary prescriptions,
whereof he himself recommends many that are very objectionable.

Whatever the science of medicine of the sixteenth century could oppose
to so fearful an enemy, is set forth in the very excellent treatise of
_Joachim Schiller_[677] of Freiburg, which, however, did not appear
until two years later, and unfortunately does not give the wished-for
information on the development of the pestilence in the Briesgau.
Schiller is moderate in his views, and shews throughout, that he is a
very well informed physician, and well versed in Greek literature: and
although he cannot steer clear of the rubbish of clumsy remedies, yet
the fault should not be charged on him, but on the age in which he
lived. This, like every other, had its evils, and enveloped in clouds
and darkness the genius of medicine, which, free, great, and elevated
above human short-sightedness, is respected only by the intellectual
servants of nature.


                    SECT. 12.—FORM OF THE DISEASE.

The notions of contemporary writers respecting the phenomena and
the course of the sweating epidemic are, it is true, individually
unsatisfactory and defective[678]; yet collectively, we may gather from
them a lively and complete picture of its effect on the human frame;
especially from the German observers, who reported truly and honestly
their own, as well as the general experience of their age; for the
English had up to that period described little more than the external
appearances of this epidemic, which had already attacked them for the
fourth time.

It is ascertained that the _Sweating Fever was in general very
inflammatory_; and, leaving out of the account its sequel, _came to
a crisis at most in four and twenty hours_; yet, within this narrow
limit as to time, very various symptoms occurred[679], so that by a
more exact observation than could be expected from the physicians of
those days, several gradations of its development and violence might
have been distinguished from each other. Thus one form of this disease
appeared that was wanting in precisely that symptom which was the most
essential, namely, the colliquative sweating[680], (as in the most
dangerous form of cholera, neither vomiting nor purging takes place,)
and which, by its overpowering attack, either destroyed life within a
few hours, or perhaps took some other turn of a nature unknown to us.

Premonitory symptoms were wanting altogether, unless we may reckon as
such, first, an anguish, combined with palpitation of the heart, which
may not have been of corporeal origin, but may have proceeded from
the general alarm; or secondly, an irresistible sinking of the powers
resembling a swoon, which, perhaps, preceded the disorder, in the
same manner as it had preceded the general eruption of the plague in
northern Germany[681]: or thirdly, rheumatic pains of various kinds,
which were frequently felt in the summer of 1529[682]; or finally,
a disagreeable taste in the mouth and foul breath, which were very
commonly the subject of complaint at that time[683].

In most instances the disease set in like the generality of fevers,
with a _short shivering fit_[684] and trembling, which in very
malignant cases even passed into convulsions of the extremities[685];
in many it began with a moderate and constantly increasing heat[686]
either without any evident occasion, even in the midst of sleep, so
that the patients on waking lay in a state of perspiration, or from a
state of intoxication, and during hard work[687], especially in the
morning at sunrise[688]. Many patients experienced at the commencement
a disagreeable _creeping sensation_ or _formication on their hands
and feet_[689], which passed into pricking pains, and an exceedingly
_painful sensation under the nails_. At times likewise it was combined
with rheumatic cramps, and with such a weariness in the upper part of
the body, that the sufferers were totally incapable of raising their
arms[690]. Some were seen during these attacks, especially women and
those who were weak, with their hands and feet swollen[691].

Serious affections of the brain quickly followed; many fell into a
state of violent feverish delirium[692], and these generally died[693].
All complained of obscure _pain in the head_[694]; and it was not
long before an alarming _lethargy_ supervened[695], which, if it
was not firmly resisted, led to inevitable death by apoplexy. Thus
the unconscious sufferers were, at least, relieved from the pain
of separation from their friends, which would have been much more
distressing to them in this than in any other complaint, since they
lay, as it were, in a stinking swamp, tortured with suffering.

This mortal anguish accompanied them so long as they were in possession
of their senses, throughout the whole disease[696]. _In many the
countenance was bloated and livid_, or at least the lips and cavities
of the eyes were of a leaden tint; whence it evidently appears, that
the passage of the blood through the lungs was obstructed in the
same way as in violent asthma[697]; _hence they breathed with great
difficulty_, as if their lungs were seized with a violent spasm
or incipient paralysis; at the same time, _the heart trembled and
palpitated_ constantly under the oppressive feeling of inward burning,
which, in the most malignant cases, flew to the head, and excited fatal
delirium[698]. In the course of a short time, and in many cases at
the very commencement, the _stinking sweat_ broke out in streams over
the whole body, either proving salutary when life was able to obtain
the mastery over the disease, or prejudicial when it was subdued by
it—as is the case in every ineffectual effort of nature to produce a
cure. And in this respect, as in diseases of less importance, great
differences appeared according to the constitution of the patient;
for some perspired very easily, others, on the contrary, with great
difficulty, especially the phlegmatic, who, in consequence, were
threatened with the greatest danger[699].

In this severe struggle the _spinal marrow_ was sometimes, at a later
stage, so much affected, that even _convulsions_ came on; and it
happened not unfrequently, that, in consequence of the constriction
of the chest, the stomach indicated its excited condition by _nausea_
and _vomiting_[700]. These symptoms, however, manifested themselves
principally in those who were attacked with the disease upon a full
stomach.

Such is the testimony of the contemporary writers of 1529, to whose
accounts but little is added by Kaye, an English eye-witness of the
epidemic Sweating Sickness of 1551. The observations of this perfectly
trustworthy physician, so far as they relate to the form of the
disorder, may be here annexed, since no essential differences between
the diseases on these two occasions can be discovered. At the first
onset the disease in some attacked the neck or shoulders, and in others
one leg or one arm, with dragging pains[701]; others felt at the
same time a warm glow that spread itself over the limbs, immediately
after which, without any visible cause, the perspiration broke out,
accompanied by constant and increasing heat of the inward parts,
gradually extending towards the surface. The patients suffered from
a very _quick and irritable pulse_[702] and great thirst, and threw
themselves about in the utmost restlessness. Under the violent headache
which they suffered, they frequently fell into a talkative state of
wandering, yet this did not generally happen before the ninth hour,
and in very various gradations of mental aberration[703], after which
the drowsiness commenced. In others the sweating was longer delayed,
while, in the mean time, a slight rigor of the limbs existed: it then
broke out profusely, but did not always trickle down the skin in equal
abundance, but alternately, sometimes more, sometimes less. It was
thick and of various colours, but in all cases of a very disagreeable
odour[704], which, when it broke out again, after any interruption to
its flow, was still more penetrating[705].

Kaye adds to what we already know of the oppression of the chest, the
very important statement that those affected were observed to have
a _whining, sighing voice_, whence we have every reason to conclude
that there was a serious affection of the eighth pair of nerves. He,
moreover, describes a very mild form of the disease, such as was
prevalent in the south of Germany in 1529. It passed off under proper
care, without any danger, in the very short period of _fifteen hours_,
and was brought to a termination by moderate heat through the medium of
a very gentle perspiration[706].

It is remarkable that during this violent disorder neither the
_activity of the kidneys nor the evacuation by stool was entirely
interrupted_, for there passed continually turbid and dark urine,
although, as may be conceived, in small quantity and with great
uncertainty as to the prognosis; whereupon those physicians who judged
by the urine were not a little perplexed[707]. It was observed, too,
sometimes in the more easily curable cases, _that patients at the
moment when the perspiration broke out upon them passed urine in
great quantity_[708], on which account a French physician proposed to
draw off the water in those who suffered from this disease[709]; yet
this practice has no higher therapeutical worth than the excitement
of perspiration in diabetes or in cholera, and is, moreover, much
less practicable. That occasionally diarrhœa supervened, and even to
a degree which was not to be restrained, may be gathered from the
frequent medical directions as to how it ought to be arrested, which
Kaye also repeats[710]. In some patients, likewise, nature appears to
have effected a simultaneous crisis by the skin, the kidneys, and the
bowels.

Much more important, however, is the observation of a respectable Dutch
physician, that _after the perspiration was over_ there appeared on the
limbs _small vesicles_[711], which were not confluent, but rendered
the skin uneven, and these were not noticed by any other medical
observer, but are spoken of by the author of an old Hamburgh chronicle,
and, with this addition, that they had been seen on the dead[712]. By
these it is very likely that a _miliary eruption_, and perhaps spots
also, are to be understood; yet every thing militates against the
supposition that this phenomenon was constant, or that the Sweating
Fever was an eruptive disorder[713]. For in that case, some mention
would have been made of it in the numerous accounts of historians, many
of whom, doubtless, had themselves seen the disease, and the eruptions
would have been more evidently and decidedly formed in the numerous
relapses of those who recovered. They certainly indicate a relationship
with the miliary fever, but only in so far as that both diseases are
of rheumatic origin, and this slight participation in the nature of
an eruptive disease would seem to have been observed in the English
Sweating Sickness only in perfectly isolated cases. What would have
taken place under such an indication had the Sweating Sickness run a
longer course, whether, in fact, it might not possibly have passed
into a regular miliary fever, is a question unsolved by the past,
since even later transitions of this kind have never been observed.
The two diseases are, both in their course and their nature, perfectly
distinct from each other, and the miliary fever was not developed as an
independent epidemic until the following century, under circumstances
altogether different, and its more decided precursors are not to be
discovered until a period posterior to the five eruptions of the
Sweating Sickness.

The powers of the constitution were much shaken by the Sweating
Sickness, so that a rapid recovery was observed to take place only in
the mildest form of this disease. Those, however, whom it attacked more
severely, remained very feeble and powerless for at least a week, and
their restoration was but gradual, and effected only by great care and
strengthening diet. After the perspiration had passed off, the patient
was taken carefully from his bed, cautiously dried in a warm chamber,
placed by the fireside, and, as a first restorative, usually fed with
egg soup, yet the generality could not entirely get over the effects of
the fever for a long time. Those who had recovered could seldom go out
so early as the second or third day[714].

Those patients were placed in still greater danger _in whom the
perspiration was in any way suppressed_: most of them were consigned
to inevitable death, (the popular voice ever since the year 1485
confirms this.) Over those, however, in whom the powers of life were
roused to a renewed effort, there broke out, after a short period, a
new perspiration far more offensive than the first; so that the body
dripped as it were with a foul fluid, and it seemed as if the inward
parts wanted to disburthen themselves at once of their putridity by
an immoderate effort[715]. It is clear that this repetition of the
attack must have been destructive to many who, had it not been for
an obstruction of the crisis, would have been saved; for nothing is
more dangerous in inflammatory diseases than when those secretions are
interrupted which Nature has ordained as the only means of relief.

Relapses were frequent, because convalescents, after the disease was
subdued, remained for a long time very excitable. These were seen for
the _third and fourth time seized with the Sweating Sickness_[716],
nay, later writers notice _a repetition of the disease even to the
twelfth time_[717], whereby at least the health was completely
shattered, for dropsy or some other destructive sequelæ supervened,
until death put a period to incurable sufferings, and it is important
to observe that even the bowels participated in the great excitability
of the system, for _too early an exposure to the air easily brought on
diarrhœa_[718].

How great the decomposition of the organic matter was is convincingly
proved from all the testimony hitherto adduced, but it might have
been inferred from the very rapid putrefaction of the body, which
rendered it necessary everywhere to use the greatest despatch in the
performance of burials[719]; and fortunately did away with all fear of
being buried alive. Of post mortem examinations we have no information,
and even if they could have been instituted, they would, from the
manner of conducting researches in those times, scarcely have thrown
any important light on the disease. Hardly any physicians but those
who had studied in Italy knew the inward structure of the body from
their own observation, superficial as it was; the rest learned it
only from Galenic manuals; how could they with such slender knowledge
have distinguished between healthy and diseased parts? Moreover, the
Sweating Sickness could not in so short a period cause such a palpable
and substantial destruction of the viscera as they would alone have
sought for. Details respecting the condition of the blood in the dead
body, which after such an enormous loss of watery fluid, such severe
oppression at the chest, and so great an impediment to the function
of respiration, would in all probability be thickened and darkened in
colour, as well as respecting the condition of the lungs and of the
heart, it would be highly desirable to obtain; but these likewise are
wanting altogether, and after the lapse of so long a period there only
remains room for conjectures.

The observation was repeated in Germany which had been so frequently
made since the year 1485, that the middle period of life was especially
exposed to the Sweating Fever. Children, on the contrary, remained
almost entirely exempt from this disease, and when the aged were
affected by it, it was as individual exceptions to a general rule[720],
and this as it would appear, only during the height of the epidemic; as
for example at Zwickau, where a woman of 112 years of age was carried
off by it[721]. We have already in part discovered the cause of this
perfectly constant phenomenon in the luxurious mode of living of robust
young men, and if we look back to the moral condition of the Germans
in the 16th century, we find among them the same immoderate luxury
as among the English, the same drunkenness, the same intemperance at
their frequent banquets, where the wine-cups and beer-jugs were emptied
with but too eager draughts; finally, also, the same relaxation of
skin consequent upon the use of warm baths and warm clothing. All
contemporary writers mention these circumstances[722], and our bold
forefathers, with respect to these matters, were not in the best repute
with their southern neighbours.

But we have, moreover, to survey the disease in another point of
view, namely, in relation to its peculiar character. In the outset we
designated _the Sweating Sickness as a rheumatic fever_, and if we take
the notion of a rheumatic affection, as in propriety we ought, in its
widest acceptation, weighty and convincing grounds have been adduced
in the course of our whole inquiry in confirmation of this view. When
we observe that those very nations were visited by the Sweating Fever,
which are characterized by a fair skin, blue eyes, and light hair—the
marks of the German race, it may with justice be assumed, that even
this peculiarity in the structure of the body rendered it susceptible
of this extraordinary disease. It is this which causes the proneness
to fluxes of all kinds, and which makes these diseases endemic in the
north of Europe, whilst the dark-haired southern nations and the blacks
in the tropical climates remain, under similar circumstances[723], more
free from them. If it be remembered further how overcharged with water
were the lower strata of the atmosphere in which the pestilent Sweating
Fevers existed, what thick and even offensive mists prepared the way
for the disease and indicated its approach, what rapid alternations of
freezing cold and excessive heat took place in the summer of 1529; and,
moreover, how frequent all kinds of fluxes were in this very year, the
complete form of the rheumatic constitution will be recognised in every
individual feature.

Did we possess in the showy systems of modern times a maturer knowledge
of the electricity of living bodies, much light would of necessity
hence be thrown on the great object of our research. We should not
then be compelled to rest satisfied with the fact that a cloudy
atmosphere abstracts electricity from the body, robs the skin and
lungs of their electrical atmosphere, disturbs their mutual electrical
relation with the external world, and by this disturbance prepares the
body for rheumatic indisposition, with all that peculiar decomposition
of the fluids, irritable tension of the nerves, fever, and painful
affection of particular parts, with which it is accompanied. If this
disturbance be represented according to certain new and inviting
hypotheses, supported by some important facts[724], as being perhaps
an accumulation of electricity in the interior of the body, owing to a
morbid, isolating activity of the skin, we may expect a more perfect
knowledge of the nature of rheumatism through the medium of future
diligent researches; and until these be made, some evident signs
of connexion between rheumatic affections and the English Sweating
Sickness will perhaps be sufficient to demonstrate the rheumatic nature
of this latter disease.

In the first place, the very great _susceptibility of those affected
with the Sweating Fever to every change of temperature_—the decidedly
great danger of chill. In no known disease does this irritability of
the skin shew itself in so prominent a degree as in rheumatic fevers
and in those non-febrile fluxes in which there even exists a very
evident sensitiveness to _metallic_ action.

Secondly, _The tendency of the rheumatic diathesis to come to a crisis
through the medium of a profuse, sour and offensive perspiration_
without any assistance from art[725]. The English Sweating Sickness
manifests this commotion of the organism in the most exquisite form
hitherto known; for it admits of no kind of doubt that the sweat in
this disease was of itself, and in itself, critical, in the fullest
acceptation of the term.

Thirdly, _The peculiar alteration in the fundamental composition of
organic matter_ in rheumatic diseases, in consequence of which volatile
acids of a strange odour are prevalent in the sweat, and urine, and
animal excretions. The English Sweating Sickness exhibits also this
result of morbid activity in a greater and more striking manner than
any other disease. Nor can we regard the tendency to putridity, which
has been observed, as any thing but an increased degree of this
condition.

Fourthly, _The shooting pains in the limbs_, the most decided sign of
rheumatism, were not wanting in the English Sweating Sickness; nay,
they became developed even to the extent of an incipient paralysis,
and even the convulsions of those affected with this disease may not
unjustly be attributed to the same source.

Fifthly, _The tendency of rheumatism when it takes an unfavourable
course to pass into regular dropsy_, which is a consequence of the
peculiar decomposition, manifested itself in the Sweating Fever in so
marked a manner that the dropsy itself gradually destroyed the patient.

Should the sceptical still need another link in the comparison, we may
adduce the miliary fever, a disease of decidedly rheumatic character.
We must not, however, take as our standard the degenerate forms of
miliary fever existing in modern times, but those grand and fully
developed forms of the disease which occurred in the 17th and 18th
centuries, and in which we find a similar odour in the perspiration,
the same oppression, and the same inexpressible anguish, with
palpitation and restlessness. The arms became enfeebled as if seized
with paralysis, violent pains of the limbs set in, and unpleasant
pricking sensations in the fingers and toes, resembling in all these
particulars the Sweating Sickness, only pursuing a more lengthened and
irregular course, and becoming developed altogether in a different
manner.

_According to this representation, the English Sweating Sickness
appears as a rheumatic fever in the most exquisite form_ that has ever
yet been seen in the world, violently affecting the vitality of the
brain and spinal marrow with their nerves, without, however, at all
molesting the plexuses of the abdomen. _The immoderate excretion of
watery fluid_, which in the mild cases alone took place, through a
spontaneous curative power, while in the malignant forms it betokened
paralysis of the vessels and an actual colliquation, directs our
attention further to the _consequent state of inanition_, which very
probably passed into a _stagnation of the circulation_, in the same
manner as takes place after every other sudden loss of the fluids,
whether from sanguineous effusion or evacuations by vomit and stool.
Hence the uncommonly rapid course of the disease, and partly, too, the
fatal stupor[726]; hence, likewise, the very pardonable misconception
with respect to the nature of the Sweating Fever existing even in more
modern times. The sequela was more important and more fatal than the
original rheumatic affection itself, which in its minor forms was mild
and easily managed.

And thus is explained the wonderfully fortunate result of the old
English treatment, which prevented this sequela, and avoided increasing
the already too powerful efforts of nature to effect a cure. We
have, therefore, nothing further to add to this judicious and truly
scientific practice but our unqualified approbation; _for it is the
part of the physician, in diseases which have a spontaneous power of
curing themselves, to leave this power free scope to act, and merely
by fostering care to remove all obstacles to its exercise_. Should it
be the destiny of mankind to be again visited by the disease of the
sixteenth century, (and it is by no means impossible that at some time
or other similar events may recur,) we would recommend our posterity to
bear in mind this eternal truth, and to treasure up the golden words of
the Wittenberg pamphlet, namely, to guard the healing art from strange
and unnatural farragos, _for it is only when it is subordinate to
nature that it bears the stamp of reason—the mistress of all earthly
things_.




                              CHAPTER V.

                FIFTH VISITATION OF THE DISEASE.—1551.

    “Ubique lugubris erat lamentatio, fletus mœrens, acerbus luctus.”

                                                                KAYE.


                          SECT. 1.—ERUPTION.

Full three and twenty years had now elapsed; no trace of the Sweating
Sickness had shewn itself anywhere in this long interval, and England
had by its rapid advancement assumed quite another aspect[727] when
the old enemy of that people again, and for the last time, burst
forth in Shrewsbury, the capital of Shropshire[728]. Here, during the
spring, there arose impenetrable fogs from the banks of the Severn,
which, from their unusually bad odour, led to a fear of their injurious
consequences[729]. It was not long before the Sweating Sickness
suddenly broke out on the 15th of April. To many it was entirely
unknown or but obscurely recollected; for, amidst the commotions of
Henry’s reign, the old malady had long since been forgotten.

The visitation was so very general in Shrewsbury and the places in its
neighbourhood, that every one must have believed that the atmosphere
was poisoned, for no caution availed, no closing of the doors and
windows, every individual dwelling became an hospital, and the aged
and the young, who could contribute nothing towards the care of their
relatives, alone remained unaffected by the pestilence[730]. The
disease came as unexpectedly and as completely without all warning
as it had ever done on former occasions; at table, during sleep, on
journeys, in the midst of amusement, and at all times of the day;
and so little had it lost of its old malignity, that in a few hours
it summoned some of its victims from the ranks of the living, and
even destroyed others in less than one[731]. _Four and twenty hours_,
neither more nor less, _were decisive as to the event_; the disease had
thus undergone no change.

In proportion as the pestilence increased in its baneful violence, the
condition of the people became more and more miserable and forlorn; the
townspeople fled to the country, the peasants to the towns; some sought
lonely places of refuge, others shut themselves up in their houses.
Ireland and Scotland received crowds of the fugitives. Others embarked
for France or the Netherlands; but security was nowhere to be found; so
that people at last resigned themselves to that fate which had so long
and heavily oppressed the country. Women ran about negligently clad, as
if they had lost their senses, and filled the streets with lamentations
and loud prayers; all business was at a stand; no one thought of his
daily occupations, and the funeral bells tolled day and night, as
if all the living ought to be reminded of their near and inevitable
end[732]. There died, within a few days, nine hundred and sixty of the
inhabitants of Shrewsbury, the greater part of them robust men and
heads of families; from which circumstance we may judge of the profound
sorrow that was felt in this city.


                   SECT. 2.—EXTENSION AND DURATION.

The epidemic spread itself rapidly over all England, as far as the
Scottish borders, and on all sides to the sea coasts, under more
extraordinary and memorable phenomena than had been observed in almost
any other epidemic. In fact, it seemed that _the banks of the Severn
were the focus of the malady_, and that from hence, a true impestation
of the atmosphere was diffused in every direction. Whithersoever the
winds wafted the stinking mist, the inhabitants became infected with
the Sweating Sickness, and, more or less, the same scenes of horror and
of affliction which had occurred in Shrewsbury were repeated. These
poisonous clouds of mist were observed moving from place to place,
with the disease in their train, affecting one town after another,
and morning and evening spreading their nauseating insufferable
stench[733]. At greater distances, these clouds being dispersed by the
wind, became gradually attenuated, yet their dispersion set no bounds
to the pestilence, and it was as if they had imparted to the lower
strata of the atmosphere a kind of ferment which went on engendering
itself, even without the presence of the thick misty vapour, and
being received into men’s lungs, produced the frightful disease
everywhere[734]. Noxious exhalations from dung-pits, stagnant waters,
swamps, impure canals, and the odour of foul rushes, which were in
general use in the dwellings in England, together with all kinds of
offensive rubbish, seemed not a little to contribute to it; and it was
remarked universally, that wherever such offensive odours prevailed,
the Sweating Sickness appeared more malignant[735]. It is a known fact,
that in a certain state of the atmosphere, which is perhaps principally
dependent on electrical conditions and the degree of heat, mephitic
odours exhale more easily and powerfully. To the quality of the air
at that time prevalent in England, this peculiarity may certainly be
attributed, although it must be confessed, that upon this point there
are no accurate data to be discovered.

The disease lasted upon the whole almost half a year, namely, _from
the 15th of April to the 30th of September_[736]; it thus passed
but gradually from place to place, and we do not observe here, that
it spread with that rapidity, which, in the autumn of 1529, had
excited such great wonder in Germany. It is much to be regretted,
that contemporary writers either gave no intelligence respecting the
irruption or course of the epidemic Sweating Sickness in individual
towns, or, if they did so, that this has not been made use of by
subsequent writers. Doubtless, a very considerable diversity of
circumstances would here present themselves, and the very peculiar
manner in which the corruption of the atmosphere spread on this
occasion, might perhaps have been estimated from certain facts, and
not from mere suppositions. Thus the only fact that has been handed
down is very remarkable; namely, that the Sweating Sickness required a
whole quarter of a year to traverse the short distance from Shrewsbury
to London; for it did not break out there until the 9th of July, and
in a few days, according to its former mode, reached its height, so
that the rapid increase of deaths excited terror throughout the whole
city[737]. Yet the mortality was considerably less than at Shrewsbury,
for there died in the whole of the first week only eight hundred
inhabitants[738], and we may consider it decided, although all the
contemporaries are silent on this very essential question, that the
pestilence nowhere lasted longer than fifteen days, and perhaps in most
places, as formerly, only five or six.

The deaths throughout the kingdom were very numerous, so that one
historian actually calls it a depopulation[739]. No rank of life
remained exempt, but the Sweating Sickness raged with equal violence
in the foul huts of the poor and in the palaces of the nobility[740].
The piety which, in the general dejection, was displayed by the whole
nation, giving birth to innumerable works of Christian benevolence
and philanthropy, whereby undoubtedly many tears were dried up—many
orphans and widows protected from distress and want, is hence
explained: for this phenomenon, highly delightful as it is in itself,
occurs only under great afflictions and a general fear of death, as
we are taught by the universal history of epidemics. We are willing
to believe, to the honour of the English, that the religious impulse
which they derived from their ecclesiastical reformation, may have
had no small share in its production; yet, unfortunately, such is
the nature of human society, that no sooner is the calamity over,
than virtue relaxes. Scarcely were the funeral obsequies performed,
when every thing returned to the usual routine[741]; in like manner,
the Byzantines once, during a great earthquake, were seized with a
fear of God, such as they had never before felt; day and night they
flocked to the churches; nothing was to be seen but Christian virtue,
self-denial, and works of benevolence, but these only lasted until the
earth again became firm[742].

The very remarkable observation was made in this year, _that the
Sweating Sickness uniformly spared foreigners in England, and, on the
other hand, followed the English into foreign countries_, so that those
who were in the Netherlands and France, and even in Spain, were carried
off in no inconsiderable numbers by their indigenous pestilence, which
was nowhere caught by the natives.

Not a single French inhabitant[743] of the neighbouring town of Calais
was affected, and neither the Scotch inhabitants of the same island,
nor the Irish, were visited by the Sweating Sickness, so that we cannot
get rid of the notion, that there was some peculiarity in the whole
constitution of the English which rendered them exclusively susceptible
of this disease. To make this out accurately would be so much the more
difficult, because, in the original year of the Sweating Sickness,
foreigners were the very persons among whom the English disease broke
out; and again, because English persons who had lived a year in France,
on their return home in the summer of 1551, became the subjects of
Sweating Sickness[744]. Contemporaries, indeed, find a cause in the
gluttony and rude mode of life of the English. In short, in all those
remote causes with which we have already become acquainted, and which,
doubtless, also had their part in preparing the same scourge for the
Germans and Flemings in 1529. Kaye, the most efficient eye-witness,
even brings in proof of this view, that the temperate in England
remained exempt from the Sweating Sickness, and on the contrary, that
some Frenchmen at Calais, who were too much devoted to English manners,
were seized with it[745]. To this alone, however, this susceptibility
cannot be attributed, unless we would be content with the antiquated
system of giving too much weight to remote causes, opposed to which we
are met by the striking fact, that the Germans and Netherlanders, who
had scarcely much improved in their manners since 1529, were not again
visited by their old enemy.


                  SECT. 3.—CAUSES.—NATURAL PHENOMENA.

It is easy to perceive, or rather we have no alternative but to
suppose, an unknown something in the English atmosphere, which
imparted to the inhabitants the rheumatic diathesis, or, if we will,
so penetrated their bodies, overcharged as they were with crude
juices[746], that their constitutions had the so-called _opportunity_,
that is, were changed in such a manner as to fit them for the reception
of the Sweating Sickness. Under such a condition, the common and more
peculiar causes of this disease were not absolutely necessary, in order
to induce its attack in a constitution thus long prepared for it, but
the general causes of disease were sufficient of themselves to give it
its last stimulus, although this should be in an entirely different
climate, as in the present instance was the case with the English who
were living in Spain, and with the Venetian ambassador _Naugerio_, who,
in the year 1528, fell ill of the petechial fever, when far from Italy,
and living in France[747].

It has, no doubt, struck the reader that each of the five eruptions
in England lasted much longer than the single one which occurred
in Germany and the north of Europe. This, too, might well depend
upon peculiarities in the English soil. But let us now endeavour
to render manifest, by means of phenomena actually observed, that
unknown something in the atmosphere of 1551, the θεῖον of the great
Hippocrates, which announces its presence by the sickening of the
people; for beyond this it is not granted that human researches should
penetrate. The winter of 1550–51 was dry and warm in England; the
spring dry and cold; the summer and autumn hot and moist[748]. The
weather of the whole year was uncommon in many particulars, without,
however, influencing the lives of plants and animals so much or
through so great a range as at the time of the fourth epidemic of
Sweating Sickness. It was even in some places praised as fruitful[749].
On the 10th of January a violent tempest occurred, which in Germany
left no small traces[750] of its effects on houses and towers. The
same day brought considerable floods in the river district of the
Lahn, which must be noticed on account of the very unusual season of
the year[751]. On the 13th of January, again at an unusual season,
there followed a great storm with heavy rains[752], which spread over
the north of Germany; and on the 28th of January there occurred a
considerable earthquake in Lisbon, whereby about two hundred houses
were overthrown, and nearly a thousand people were destroyed; whilst
a fiery meteor appeared, which, according to the unsatisfactory
descriptions of the time, resembled most a northern light, and
therefore was, in all probability, of electrical origin[753]. This
was succeeded in Germany by a great frost in February[754]. On the
21st of March, at seven o’clock in the morning, two mock suns, with
three rainbows, were seen at Magdeburg and in its vicinity, and in the
evening two mock moons[755]. The same mock suns were also observed at
Wittenberg, but without the rainbows. A similar phenomenon with two
rainbows was again seen on the 27th of March[756]; and mock suns had
been observed at Antwerp as early as the 28th of February[757]. About
the same time (21st of March) the Oder overflowed its banks[758],
and floods followed after continued rains during the month of May in
Thuringia and Franconia[759]. Great tempests were not wanting[760],
and, after considerable heat, there occurred, on the 26th of June,
a thick summer fog in the districts of the Elbe which deprived the
besiegers of Magdeburg of the sight of that city. It may, therefore, be
supposed that this phenomenon took place throughout a greater extent
of country[761]. On the 22nd of September a meteor, like a northern
light, was again seen, and on the 29th of that month, after some clear
weather, a heavy fall of snow was followed by continued cold[762].

These facts are sufficient plainly to prove that the course of the
year 1551 was unusual, that the atmosphere was overcharged with water,
and that the electrical conditions of it were considerably disturbed;
nor must we omit to notice that, for the first time since 1547, mould
spots again appeared in Germany on clothes, and red discolorations of
water, as likewise an exuberance of the lowest cryptogamic species of
vegetation[763].


                          SECT. 4.—DISEASES.

During the years of scarcity, from 1528 to 1534, it excited general
surprise that malignant fevers, more especially the plague, petechial
fever, and encephalitis, which in the individual accounts we can seldom
sufficiently distinguish from each other, were constantly recurring,
and, creeping slowly as they did from place to place, had no sooner
finished their wandering visitations of whole districts of country,
than they again made their appearance where they had broken out in
former years[764]. It was _a century of putrid malignant affections_,
in which typhous diseases were continually prevailing—a century replete
with grand phenomena affecting human life in general, and continuing
so, long after the period to which our researches refer.

There existed also an epidemic flux which, during a cold summer[765]
in 1538, spread over a great part of Europe, and especially over
France, so that, according to the assurance of an eminent physician,
there was scarcely any town exempt from it[766]. Of this flux we have
unfortunately but very defective reports, among which we find a
statement, not without importance, that there were no extraordinary
forerunners, such as are observed in phenomena of this kind, to
account for this epidemic[767]. Two years earlier, however, (12th of
July 1536,) Erasmus died of the flux[768]. This disease seldom occurs
sporadically, but usually as an epidemic, and thus, perhaps slighter
visitations of this rheumatic malady may be assumed to have preceded
that greater one which took place in 1538.

A period remarkable for plague followed in the year 1540, and ended
about 1543. The summer of the first named year is especially mentioned
in the chronicles as having been _hot_, and throughout the whole
century it continued to be in great repute on account of the excellent
wine it produced[769]. A spontaneous conflagration of the woods
was frequent, and an earthquake was felt in Germany on the 14th of
December[770]. Thereupon, in 1541, there followed in Constantinople
a great plague[771] which, in the year 1542, spread by means of a
Turkish invasion into Hungary, its superior importance being indicated
by the presence of accompanying phenomena, among which the swarms of
locusts that appeared this year are especially worthy of note. They
came from the interior of Asia, and travelled in dense masses over
Europe, passing northward over the Elbe[772], and southward as far as
Spain[773]. Kaye saw a cloud of locusts of this description in Padua;
their passage lasted full two hours, and they extended further than the
eye could reach[774]. The plague quickly spread in Hungary and caused
a similar destruction to the imperial army, which was fighting against
the Turks under Joachim the Second, Elector of Brandenburg, as it had
formerly caused the French before Naples[775]. Whether this pestilence
may have been the original oriental glandular plague, or whether we may
assume that it had already degenerated into the _Hungarian Petechial
Fever_, such as likewise broke out in the year 1566, in the camp near
Komorn, during the campaign of Maximilian the Second, and thence, by
means of the disbanded lansquenets, spread in all directions[776],
cannot now well be determined for want of ascertained facts. In the
following year, 1543, however, this plague broke out in Germany,
namely, in the Harz districts in the provinces of the Saale[777], and
still more malignantly at Metz[778], yet upon the whole it did not
cause any considerable loss of life.

In the years 1545 and 1546 we again find the _Trousse-galant_ in
France[779]. It proved fatal to the Duke of Orleans, second son of
Francis the First, in the neighbourhood of Boulogne, and, according to
the testimony of French historians, to ten thousand English in that
fort, so that the garrison was obliged to pitch a camp outside the
town, and the reluctant reinforcements felt that they were encountering
certain death[780]. The disease spread itself also among the French
troops, and we have seen that it extended its dominion beyond the Alps
of Savoy[781].

It thus appears, that, up to the period of which we have been speaking,
the year 1544 alone was free from great visitations of disease, but
it would be difficult from thenceforth satisfactorily to define the
individual groups of epidemics, if the connexion of the epidemic
Sweating Sickness of the year 1551 with them is to be made out; for
there was, to use an expression of the schools, a continued _typhous
constitution_, which extended throughout this whole period, manifesting
itself on the slightest causes by malignant diseases; so that the
visitations of sickness which we have hitherto been describing do but
appear as exacerbations of them, with a predominance sometimes of one
and sometimes of another set of symptoms.

The camp fever, which prevailed in the spring of 1547 among the
imperial troops, there is good ground for considering to have been
petechial. A great many soldiers fell sick of it, and it was so much
the more malignant because the imperial army was composed of a variety
of soldiery, Spaniards, Germans, Hungarians, and Bohemians. Those who
were seized complained, as in encephalitis, of insufferable heat of
the head, their eyes were swollen and started glistening from their
sockets, their offensive breath poisoned the atmosphere around them,
their tongues were covered with a brown crust, they vomited bile, their
skin was of a leaden hue, and a deep purple eruption broke forth upon
it. The disease, the fresh seeds of which the imperial hussars had
brought with them out of Hungary, proved fatal as early as the second
or third day, and it may be taken for granted, that both before and
after the battle of Muhlberg (24th of April) it made no small ravages
in Saxony[782]; yet it did not become general.

After a short interval the unusual phenomena of 1549 again increased;
the chronicles of central Germany record blights and murrains in that
year. They speak likewise of a northern light seen on the 21st of
September, and of a malignant disease which, till the winter set in,
carried off young people in no small numbers[783]. According to all
appearance this disease was a petechial fever, which in the following
year, 1550, likewise visited the March of Brandenburg, Thuringia and
Saxony[784]. The mortality was particularly great at Eisleben, where,
in less than four weeks from the 14th September, 257 fell a sacrifice
to it, and after this period it happened often that from twenty to
twenty-four bodies were buried in one day; so that the loss in this
little town may be reckoned at least at 500[785]. From this slight
example the great malignity of the plagues of the sixteenth century
will be perceived, and it would be still more evident if the physicians
of those times had made more careful observations, and historians had
more accurately recorded facts of this kind.

In 1551 there prevailed in Swabia a disease of the nature of plague,
which determined the Duke Christoph, of Würtemburg, to withdraw
himself from Stuttgard. It did not spread, and seems to have remained
unknown to the rest of Germany[786]. In Spain, too, the plague[787]
shewed itself, and if to this be added the influenza of the same
year[788], as well as the numerous cases of malignant fevers in Germany
and Switzerland, which were spoken of as still existing in the two
following years[789], it will again be seen quite evidently that _the
fifth epidemic Sweating Sickness_ _appeared, accompanied by a group of
various epidemic diseases, which might be considered as resulting from
general influences_. The disease which is the subject of our research
thus took its departure from Europe similarly accompanied as when it
originally sprang up there, while in the interval it thrice repeated
its deadly attacks.


                          SECT. 5.—JOHN KAYE.

Let us dedicate a few moments to the observer of the fifth sweating
pestilence, whose life presents a lively image of the peculiarities and
tendencies of his age. He was born at Norwich on the 6th of October,
1510, and received his education at Gonville Hall, Cambridge. He had
early evinced by some productions his great knowledge of the Greek
language, and his zeal for theological investigations. At a maturer
age he went to Italy, at that time the seat of scientific learning,
where _Baptista Montanus_ and _Vesalius_, at Padua, initiated him in
the healing art. He took his Doctor’s degree at Bologna, and in 1542 he
lectured on Aristotle in conjunction with Realdus Columbus, with great
approbation. The following year he travelled throughout Italy, and with
much diligence collated manuscripts for the emendation of Galen and
Celsus, attended the prælections of Matthæus Curtius at Pisa, and then
returned through France and Germany to his own country.

After being admitted as a doctor of medicine at Cambridge, he practised
with great distinction at Shrewsbury and Norwich, but was soon summoned
by Henry the Eighth to deliver anatomical lectures to the surgeons in
London. He was much honoured at the court of Edward the Sixth, and the
appointment of body physician, which this monarch bestowed on him, he
retained also under Queen Mary and Elizabeth. In 1547, he became a
Fellow of the College of Physicians, over which, at a later period,
he presided for seven years. He constantly supported the honour of
this body with great zeal, compiled its Annals from the period of
its foundation by Linacre to the end of his own presidentship, and
originated an establishment, the first of the kind in England[790], for
annually performing two public dissections of human bodies.

That he was thus established in London before the year 1551 is certain,
yet he was present in Shrewsbury, during the Sweating Sickness. His
pamphlet[791] upon this disease, the first and last published in
England, did not, however, appear before 1552, after all was over. It
is written in strong language and a popular style, and with a laudable
frankness; for Kaye blames in it, without any reserve, the gross
mode of living of his countrymen, and does not fatigue his reader
with too much book learning, which neither he nor his contemporaries
could refrain from displaying on other occasions. He reserved this
for the Latin version of his pamphlet, which was published four years
later[792], and although, judged according to a modern standard, it is
far from being satisfactory, yet it contains an abundance of valuable
matter, and proves its author to be a good observer; and in this we
can nowhere mistake that he is an Englishman of the sixteenth century,
however numerous the terms he may borrow from Celsus. His doctrines
are of the old Greek school throughout, of which the physicians of
those times were staunch supporters; hence the term _ephemera[793]
pestilens_, his comparison of the disease with the similar fevers of
the ancients[794], and his accurate appreciation of the important
doctrine of æthereal spirits, to which he refers its chief causes,
and, according to which, the corrupted atmosphere (spiritus corrupti)
becomes mixed in the lungs with the spirits of blood, (spiritus
sanguinis,) whence it at once appears explicable to him, why many
persons may be attacked with the Sweating Sickness at the same time,
and even in different places, and why the parts of the body in which,
according to the ancient Greek notion, the æthereal spirits developed
themselves, were most violently affected with this disease[795]. From
the relationship of the infected air to the æthereal spirits in the
body, polluted by intemperance, it also appears explicable to him, why
foreigners in England, in whom this pollution took place in a less
degree, were, only in cases of individual exception, attacked by the
Sweating Sickness[796], not to mention other theoretical notions.

On malaria in general, as he was an observant naturalist, he was
enabled to turn to good account his experience in Italy and his
knowledge of the ancients, and his estimation of the subordinate
causes, with regard to which he takes up the same position as Agricola,
who was also a good naturalist, is likewise on the whole worthy of
approbation[797]. The immoderate use of beer, amongst the English, was
considered by many as the principal reason why the Sweating Sickness
was confined to this nation. On this subject he enlarges even to
prolixity, with evident English predilection for this beverage which
manifestly contributed to the morbid repletion of the people; and
he himself acknowledged this as a principal cause of the Sweating
Sickness. The injurious quality of salt-fish, as alleged by Erasmus
and the German physician Hellwetter[798], he would not altogether have
ventured to reject[799], for it caused constant and abundant fetid
perspirations, and might thus have contributed to pave the way for the
Sweating Sickness. A similar source was to be found in the dirty rush
floors in the English houses[800], and other subordinate causes of the
disease of which mention has been made in the course of this treatise.

As a zealous advocate of temperance, it were to be wished that he had
met with more attention; but the words of a good physician are given
to the winds, when they are directed against vices and habits of
sensual indulgence; people require from him an infallible preservative,
and not a lecture on morality. His precepts on food and beverage are
circumstantial, after the manner of the ancients, and he recommends
such a variety, that it is difficult to make a choice; while nothing
but the greatest simplicity can be of any avail. _Purifying fires_,
which were kindled everywhere in times of plague, are also much
lauded by him, and we here learn incidentally, that the smiths and
cooks remained free[801] from the Sweating Sickness. Fumigations with
odoriferous substances of all kinds, even the most costly Indian
spices, were everywhere employed in the houses of the rich, and no one
stirred out without having with him some one of the thousand scents
recommended from time immemorial during the plague. The medicines which
he recommends are those that were then in vogue; among which Theriaca,
Armenian Bole, and Pearls, occur in various combinations, yet most of
the prophylactics which he advises for obviating any defect in the
constitution are not very violent.

Kaye’s treatment of the Sweating Sickness is according to the mild old
English plan, which is very judiciously and perspicuously laid down.
He kept himself, on the whole, free from the influence of the schools
in this instance, and the only remedy which he approved in case of
necessity, was a harmless and very favourite preparation of pearls and
odoriferous substances, which was called Manus Christi[802], or, in
Germany, sugar of pearls. It had its origin in the fifteenth century,
and was the invention of _Guainerus_[803], and there were various
receipts for compounding it[804]. He also sometimes prescribed, at
the commencement of the attack[805], bole or terra sigillata, for how
could a physician of the sixteenth century doubt the antipoisonous
effect of this overrated remedy? Restlessness in the patient, debility,
a too thick skin, and thick blood, are set forth by him as the chief
impediments to the critical sweat, and in order to remove them, he
sets to work with great and laudable caution, ordering, according to
circumstances, even mulled wine and greater warmth. Sometimes, too,
he could not refrain from employing Theriac and Mithridate, but he
did not use these remedies to any great extent. For dropsical and
rheumatic patients who became the subjects of the Sweating Sickness,
he prescribed a beverage of Guaiacum; he also recommended as a
sudorific, the China root, which was at that time much in use. When
the perspiration broke out, he positively prohibited the urging it
beyond the proper point; all medicines were thence laid aside, and he
trusted to aromatic vinegar and gentle succussion alone for keeping off
the lethargy, without considering, with _Damianus_, that more severe
measures were essential[806].

As a learned patron of the sciences, Kaye ranks amongst the most
distinguished men of his country. Through his interest, Gonville Hall
was, in the reign of _Queen Mary_, elevated to the rank of a college,
better established, and more richly endowed. To the end of his life,
he continued to preside[807] over this his favourite institution,
and passed his old age[808] there, not in Monkish contemplation,
like Linacre, but zealously devoted to study, as the great number of
his writings testifies. He was accused of having changed his faith
according to circumstances. This pliability served, it is true,
to retain him in favour with sovereigns of very opposite modes of
thinking: it is not, however, a sign of elevation of mind, and can only
be explained in part by the spirit of the English Reformation. _Kaye_
was a reformer in fact, inasmuch as he was a promoter of instruction,
and, perhaps, laid no stress on outward profession. His versatility
as a scholar is extraordinary, and would be worthy of the highest
admiration, had he entirely avoided the reproach of credulity, had
he not been too prolix in subordinate matters, and had he shown more
decided signs of genius. At one time he translated and illustrated the
writings of Galen; at another, he wrote on philology or the medical
art—it must be confessed, without much originality, for he took _Galen_
and _Montanus_ as his patterns[809]. But where could physicians
be found at that time who did not follow established doctrines?
Some essays on History and English Archæology are found among his
writings[810]; and his works on Natural History[811], dedicated to
Conrad Gesner, are among the best of his age, because he imparted
his observations in them quite plainly and naturally, free from the
trammels of any school. He died at Cambridge on the 29th of July, 1573,
and ordered for himself the following epitaph-“Fui Caius.”




                              CHAPTER VI.

                         SWEATING SICKNESSES.

    Ἔστι γὰρ τὸ πάθος λύσις τῶν δεσμῶν τῆς εἰς ζωὴν δυνάμιος.

                                                             ARETÆUS.


             SECT. 1.—THE CARDIAC DISEASE OF THE ANCIENTS.

                          (MORBUS CARDIACUS.)

Thus by the autumn of 1551, the Sweating Sickness had vanished from
the earth: it has never since appeared as it did then and at earlier
periods; and it is not to be supposed, that it will ever again
break forth as a great epidemic in the same form, and limited to a
four-and-twenty hours’ course; for it is manifest, that the mode of
living of the people had a great share in its origin; and this will
never again be the same as in those days. Yet nature is not wanting
in similar phenomena, which have appeared in ancient and modern
times; and if we take into the account the great frequency of cognate
rheumatic maladies, it is possible that isolated cases may have
sometimes occurred, in which repletion of impure fluids, and violently
inflammatory treatment have augmented a rheumatic fever, even to the
destruction of nervous vitality, by means of profuse perspiration—only,
perhaps, that they ran a longer course, (which does not constitute
an essential difference,) and under totally different names, whereby
attention is misled. Of all the diseases that have ever appeared
which can in any way be compared to the English Sweating Sickness, we
have principally three to look back upon—the _cardiac disease_ of the
ancients, the _Picardy sweat_, and the _sweating fever of Rötingen_.
The first was, for reasons which have been already mentioned[812],
almost unknown to the learned of the sixteenth century; and it is
matter of surprise, that Kaye himself, who had chosen for his favourite
the best Roman physician, we mean Celsus, could have so entirely
overlooked his by no means unimportant statements respecting this
disease. _Houlier_ is the only author who ventures a comparison of the
English Sweating Sickness with the ancient cardiac disease; his few,
and almost lost words[813], remained however unheeded; nor are the
differences between the two diseases small: but to return.

The disease of which we are speaking appeared for a period of 500
years, (from 300 B.C. to 200 after Christ,) and was a common, almost
every day occurrence, which is often mentioned even by non-medical
writers. It was exceedingly dangerous, and even esteemed fatal; and
as it was far above the reach of Greek physiology, there were not
wanting extraordinary opinions respecting its nature, and bold and
singular modes of treatment, to which those who were attacked were
subjected. The name _Cardiac disease_ (morbus cardiacus, νόσος καρδιακὴ
and probably also νόσος καρδίτις,) was not bestowed by medical men,
but by the people; who, in the fourth century before Christ, for the
name is as ancient as that period, could not know that the learned
would dispute on that subject. Some affirmed, and among them men of
great authority, such as _Erasistratus_, _Asclepiades_, and _Aretæus_,
that the people were in the right so to call the disease; that the
heart was actually the part affected, and that their knowledge of the
heart’s functions was by no means small[814]. Others, on the contrary,
would only acknowledge in that name an expression indicative, not
of the particular seat of the disease, but only of its importance,
inasmuch as the heart is well adapted, as the centre and source of
life, to indicate this[815]. Others again, who attempted more refined
conjectures, wished to represent the pericardium as the seat of the
malady, because darting pains were sometimes felt[816] in the region
of the heart, or the diaphragm, or the lungs, or even the liver. The
opinions were numerous; the actual knowledge was small[817].

The cardiac disease began with rigors and a numbness in the
limbs[818], and sometimes even throughout the whole body. The
pulse then took on the worst condition, was small, weak, frequent,
empty, and as if dissolving; in a more advanced stage, unequal and
fluttering, until it became completely extinct. Patients were affected
with hallucinations[819]; they were sleepless, despaired of their
recovery, and were usually covered suddenly with an ill-savoured
perspiration over the whole body, whence the disorder was likewise
called _Diaphoresis_. Sometimes, however, a washy sweat broke out,
first on the face and neck. This then spread itself over the whole
body; assumed a very disagreeable odour, became clammy and like water
in which flesh had been macerated, and ran through the bed-clothes in
streams, so that the patient seemed to be melting away[820]. The breath
was short and panting almost to annihilation (insustentabilis). Those
affected were in continual fear of suffocation[821]; tossed to and fro
in the greatest anguish, and with _a very thin and trembling voice_
uttered forth only broken words. They constantly felt an insufferable
oppression in the _left side_, or even over the whole chest[822]; and
in the paroxysms which were ushered in with _a fainting fit_, or were
followed by one, _the heart was tumultuous and palpitated_, without
any alteration in the smallness of the pulse[823]. The countenance was
_pale as death_, the eyes sunk in their sockets, and when the disease
took a fatal turn, all was darkness around them. _The hands and feet
turned blue_; and whilst the heart, notwithstanding the universal
coldness of the body, still beat violently, they for the most part
retained possession of their senses. A few only wandered a short
time before death, while others were even seized with convulsions
and endowed with the power of prophecy[824]. _Finally, the nails
became curved on their cold hands_, the skin was wrinkled, and thus
the sufferers resigned their spirit without any mitigation of their
miserable condition[825].

A striking resemblance is plainly perceived, from this description,
between the ancient cardiac disease and the English Sweating Sickness
in the most exquisite cases of each. In both the same palpitation of
the heart, the same alteration of the voice, the same anxiety, the
same impediment to respiration, and thence the same affection of the
nerves of the chest, the same ill-scented sweat, and, by means of
this sweat, the same fatal evacuation; in short, all the essential
symptoms arising from the same circle of functions. For in the sweating
pestilences of the ancients[826], as well as the moderns, the nerves of
the abdomen remained unaffected; the liver, intestines, and kidneys,
took no part in the primary affection; the diaphragm, as in the English
Sweating Sickness, formed the partition. Hence the acute _Aretæus_ did
not hesitate to call the cardiac disease _fainting_ (syncope), with
certainly an unusual extension of the notion implied by this term,
which in its common acceptation excludes the turbulent commotion of the
heart. In the affection of the brain some difference occurs, for though
the hallucination afforded an unfavourable prognostic in both diseases,
yet the fatal stupor was peculiar to the English Sweating Sickness, no
observer having made mention of it in the cardiac disease.

Greater and altogether essential differences between this affection
and the English Sweating Sickness appear in another respect. There
is every reason to suppose that the cardiac disease first appeared
in the time of _Alexander_ the Great, that is to say, at the end of
the fourth century before Christ; for the Hippocratic physicians
were unacquainted with it, _Erasistratus_, who was body physician
to Seleucus Nicator, and was a universally celebrated professor at
Alexandria under the first Ptolemy, being the first to mention it. If
that age be compared even superficially with that of Henry the VIIth
and Henry the VIIIth; and Africa, Asia Minor, and the South of Europe
with England, we shall easily be convinced that the two diseases,
notwithstanding the agreement in their main symptoms, could not be
the same; moreover, much was comprehended by the ancients under the
name of morbus cardiacus, which, on a nearer examination, proves not
to be one and the same definite form of morbid action: for sometimes
this affection is spoken of as an independent disease; sometimes it
is mentioned only as a symptom superadded to others—as a kind of
transition from other very various diseases, such as has occurred in
modern times. _Soranus_ mentions, as such diseases, continued fevers,
accompanied by much heat[827]; and reckons among them the “Causus,”
that is, an inflammatory bilious fever, to which _Aretæus_ also saw
the cardiac disease superadded. These fevers passed, on the fifth or
sixth day, into the cardiac disease, and such a transition occurred
chiefly on the critical days[828]. In a similar sense _Celsus_ speaks
even of _Phrenitis_, under which name we are here to understand all
inflammatory fevers accompanied by violent delirium, with the exception
of actual inflammation of the brain. Thus we see that the cardiac
disease arose and increased on a very different soil from other
diseases, and was, to furnish an ancient example, as far from being
independent under these circumstances as _lethargy_ was in similar
cases.

But there was doubtless an independent idiopathic form of the cardiac
disease. Whether this was febrile or not, the most celebrated
physicians of ancient times were not agreed. Now, how could they ever
have differed upon the subject, if the cardiac disease had always
appeared only as a sequela on the fifth or sixth day of inflammatory
fevers? _Apollophanes_, a disciple of Erasistratus, and physician to
_Antiochus the First_, considered it, with his master, as constantly
febrile, and his opinion prevailed for a long time: perhaps he was
in the right, for it is probable that in the first half of the third
century, the disorder was much more violent than at a subsequent
period. His celebrated contemporary, _Demetrius_ of Apamea, disciple
of Herophilus, affirmed, that he had recognised fever only in the
beginning of the disease, and that it disappeared in its further
progress. Very soon, most physicians decided that it was not febrile,
but _Asclepiades_ distinguished a febrile and a non-febrile form of
the cardiac disease, and it is certain that this physician was a very
accurate observer. _Themison_ and _Thessalus_ also agreed with him.
_Aretæus_ described, in a cursory manner, the febrile form only, and
perhaps was not acquainted with any other. _Soranus_ followed, in the
essential points, _Asclepiades_, the founder of his school; and later
writers generally regarded the inward heat, the hot breath, and the
burning thirst—symptoms which were occasionally less marked, as proofs
of the febrile nature of the disease. Numerous theoretical views,
belonging to particular schools, of which we do not here treat, were
intermingled with these, and upon the whole, that form seems to have
been esteemed as non-febrile, in which the signs of feverish excitement
appeared less marked. In all cases the cardiac disease set in with
external coldness, and with a small contracted quick pulse, symptoms
which with certainty indicate fever[829].

Respecting the course of the cardiac disease, we are not furnished with
sufficient information. It was no doubt very rapid, for the frame could
not long endure symptoms of so violent a kind, and the disorder must of
necessity soon have come to a crisis; yet from the ample directions for
treatment, we may conclude that it lasted at least some days. If the
perspiration was well surmounted, patients seemed to recover rapidly,
and their sufferings appeared to them, according to the expressions of
_Aretæus_, like a dream, out of which they awoke to a consciousness of
the increased acumen of their senses[830]. But the termination was not
always so fortunate. The disease was very dangerous, and in many, after
the occurrence of an incomplete crisis, an insidious fever remained
behind, which ended in a consumption[831]. The whole phenomenon was
altogether peculiar, and among existing diseases there are none which
bear any comparison with it.

There must therefore have been something in the whole state of
existence among the ancients which favoured the formation of the
cardiac disease. That it arose oftener in summer than in winter, that
it attacked men more frequently than women, and especially young people
full of life, and hot-blooded plethoric persons, who used much bodily
exercise, we learn from credible observers[832]. In this respect,
therefore, it bore a resemblance to the English Sweating Sickness. We
may also add, that indigestion, repletion, drunkenness, as likewise
grief and fear, but especially vomiting and the employment of the bath
after dinner, occasioned an attack of the malady[833]. Let us call to
mind the habits of the ancients. It was in the time of _Alexander_ that
oriental luxury was first introduced. Gluttony became a part of the
enjoyment of life, and warm baths a necessary refinement in sensuality,
which just at this time were philosophically established by _Epicurus_;
nor was this the last instance in which philosophers encouraged the
errors and infirmities of human society.

Here, again, therefore, as in the English Sweating Sickness, we meet
with _the relaxed state of skin, and the foul repletion_ engendered by
the same indulgence in sensuality which we have found to exist in the
sixteenth century. How this corruption of morals increased, and to what
a frightful height it was carried among the Romans, it is not necessary
here further to elucidate; and we may take it for a fact, that in
consequence of it, the general constitution of the ancients underwent a
peculiar modification; that this relaxation of skin and gross repletion
were propagated from generation to generation; and that, as among
chronic diseases, those of _a gouty character_ were its more frequent
results, so among the inflammatory, _the cardiac disease_ made its
appearance as the general effect of this kind of life.

Where, however, such a system of life existed among whole communities,
the original and peculiar occasion was not needed in every individual
case to bring the predisposition for a disease which propagated itself
by hereditary taint, to an actual eruption. Shocks to the constitution
of quite a different kind were often sufficient for the purpose. Thus,
among the Romans, it was by no means always the case, that gluttony
and relaxation of the skin immediately gave rise to the cardiac
disease; while, on the other hand, the usual faintness, induced by too
copious blood-letting, passed into this impetuous agitation of the
heart, accompanied by colliquative sweats[834]; and all overviolent
perspirations in other diseases were apt to take the same dangerous
course[835]. We must here also take into account a practice among the
Romans, which was very injurious, and yet rendered sacred by the laws;
namely, visiting the public baths late in the evening, just after the
principal meal, and awaiting the digestion of their food in these
places of soft indulgence[836]. How much must the tendency of sweating
disorders have been favoured by these means!

Surmises founded on the facts already stated, can alone be offered
respecting the nature of the ancient cardiac disease. The ancients
give us no certain intelligence upon it; for their mode of observing
did not lead to that object at which modern medicine aims. _That the
cardiac disease was not of a rheumatic character_ seems deducible from
several circumstances—from the quality of the atmosphere in southern
climates, which is not so favourable to rheumatic maladies, as to give
rise to a distinctly defined form of that complaint throughout a period
of five hundred years; from the nature of the so-called inflammatory
fever, which exhibited no rheumatic symptoms in its course; and
lastly, from the treatment of the cardiac disease, for it was a common
practice to cool down the “diaphoretic” patients in the midst of their
perspiration, by sponging them with cold water, to expose them to
the air, and some physicians went so far as to advise cold baths and
affusions[837]. How could they have ventured upon such remedies if the
cardiac disease had been of a rheumatic nature?

In the sweating fevers of the sixteenth century, every abrupt
refrigeration, every exposure of the skin, was fatal. It is thence to
be inferred, _that the English Sweating Sickness differed from the
ancient cardiac disease in its rheumatic character_; even although
both diseases were founded in common on an impure gross repletion and
relaxation of skin, and the essential phenomena of both went through
the same course: not to advert to other differences which are manifest
from what has been stated.

The remaining treatment of the cardiac disorder should not be
altogether passed over in this place, because it shews very clearly the
general style of thinking of the medical profession, as also certain
metaphysical excitations which are innate in that profession, and of
which there is therefore a repetition in all ages. For whilst some
proceeded with commendable care and caution, and _Aræteus_ feared[838]
a fatal result from the slightest error, others again, would fain
render excited nature obedient to their rough command by means of
the most violent remedies. It, therefore, occasionally happened that
in their over hasty activity they were unable to distinguish between
a salutary perspiration and a dangerous “diaphoresis.” This they
suppressed at all hazards, and thus sent their patients to the shades
of their fathers. Others forthwith flew to Chrysippic bandaging, the
great means of suppressing profuse evacuations, and even violent
spasms[839]. Others were for obviating the debility as quickly as
possible by means of nourishing diet; and overloaded the stomach, as
if the recovery of strength depended entirely upon eating. Others
allowed as much wine as possible to be drunk for twenty-four hours
together, even to the extent of producing intoxication[840]; and
_Asclepiades_ selected for this extraordinary death-bed carousal the
Greek salt wine[841], for the sake of bringing on a diarrhœa, whereby
the opened pores of the skin might again close, and the too mobile
atoms might be carried towards the bowels. With the same object he
ordered active clysters[842], for if they succeeded in causing a full
evacuation, he maintained that the perspiration must necessarily be
arrested! _Endemus_, of the Methodic sect, recommended even clysters
of cold water[843], and whatever else the rashness of medical men had
fool-hardily contrived; acting on the ancient notion, that severe
diseases always required violent remedies. _Aretæus_ recommended
blood-letting, which others pronounced to be nothing short of certain
death[844]. He had, however, a notion that the Causus was the
foundation of the cardiac disease, and perhaps he was right.

A cautious employment of wine was apparently of great use[845], and
what may excite surprise, physicians gave detailed and frivolous
precepts on the choice and enjoyment of food. If the irritable stomach
rejected this repeatedly, they even went so far, according to the
Roman method, as to make the patient vomit both before and after his
meals, in order that the organ might thus bear the repeated use of
nourishment. It was also asserted that the stomach retained food and
wine better if the body were previously rubbed all over with bruised
onions[846]. All this affords us an insight into the nature of this
remarkable disease, which has now so completely vanished from the
world. Finally, when astringent decoctions proved fruitless, particular
confidence was placed in the application of various powders[847] to the
surface of the body, conjointly with the use of light bed-clothes and
the avoidance of feather-beds, which the effeminacy of the ancients
had already introduced[848]. As astringents they selected pomegranate
bark, the leaves of roses, blackberries, and myrtles, as also fullers’
earth, gypsum, alum, litharge, slaked lime[849], and, when nothing else
was at hand, even common road dust[850]! The efficacy of some of these
extraordinary remedies cannot be denied. At least it has been proved in
modern times with respect to alkalies, which are of a somewhat similar
nature, that they are of great service where there is an abundant
determination of acid towards the skin, and it is very probable that
the perspiration of these diaphoretic patients contained much acid.


                      SECT. 2.—THE PICARDY SWEAT.

                 (SUETTE DES PICARDS—SUETTE MILIAIRE.)

The Picardy Sweat is a decided miliary fever, which has often
prevailed, not only in Picardy, but also in other provinces of France,
for more than a hundred years, and even at the present time exists
in some places as an endemic disease[851]. We have pointed out the
affinity between the English Sweating Sickness and miliary fever. Both
are rheumatic fevers—the former of twenty-four hours’ duration, the
latter running a course of at least seven days. In the former there was
no eruption, or if in isolated cases an eruption made its appearance,
it was doubtless subordinate, not essential. In the miliary fever, on
the contrary, the eruption is so essential, that this disease may be
considered as a completely exanthematous form of rheumatic fever.

The history of miliary fever is full of important facts, and the
sweating fever of Picardy forms but a variety of it. The eruption
in itself is of very ancient occurrence, and was most probably, as
at present, observed time immemorial in conjunction with petechiæ,
occurring as a critical metastasis in the oriental glandular plague,
perhaps even in the ancient plague recorded by Thucydides. It also
occasionally accompanied petechial fever, as unquestionably it did
small-pox and many other diseases, in the same manner as we now
see; for the miliary eruption is a very common symptom, which is
easily induced, and increases the danger of various other accidental
complications. This is different, however, from the _idiopathic miliary
fever_, which did not exist either before, or even at the period of
the English Sweating Sickness, but occurred as an epidemic, frequently
mentioned in Saxony, a hundred years later[852], (1652.)

We cannot, therefore, consider this eruptive disease as having
proceeded from the English Sweating Sickness, in the same manner as
the petechial fever had its probable origin in the glandular plague,
even supposing a more decided inclination of the Sweating Sickness
to the eruptive character could be proved than is possible from the
facts afforded. A whole century intervened, and what vast national
revolutions!

This same separation of so long a period makes also against the
supposition, that the English Sweating Sickness was an interrupted
miliary fever, which exhausted its power by a too luxuriant activity
of the skin on the first day, before the eruption made its appearance.
Moreover, the similarity and isolation of all the five epidemic
sweating fevers, as regards the brevity of the course of the disease,
and the absence of all transition forms of any duration, which
certainly would have existed had nature intended gradually to form a
miliary fever out of the English Sweating Sickness, lead to the same
conclusion.

But to return to the miliary fever. Some forms of this disease have
been observed, in which a profuse perspiration, in combination with
nervous symptoms, has endangered life on the first day of the attack;
equally often, too, the eruption has appeared fully formed on the
very first day; and if we duly consider, as we ought, the regular
course of miliary fever whenever it has assumed an epidemic character,
we shall always find, even in that case, a development of symptoms
differing fundamentally from those of the English Sweating Sickness.
If, occasionally, instances of miliary fever occurred, in which no
eruption came out, as was the case recently (in 1821), they were to
be considered in the same light as other acute eruptive diseases,
as, for example, scarlet fever, in which nature indulges in a like
irregularity, without, however, altering the essence of those diseases.
And since, finally, it has been observed in many cases[853], that
the miliary eruption could be prevented by the application of cold
at the commencement, a distinguished modern physician has attached
great consequence to this circumstance, as showing that miliary fever
and the English Sweating Sickness were the same disease[854]; but a
check of this kind is, at all events, impossible in those miliary
fevers where the eruption breaks forth on the first or second day; and
moreover, experience tells us, that many other diseases also, such as
inflammations, rheumatisms, gastric fevers, and even abdominal typhus,
may be arrested in their course, and confined within narrower bounds,
so as not to manifest all their symptoms.

We are, therefore, completely entitled to consider the appearance of
the miliary sweating fevers as altogether a novelty, originating in
the middle of the 17th century, and having no discoverable connexion
with the English Sweating Sickness. There have been in Germany, since
the year 1652, many visitations of miliary fever; but this disease did
not increase much in extent until about the year 1715, when it spread
into France and the neighbouring countries, particularly Piedmont[855],
whilst England remained almost entirely free from it. The French
epidemics were, upon the whole, much more severe than the German; and
on this account we select one of the most ancient, and also the most
recent of them, in order to give a general view of miliary fever, as
compared with the English Sweating Sickness.

The miliary fever first appeared in Picardy, in the year 1718, in le
Vimeux (Vinnemacus pagus), a district on the north of the Somme and
on the south of the Bresle and the department of the Lower Seine. It
increased annually in extent; most places in Picardy were visited by
it, and it was not long before it was seen in Flanders[856].

We are still in possession of a very distinct account, which we will
here detail, of an epidemic at Abbeville in the year 1733, where the
miliary fever had existed fifteen years previously. There were scarcely
any premonitory symptoms, but the disease commenced at once with
pinching pains in the stomach, extreme prostration of strength, dull
headache, and difficulty of breathing, interrupted by sighing. Patients
complained of violent heat, and were bathed in a pungent sweat of foul
odour, while nausea was occasionally felt. Sparks appeared before the
eyes, and _the countenance became flushed_. Patients were tormented
with burning thirst; and yet the tongue was as moist as in perfect
health. The pulse was frequent and undulating, without hardness; and
in the course of _a few hours_, an insufferable itching came on over
the whole body, accompanied by distressing jactitation: upon this,
thickly studded, _red, round pustules_, not bigger than mustard-seeds,
broke out, wherefrom patients emitted an extremely disagreeable urinous
odour, which was imparted to those who were about their persons.
Sometimes they had evacuations, at other times they suffered from
constipation, but all complained of want of sleep; and when they felt
an inclination to doze, they were again aroused by fresh chilliness.
Many bled at the nose till they fainted; and with women, the menstrual
discharge often appeared, though not at the proper time. The urine was
at times deficient in quantity, at others discharged in abundance,
and without any critical signs; if pale and plentiful, it betokened
delirium; then the eyelids twitched convulsively, a humming noise
commenced in the ears, and the patient tossed about restlessly. The
pulse became strong, irregular, and, like the breathing, very quick.
The countenance grew redder and redder; and soon after, the sufferers,
as though struck by lightning, were seized with lethargy, and expired,
generally in the act of coughing and spitting blood.

Such was the nature of the disease when it attacked many at once: there
were, however, several varieties. With some the miliary vesicles broke
out on the _second_ day, with others not before the _third_; and if
all went on favourably, they lost their redness on the _seventh day_,
and _the skin all over the body scaled off like bran_. The fever was
sometimes extremely violent; at others, without apparent cause, very
mild; at least one might be deceived at the commencement of the attack,
by the apparently favourable symptoms; for those who in the morning
had scarcely any notable degree of fever, who neither suffered from
any anxious sensation nor violent heat, in whom no subsultus tendinum
was perceptible, no want of perspiration, nor any retrocession of the
eruption, were sometimes towards evening seized with phrenzy, and died
in a state of lethargy. Evacuations, which alleviate other diseases,
made this miliary fever worse. Favourable symptoms could never be
depended on. In the midst of profuse perspiration the patient died,
either from constipation or diarrhœa. A copious discharge of urine
was a bad sign; composure was succeeded by delirium, cheerfulness by
lethargy: the disease was throughout treacherous and disguised. It
was particularly necessary for those suffering from pleurisy or any
inflammatory fevers to be guarded against its approach. Many fell
sacrifices to this epidemic who thought themselves in a state of
convalescence; and with such it was easier to foretell than to prevent
the consequences. In cases of this kind the miliary vesicles were less
red and grew pale sooner; but if the disease attacked a healthy person,
then they were redder, and continued longer. Of those who recovered,
not a few suffered for many months, nay, even for a whole year, from
night perspirations, without fever or sleeplessness, but with an
eruption of little miliary vesicles, which disappeared[857] again on
the slightest exposure to cold. The later miliary epidemic fevers in
France, which are distinguished by the name of the Picardy Sweating
Sickness, are generally very well described[858]; so much so, that we
have few epidemics of modern times whose course and succession we can
trace so well. But the epidemic of 1821, which raged in the departments
of the Oise, and of the Seine and Oise, from March to October, has been
observed by all with the greatest care, including men of distinguished
talent[859].

We shall give the description of this disease. There were no constant
premonitory symptoms; it often broke out quite suddenly, but many
complained some days before of debility, despondency, want of appetite,
nausea, headache; sometimes also of giddiness and slight chilliness.
Many retired to rest in health, and awoke during the night with the
disease, covered with a perspiration, which ceased only with death or
recovery. With some the sweating was preceded for some hours, or even
only for some moments, by a scarcely perceptible feverish commotion,
accompanied with burning heat, or with a _sensation of pain_ which ran
through every limb, and nearly always with spasms in the stomach. With
others the disease announced itself by lacerating rheumatic pains,
which gradually increasing, they became bed-ridden. The mouth was
foul, the taste at times bitter, the tongue white, more rarely tinged
with yellow, and thus it remained till the patient was restored. The
sufferer was shortly covered with _a thick, peculiarly fetid sweat_,
that certainly produced alleviation, but became very intolerable to
him from its unpleasant stench, which was even communicated to the
clothes of the bystanders. In the mean time it was discovered by the
pulse, that the fever had considerably abated; but, on the third day,
the patient was seized with convulsive _spasms in the stomach_, great
_oppression at the chest_, and a sensation of suffocation—symptoms
which caused him insupportable anguish. These attacks accompanied by
hiccup and eructation, continued for several hours, and returned from
time to time, an eruption, partly papular, simultaneously breaking out
first on the neck, then on the shoulders down to the hands and breast,
less frequently on the thighs and face. The little pimples were of a
pale red colour and conical, with glistening heads, and between them
appeared innumerable small miliary pustules, filled with transparent
serous fluid, which soon thickened and assumed a whiter hue. At the
time and previous to the breaking out of the exanthem, the patient
experienced a very severe _burning and pricking sensation in the skin_,
which nevertheless sometimes occurred on the second or fourth day, and
which increased sometimes in one part, sometimes in another, when the
sweating declined.

Towards the fifth day, however, after the sweating had entirely ceased,
the complaint grew worse again. The spasms and paroxysms of suffocation
returned, and they were succeeded by renewed eruptions of the exanthem;
a decided improvement, however, shortly took place; the little pimples
lost their redness, the miliary vesicles dried away, and at a period
from the seventh to the tenth day recovery commenced under _a general
exfoliation of the cuticle_. Sometimes the eruption did not appear,
whether the patients were under medical treatment, or left to their own
guidance, but with those few in whom there was an absence of miliary
vesicles, that peculiar pricking and itching of the skin did not take
place.

Between the fifth and seventh day the patients usually complained of
great weakness, and had a desire to eat. A few tablespoonfuls of wine
then agreed with them very well; for the rest, neither thirst nor
lethargy was observable, but it was particularly remarkable that the
urine was clear and abundant. Up to the seventh day a confined state
of bowels was usual, and, with the exception of the already mentioned
attacks of tightness and oppression, the breathing remained free,
though with great sleeplessness, during the whole malady. Nothing
morbid was to be observed in the chest, and the patients lay stretched
out at full length, so that there was no occasion at any time to raise
their heads.

Such was the regular course of this miliary fever, but its progress
was often accelerated by very dangerous symptoms, and occasionally it
proved fatal within a very few hours. If at the time of the attack the
patients were very restless and talkative, the eyes glistening, the
pulse, without being hard, tumultuous, and the edges of the tongue
reddened, delirium soon succeeded and then convulsions and death.
Great depression of the spirits was a very bad symptom; bleeding was
never of any avail, yet the menstrual discharge did not interrupt
the course of the disease. There was in general a great degree of
malignancy perceptible in the malady, as was also rendered apparent
by the course of the epidemic. If the miliary Sweating Fever broke out
in a fresh place, two or three persons only were thereupon attacked,
and that favourably, which led to a supposition that the evil had all
passed away, for during the next fifteen or twenty days, not any fresh
attacks were heard of. Suddenly, however, the epidemic reappeared
with increased virulence. The great number of the sufferers spread
consternation and terror amongst the inhabitants, and the cases of
death became frequent. After this first burst of fury, the epidemic
grew more mild again, so that many patients were not confined to
their beds at all. This mitigation of the miliary fever was likewise
manifested[860] by the prolongation of its course beyond the seventh
day.

If we compare this epidemic with the one observed at Abbeville in 1773,
we shall find between them but very trifling differences, which would
appear still more clearly in some of the intermediate visitations,
thus conforming to what has been observed in other eruptive maladies.
It is consequently evident that the miliary fevers[861] which have
appeared in France in recent times, do not differ in any essential
point from those of more ancient date. The surest proof of their
identity is, their persistence for nearly two centuries; and from the
manner in which they have presented themselves to observation, they
are to be considered as distinct from the English Sweating Sickness,
though certainly allied to it. It would exceed our limits to pursue
this inquiry further, but it may be as well to give the following short
catalogue[862] of the most important miliary epidemics.

  1652. Leipzig.
  1660. Augsburg.
  1666. Bavaria.
  1672. Hungary.
  1675. Hamburgh.
  1680. Germany to a great extent.
  1689. Philippsburg.
  1690. Stuttgard.
        Düsseldorf.
        Erfurt.
        Jena.
  1694. Berlin.
  1700. Breslau.
  1709. Dantzic, Marienburg.
  1712. Mümpelgart.
  1713. Saint Valery. (Somme.)
  1714, 15. Laybach.
  1715. Breslau.
        Turin.
  1718. Tübingen.
        Abbeville. (Somme.)
  1720. Canton de Bray. (Lower Seine.)
  1723. Francfort on the Maine.
  1724. Turin.
        Vercelli.
  1726. Acqui.
        Guise. (Aisne.)
  1728. Chambéry, Annecy, St. Jean de Maurienne. (Savoy.)
        Carmagnola.
        Vercelli.
        Ivrea.
        Biella.
  1729. Vienna. (Austria.)
  1730. Pignerol.
  1731. Fossano.
  1732. Nizza.
        Rivoli.
  1733. Fossano.
        Asti.
        Lanti.
        Acqui.
        Basle.
        Silesia.
  1734. Strasburg. (Lower Rhine.)
        Acqui.
        Lanti.
  1735. Trino.
        Lanti.
        Fresneuse. (Lower Seine.)
        Vimeux. (Seine et Oise.)
        Orleans. (Loiret.)
        Pluviers. (Loiret.)
        Meaux. Villeneuve.
        Saint George. (Seine et Marne.)
        Bohemia.
        Denmark.
        Sweden.
        Russia.
  1738. Luzarches, Royaumont. (Seine et Oise.)
        Susa.
        Crescentino.
  1740. Caen. (Calvados.)
        Provins. (Seine et Marne.)
        Vire. (Calvados.)
        Berthonville. (Eure.)
        Falaise. (Calvados.)
  1741. Rouen. (Lower Seine.)
        Tartana.
        Valencia.
        Alexandria.
        London.
  1742. Caudebec. (Lower Seine.)
        Ceva.
        Turin.
        Sorillano.
        Alba.
        Ivrea.
        Cherasco.
        Fossano.
  1743. Villafranca.
  1744. Acqui.
  1746. Zurich.
  1747. Paris. (Seine.)
        Beaumont. (Seine et Oise.)
        Chambly. (Oise.)
        Modena.
        Lodi.
        Mantua.
        Piacenza.
  1750. Schaffhausen.
        Bern.
        Geneva.
        Beauvais. (Oise.)
  1751. Villafranca.
  1752. Fernaise. (Seine et Oise.)
  1753. Susa.
  1754. Valepuiseux. (Seine et Oise.)
  1755. Novara.
  1756. Cusset. (Allier.)
        Boulogne. (Pas de Calais.)
  1757. Montaigu les Combrailles. (Puy de Dôme.)
  1758. Amiens, environs. (Somme.)
  1759. Paris. (Seine.)
        Guise. (Aisne.)
        Caudebec. (Lower Seine.)
  1760. Alençon. (Orne.)
  1763. Vire. (Calvados.)
  1763, 64. Bayeux. (Calvados.)
  1765. Balleroy, Basoques. (Calvados.)
        Saint-George, Saint-Quentin. (Calvados.)
  1766. Campagny. (Calvados.)
  1767. Thinchebray, Truttemer. (Orne.)
  1768, 69. St. Quentin. (Aisne.)
  1770. Louviers. (Eure.)
  1771. Montargis. (Loiret.)
  1772. Hardivilliers, environs.
  1773. Hardivilliers. (Oise.)
  1776. Laigle. (Orne.)
  1777. Jouy. (Seine et Oise.)
  1782. Castelnaudary. (Aude.)
        Boissy Saint-Léger. (Seine et Oise.)
  1783. Beaumont. (Seine et Oise.)
  1791. Méru. (Oise.)
  1810. Nourare, Villotran. (Oise.)
  1812. Rosheim, and many other places. (Lower Rhine.)
  1821. La Chapelle, Saint-Pierre and sixty places around. (Oise; Seine
          et Oise.)


              SECT. 3.—THE ROETTINGEN SWEATING SICKNESS.

We now come to a phenomenon which, notwithstanding its short duration
and very limited extension, is one of the most memorable of this
century. Up to the present time, its real importance has not been
recognised, because the clouds of self-sufficient ignorance have
prevented our taking a survey of the formation of diseases, throughout
long periods of time. It has been sunk for an age in the sea of
oblivion, from whence we will now draw it forth to the light of day.

In November, 1802, a very hot and dry summer had been succeeded by
incessant rain. Thick fogs spread over the country, and enveloped such
places in central Germany as were inaccessible to ventilation. Amongst
others, the small Franconian town of Roettingen, situated on the river
Tauber, and surrounded by mountains[863]. Scarcely had a few weeks
elapsed, when unexpectedly, towards the 25th of November, an extremely
fatal disease broke out in the town, which was without example in the
memory of its inhabitants, and totally unknown to the physicians of the
country.

Strong vigorous young men were suddenly seized with _unspeakable
dread_; the heart became _agitated_ and _beat violently against_ the
ribs, a _profuse, sour, ill-smelling perspiration_ broke out over
the whole body, and at the same time, they experienced a _lacerating
pain_ in the nape of the neck, as if a violent rheumatic fever had
taken possession of the tendinous tissues. This pain ceased sometimes
very quickly, and if it then shifted to the chest, the distressing
palpitation of the heart recommenced; a spasmodic trembling of the
whole body ensued; the sufferers fainted, their limbs became rigid,
and thus they breathed their last. _In most cases, all this occurred
within four and twenty hours._ They did not all, however, succumb under
the first attack, but as soon as the accelerated pulse had sunk to the
lowest ebb of smallness and feebleness, a corresponding effect being
observable in the respiration, the violent pain would in some cases
return to the outward parts. The patient then felt a benumbing pressure
and stiffness in the nape of the neck; and the pulse and respiration
became restored again as in health, but the perspiration continued to
pour incessantly down the skin.

This apparent safety was, however, very deceptive, for a renewed
palpitation of the heart unexpectedly commenced, accompanied by a
feeble pulse; and then death was often inevitable. It was remarkable,
that the patients, though bathed in perspiration, had very little
thirst, and the tongue was not dry, nor ever even foul, but retained
its natural moisture. With most, however, the urine was scanty; as
the skin, under the increasing debility, permitted too much fluid to
stream forth through its pores. _If the disease passed off without
heating sudorifics, then in general no eruption made its appearance._
The malady then continued till the sixth day, but on the first only,
did it display its malignant symptoms, for by the second, the sweating
diminished and lost every unfavourable quality, so that increased
transpiration of the skin, without any other symptoms of importance,
alone remained, and on the sixth day the patient was perfectly
restored.

Had there been in Roettingen a physician at hand from the commencement,
_well skilled in medical history_, and who would have adopted the old
English treatment of the Sweating Sickness, this new fever would have
appeared but as a perfectly mild disease, and would certainly have
carried off but few of the inhabitants of this peaceful little town.
As it was, however, the scenes of Lübeck and Zwickau were renewed,
and it seemed as if the innumerable victims to the hot treatment, and
to _Kegeler’s_ truculent medical work, had descended to the grave in
vain. _The sufferers were, as in the sixteenth century, literally
stewed to death!_ for the moment the people imagined that they knew
how nature meant to escape, they ordered feather-beds to be heaped
on the perspiring patient, so that the mouth and nose alone remained
uncovered. Doors and windows were tightly closed, and the stove emitted
a glowing heat, whilst a most intolerable odour of perspiration
streamed forth from beneath the broad and lofty beds; added to which,
that two and even more patients were often lying in the same room;
nay, even stowed together under the same mountain of feathers, and in
order that inward heat might not be wanting, pots of theriaca were
swallowed, and the patient was incessantly plied with elder electuary.
Thus the bad humours were expelled together with the perspiration;
and whether the sufferers were suffocated, or surmounted, as by a
miracle, this mal-treatment of nature, a conviction was felt, that the
most salutary remedies had been employed, and when at last, eruptions
of various colours broke out, it was considered as certain, that the
poison had been carried off in them. The citizens of Roettingen,
therefore, fell into the same erroneous opinion, which, upheld by
medical schools, had, time immemorial, increased inflammatory diseases,
particularly the exanthematous, and caused them to become malignant.
The above-mentioned eruptions were of various sorts; miliary vesicles
of every form and colour, filled with an acrid fluid; actual blistery
eruptions, (pemphigus,) and even petechiæ; and it is to be observed,
that the patients, during the first days of the sweating fever, never
suffered from that peculiar pricking sensation over the whole body,
which precedes the eruption of miliaria, but complained only, and that
not always, of a local itching, where the eruption had broken out. It
was equally rare to observe a regular desquamation of the skin, and it
is therefore to be assumed, that _the eruptions were only symptomatic_,
and not by any means necessarily connected with the disease, as in the
decidedly miliary fevers.

The disease excited, from its very commencement, the greatest
consternation; and as it was increased, even from the first days of
its appearance, by the sudorific system of treatment, deaths were
multiplied; the continual peal of funeral bells struck mortal terror,
as of old at Shrewsbury, into the hearts of both sick and healthy; and
this oppressed little town was shunned as a pesthole by the inhabitants
of the surrounding neighbourhood. At the commencement of the disease,
they were entirely without medical advice, till a skilful physician
arrived from the vicinity[864], and as _most of the inhabitants_ were
already attacked with the sweating fever, he immediately prescribed
the proper treatment. But the powers of one man are not sufficient,
amid such confusion, to contend with the deeply rooted prejudices of
the people, and so they continued in most houses to expel by heat and
theriaca both perspiration and life together; till at last, on the
third of December, _Dr. Sinner_ of Würzburg arrived, without whom the
remembrance of this remarkable disease would have been obliterated, and
conjointly with his gallant colleague, like the anonymous physician
formerly in Zwickau, subdued the destructive prejudices of the people.
He found eighty-four patients[865] under piles of feather-beds, who,
when pure air was admitted, breathed once more freely, and by a prudent
cooling system, all recovered easily, and without danger, one only
excepted. His method reminds us of the old English treatment[866].
The disease was confined entirely to Roettingen, it did not make its
appearance anywhere beyond the gates of this little town. On the fifth
of December, however, clear, frosty weather set in; from that time no
new cases occurred, and all traces of this Roettingen sweating fever,
which was never either preceded or followed by miliary fever in any
part of Franconia, have from that time disappeared.

The resemblance of this fever to the English Sweating Sickness is
manifest, and is proved even by the short (_only ten days’_) duration
of the visitation, which, as we have stated, is a most essential
characteristic of the English sweating epidemic, at least as it
appeared in Germany, the miliary epidemics always having lasted a much
longer period. But if we confine ourselves merely to the symptoms of
the disease, we shall find, that in the Roettingen sweating fever,
there are, throughout, none that can be considered essential, except
the _palpitation of the heart, accompanied with anguish_, the _profuse
perspiration_, and the _rheumatic pains in the nape of the neck_,
which never were wanting in any case; and the very same symptoms are
clearly and perceptibly to be discerned in like proportion as compared
with others, in the representation of the English Sweating Sickness;
whereas, the eruptions were altogether as unessential as in the
epidemic of the sixteenth century. The irritability of the skin, and
tendency to dangerous metastases, were less marked in the Roettingen
fever than in the English Sweating Sickness; for the patients could,
without injury, change their linen in the midst of the perspiration,
which, in the English Sweating Sickness, could not have been done
without fatal consequences; but this difference can easily be accounted
for, from the greater degree of suffering in the latter disease than in
the former. It only now remains to examine the duration of the disease,
and here we plainly perceive that the principal paroxysm was over in
the Roettingen epidemic within the first four and twenty hours, at
least when it was undisturbed by treatment; and the sole symptom which
continued until the sixth day—the increased perspiration, (we speak
here only of perfectly pure cases,) could only reasonably be regarded
as a sequela. The crisis did not occur all on a sudden, as in the
English Sweating Sickness, but this cannot constitute any essential
difference.

We do not hesitate, therefore, to pronounce _the Roettingen fever to
have been the same disease as the English Sweating Sickness_. To give,
however, this phenomenon its proper interpretation—to have a clear
conception of the causes which again drew down from the clouds, into
the midst of Germany, this mist-born spectre of 1529, and allowed it
to expend its brief fury upon a single place, is beyond the power
of human wisdom. Science is not comprehensive enough to discover, in
the crossings of these unknown comet-paths, the moving causes of this
visitation of disease. But as all insight into the works of nature must
be preceded by a strict investigation and search after phenomena in all
countries, at all times, and under all circumstances of development, so
an improved knowledge of diseases and of the whole human system, will
not fail to follow, when the investigations of epidemics throughout
extensive periods have increased in number and success.

_The present age demands such a knowledge of medical men, whose
vocation it is to investigate life minutely in all its bearings. It
demands of them an historical pathology, and to this branch of the
study of nature is the present work intended to contribute._




                         CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY.

        POLITICAL EVENTS.             FIRST VISITATION OF THE SWEATING
                                                  SICKNESS.

  1461–1483. Louis XI.                1472–1482. Swarms of locusts
  1485–1509. Henry VII.                 in the south of Europe.
  1493–1519. Maximilian I.            1480–1485. Wet years.
    Mercenary troops are introduced.  1483. Overflow of the Severn,
                                        (the _great water_ of the Duke
  1483–1498. Charles VIII.              of Buckingham.)
  1483–1485. Richard III.             1480 and 1481. Famine in
  1483, October. First abortive         Germany and France.
    attempt of the Earl of Richmond,  1477–1485. Glandular plague
    (who had fled to France             in Italy.
    in 1471,) against Richard III.    1480, 1481. Encephalitis in
    The Duke of Buckingham              Germany.
    executed.                         1482. Febrile cerebritis in
  1485. Richmond obtains support        France, and epidemic pleuritis
    from Charles VIII.                  in Italy.
  1485, 25th July. Richmond’s         1483. Glandular plague in
    departure from Havre.               Spain.
  1485, 1st August. Landing at        1484 and 1485. Malignant fever
    Milford Haven.                      in Germany and Switzerland.
  1485. From the 1st to the 22d         Plague in Spain.
    of August, march from Milford     1485. _In the beginning of August:_
    Haven to Lichfield and              _eruption of the English_
    Bosworth.                           _Sweating Sickness, probably_
  1485, 22d August. The battle          _amongst Richmond’s_
    of Bosworth. Richard III.           _mercenary troops. It spread_
    falls. The Earl of Richmond         _from west to east, and then_
    becomes king, under                 _in a contrary direction._
    the name of Henry VII.            1485. _The end of August, in_
                                        _Oxford._
  1485, 28th August. Henry’s          1485. _21st September till the_
    entry into London.                  _early part of October, in_
  1485, 30th October. Henry’s           _London._
    coronation.                       1485. _The middle of November,_
  1481–1492. The wars of Ferdinand      _in Croyland._
    the Catholic, against             1486. _1st January. Termination_
    the Saracens.                       _of the first epidemic_
  1495. Useless war for the             _Sweating Sickness._
    succession of Charles VIII.       1486. Epidemic scurvy in Germany.
    against Alfonso II., (who died      Plague in Spain.
    in 1495,) and Ferdinand II.       1488–1490. Plague in Spain.
    of Naples. The conquest of        1490. First eruption of petechial
    the kingdom was again               fever in Granada, in the
    immediately relinquished.           army of Ferdinand the Catholic.
                                      1495. Eruption of the syphilitic
                                        pestilence at Naples,
                                        among the mercenary army
                                        of Charles VIII.
                                      1499. Great plague in London.

                                            SECOND VISITATION.

  1485–1509. Henry VII.               1500–1503. Mould-spots (signacula)
  1501. His eldest son, Arthur,         in Germany and France.
    marries Catherine of Arragon,
    daughter of Ferdinand             1500. Comet.
    the Catholic.                     1500. Mortality among cattle
  1502. Prince Arthur dies.             in Germany.
    Prince Henry (VIII.), second      1502. Very extensive destruction
    son of Henry VII., is affianced     of cultivation in Germany
    to Catherine of Arragon.            by blights of caterpillars.
    The internal condition of England 1503. Glandular plague, and
    is altered by Henry VII.            destructive epidemics in
    The towns begin to rise             Germany and France.
    importance, and the sciences      1504. Plague in Spain.
    to become diffused. A rigorous    1504 and 1505. Encephalitis,
    and unjust financial                putrid fever, and malignant
    system.                             pneumonia in Germany.
  1498–1515. Louis XII.               1505. Plague in Portugal.
  1501. conquers Naples in            1505. First epidemic petechial
    conjunction with the Spaniards,     fever in Italy. The morbid
    and is by them                      activity of the organism
  1504. expelled thence. He             shewed a decided determination
    establishes his power in            towards the skin during
    Upper Italy.                        all this period.
  1511. Pope Julius II. (1503–1513)   1505. Moist summer. Lamentable
    forms the sacred league             moral state of England.
    against France, into which        1506. _The summer: the Sweating_
    enters likewise, in 1512,           _Sickness breaks out in_
    Henry VIII. The French              _London, and continues to a_
    lose their power in Italy.          _moderate extent, being confined_
  1504. Isabella of Castile dies.       _to England, until the_
    Philip I. of Austria, her           _autumn. This second visitation_
    daughter Johanna’s husband,         _is the mildest of all, and_
    succeeds her, his son,              _the old English method of_
    Charles V., having been born        _treatment proves effectual_
    in 1500.                            _everywhere._
  1506. Philip I. dies.               1506–1508. Pestilential epidemics
  1516. Ferdinand the Catholic          in Spain.
    dies.                             1508. Swarms of locusts in
                                        Spain.

                                             THIRD VISITATION.

  1509–1547. Henry VIII.              1515. Pestilential epidemics in
  1515–1547. Francis I. immediately     Spain.
    attacks Milan again,              1516. Comet.
    and conquers.                     1517. Unproductive, but not
  1515. the Swiss, in the battle        moist summer.
    of Marignano. Keeps possession    1510. Great influenza (Coqueluche)
    of Milan, and establishes           throughout France,
    the French dominion in Italy        and probably to a still further
    until the year 1522.                extent. Plague in the north
  1516. Cardinal Wolsey changes         of Europe.
    the policy of England in favour   1517. In the early months epidemic
    of Francis I.,                      trachæitis and œsophagitis
  1520. then of Charles V.              (diphtheritis) in Holland,
  1513–1522. Leo X., against            lasting only eleven days.
    France. Promotes, by a new          This epidemic extends towards
    bull of indulgences, the outbreak   the south, and appears
    of the Reformation.                 in the same summer at
  1517. 31st of October, Luther         Bâsle.
    commences the Reformation.        1517. On the 16th June, earthquake
  1519. 12th January, the Emperor       in Swabia (and Spain).
    Maximilian I. dies.               1517. Encephalitis and other
  1519–1556. Charles V.                 inflammatory fevers in Germany.
  1521. Imperial diet at Worms.       1517 _In July, outbreak in_
  1517. May: Insurrections of           _London of the third visitation_
    the operatives in London.           _of epidemic sweating sickness;_
  1517. In the autumn and winter,       _it spreads with great_
    Henry VIII. frequently              _malignity all over England,_
    changes the residence of his        _and among the English at_
    Court in consequence of the         _Calais; in the sixth week_
    Sweating Sickness and the           _it attains its greatest_
    Plague.                             _violence, and terminates in_
  1518. 11th February, Queen            _December. Ammonius, of Lucca,_
    Mary is born.                       _and many distinguished and_
  1518. The College of Physicians       _learned persons in Oxford_
    in London is founded                _and Cambridge are carried_
    by Linacre.                         _off by it._
  1521. Henry VIII. opposes           1517. In December, immediately
    Luther, and obtains the title       after the Sweating Sickness,
    of “Defender of the Faith.”         a plague occurs in
    (_Thomas More._)                      England and lasts all the
                                        winter.
                                      1517. Small-pox breaks out in
                                        Hispaniola.

                                            FOURTH VISITATION.

  1524. October, Francis I.           1524. Great plague at Milan,
    passes Mont Cenis, and is         1527. Inundations in Upper
  1525. beaten at Pavia and captured.   Italy.
  1526. 14th January. Peace of        1527. 11th August, a comet.
    Madrid.                           1527. Plague in the imperial
  1526. Clement VII. (1523–1534)        army in Italy, after the sacking
    becomes the head of                 of Rome; and in Wittenberg.
    the Holy League against the       1528–1534. Years of famine,
    Emperor.                            with a prevalence of moisture
  1527. 6th May. Rome is vanquished     and heat.
    by the imperial army              1528. Repeated inundations.
    and sacked.                         Continual south winds and
  1528. A French army, under            summer fogs in Italy. Second
    Lautrec, conquers the greatest      great epidemic petechial
    part of Italy, and                  fever there.
    commences                         1528. Destruction of the French
  1528. 1st May, the siege of           army before Naples by a
    Naples. Lautrec dies in             pestilential Spotted Fever.
    August.                           1528. Cold spring and moist
  1528. 29th August, the siege of       summer in France.
    Naples is raised. The remains     1528–1532. Warm winters, moist
    of the French army                  summers. Repeated failures
    are made prisoners.                 of harvest, and great famines
  1528. Charles V. challenges           in that country.
    Francis I. to single combat.      1528. The Trousse-galant carries
  1529. 5th August, Francis I.          off a fourth part of the
    concludes the unfavourable          inhabitants of France in this
    peace of Cambray. Termination       and the following years.
    of the French dominion            1528. Wet and mild winter.
    in Italy. The Reformation           Moist summer with fogs.
    in England is                       Failure in crops, and famine
    retarded.                           in England.
  1527. Scruples of Henry VIII.       1528. _At the end of May: outbreak_
    respecting his marriage with        _in London of the Fourth_
    Catherine of Arragon. Various       _epidemic Sweating Sickness._
    negotiations on the subject         _It spreads with great_
    in the following years.             _malignity, and with much_
    Cardinal Wolsey falls into          _disturbance of social life,_
    disgrace. Thomas More becomes       _all over England; carries off_
    chancellor.                         _many distinguished persons,_
  1528. Henry VIII. retires to          _and terminates in the winter._
    Tytynhangar in consequence          _This year it remains confined_
    of the Sweating Sickness.           _to England, and does_
  1532. Separation of the king          _not return in the following_
    from Catherine. Mary is excluded    _year._
    from the government.              1528. Continual south-east
  1533. January, Anna Boleyn            winds. Great drought.
    becomes queen. The Reformation      Swarms of locusts and fiery
    is introduced.                      meteors in the north of
  1535. Thomas More and Fisher          Germany.
    are executed.                     1529. Earthquake in Upper
  1536. Anna Boleyn is executed.        Italy. Sanguineous rain at
    Jane Seymour becomes                Cremona. A comet in July
    queen. Dies 1537.                   and August.
  1537. Anne of Cleves becomes        1529. Mild winter in Germany.
    queen. Separation after six         The spring begins in February.
    months.                             Great moisture
  1541. Catherine Howard, queen,        throughout the summer. General
    and executed one year and           dearth in March. Disease
    six months afterwards.              among the porpoises in
  1544. Catherine, queen.               the Baltic. Unwholesomeness
  1547. 13th December, Henry            of the river fish in the
    VIII. dies.                         north of Germany. Disease
  1521. Plots of the Iconoclasts        among birds. Languor resembling
    in Zwickau and Wittenberg.          syncope in Pomerania.
  1523–1525. Peasant war. On            Frequent suicides
    the 15th May, battle of             in the March. In the middle
    Frankenhausen.                      of June a flood of rain
  1529. Imperial Diet at Spires.        lasting four days (torrent of
  1529. 22d September-16th              St. Vitus) in the south of
    October, the Turks before           Germany. On the 10th of
    Vienna.                             August, a universal tempest.
  1529. 2d October, assemblage          24th of August, and the
    of the Reformers in                 following days great heat.
    Marburg.                          1529. _25th July, outbreak of_
  1530. 25th June, surrender of         _the epidemic Sweating Sickness_
    the Augsburg confession. Severe     _in Hamburgh. Termination_
    decrees against the                 _on the 5th August._
    Protestants.                        _On the 29th July in Lübeck._
  1531. League of the Protestant        _On the 14th August_
    princes at Schmalkalden.            _in Zwickau. About the_
    Continued danger from the           _1st September the English_
    Turks.                              _Sweating Sickness appears_
  1532. Imperial Diet at Nuremberg.     _to spread universally all over_
    The Protestants obtain              _Germany. On the 31st August_
    security.                           _in Stettin; termination_
  1333–1535. Excesses of the            _on the 8th September. On_
    Anabaptists at Münster.             _the 1st September in Dantzic;_
  1536. The Schmalkaldic league         _termination on the 6th_
    is strengthened.                    _September. On the 24th_
  1538. The Catholic States establish   _August in Strasburg. On_
    the sacred league at                _the 5th, 6th and 7th September_
    Nuremberg.                          _in Cologne, Augsburg_
  1540. Paul III. (1534–1550)           _and Francfort on the Maine._
    confirms the order of the Jesuits,  _About the 20th September_
    founded in 1534 by Ignatius         _in Vienna and among the_
    Loyola.                             _besieging Turks. On the_
  1519–1541. Conquest of Mexico,        _27th September in Amsterdam._
    Peru, Chili, &c.                    _Termination on the_
                                        _1st October in Antwerp and_
                                        _the rest of the Netherlands;_
                                        _simultaneously, at the end_
                                        _of September, in Denmark,_
                                        _Sweden and Noway. At_
                                        _the commencement of November_
                                        _a universal cessation_
                                        _of the epidemic Sweating_
                                        _Sickness._
                                      1530. In October, overflow of
                                        the Tiber. Bursting of the
                                        dykes, and sudden inundations
                                        in Holland, which were
                                        repeated in 1532.
                                      1531. 1st of August to 3d
                                        September, the comet of Halley.
                                      1532. From 2d October to 8th
                                        November, and
                                      1533. From the middle of June
                                        to August, comets.
                                      1534. Termination of the years
                                        of scarcity, during which
                                        malignant fevers prevailed
                                        in circumscribed localities
                                        throughout Europe.

                                             FIFTH VISITATION.

  1542. Maurice Duke of Saxony        1538. Epidemic dysentery in
    renounces the league of             France.
    Schmalkalden.                     1540. The hot summer. The
  1542. The imperial army which          forests take fire spontaneously.
    opposes the Turks in Hungary,     1541. Plague in
    under Joachim II. of                Constantinople.
    Brandenburg, is destroyed         1542. Swarms of locusts in the
    by sickness.                        south of Europe, and plague
  1546. The 18th of February,           in Hungary during the war
    Luther dies.                        of the Turks in that kingdom.
  1546. Charles V. takes the field    1543. Plague and petechial
    against the Protestants, proclaims  fever in Germany. Metz.
    the Elector, John Frederick,      1545 and 1546. Trousse-galant
    and Landgrave Philip                in France, of which
    of Hesse, outlaws. Gains            10,000 English die at
  1547. 24th April, the battle of       Boulogne.
    Muhlberg. Raises                  1546. Plague in the Netherlands
  1548. Duke Maurice to the             and France.
    electorate of Saxony, and         1547. Petechial fever in the
    prescribes the _interim_, which     imperial army.
    is not accepted by Magdeburg.     1547–1551. Mould spots and
  1551. Magdeburg declared to           red water in the north of
    be under the imperial ban,          Germany.
    and besieged in vain by the       1549. Caterpillars destroy the
    Saxons.                             herbage, and a mortality occurs
  1552. Henry II. of France             among cattle in Germany.
    (1547–1559), in alliance with       The 21st of September
    the Protestant princes, takes       an aurora borealis.
    Metz, Toul, and Verdun.           1549 and 1550. Malignant fever
  1552. The treaty of Passau            (petechial fever?) in the
    secures to the Protestants          north of Germany.
    equal rights with the             1551. Dry and cold spring;
    Catholics.                          hot and wet summer. Inundations,
  1547–1553. Edward VI. nine            earthquakes, meteors,
    years old. The Duke of              mock suns, great tempests,
    Somerset governs the kingdom        summer fogs.
    as Protector. The Reformation     1551. Malignant fever in Swabia:
    is favoured, and                    plague in Spain.
    makes progress.                     Influenza.
  1553. Mary persecutes the           1551. In the spring, stinking
    and in 1558 loses Protestants,      mists on the banks of the
    Calais.                             Severn.
  1556. Charles V. abdicates, and     1551. _On the 15th of April_
    dies on the 11th of September,      _outbreak of the fifth epidemic_
    1558, in Spain.                     _Sweating Fever in Shrewsbury_
                                        _on the Severn. It gradually_
                                        _spreads with stinking_
                                        _mists all over England, and_
                                        _on the 9th of July reaches_
                                        _London. The mortality is_
                                        _very considerable. Foreigners_
                                        _are unaffected, but Englishmen_
                                        _in foreign countries_
                                        _sicken with the English_
                                        _Sweating Sickness. The epidemic_
                                        _terminates on the 30th_
                                        _of September._
                                      1552 and 1553. Malignant fever
                                        in Germany and Switzerland.




                        CATALOGUE OF WORKS[867]

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                               APPENDIX.




                         A BOKE, OR COUNSEILL
                                AGAINST
                              THE DISEASE
                            COMMONLY CALLED
                             ►THE SWEATE◄,
                                  OR
                         ►SWEATYNG SICKNESSE◄.

                          MADE BY JHON CAIUS
                         DOCTOUR IN PHISICKE.

             UERY NECESSARY FOR EUERYE PERSONNE, AND MUCHE
                REQUISITE TO BE HAD IN THE HANDES OF AL
                 SORTES, FOR THEIR BETTER INSTRUCTION,
                   PREPARACION AND DEFENCE, AGAINST
                   THE SOUBDEIN COMYNG, AND FEARFUL
                        ASSAULTING OF THE SAME
                               DISEASE.

                                 1552.


                       TO THE RIGHTE HONOURABLE

                      WILLIAM EARLE OF PENBROKE,

                LORDE HARBERT OF CARDIFE, KNIGHT OF THE
                  HONOURABLE ORDRE OF THE GARTER, AND
                    PRESIDENT OF THE KYNGES HIGHNES
                       COUNSEILL IN THE MARCHES
                               OF WALES:

                             ►JHON CAIUS◄

                       WISHETH HELTH AND HONOUR,


In the fereful tyme of the sweate (ryghte honourable) many resorted
vnto me for counseil, among whōe some beinge my frendes & aquaintance,
desired me to write vnto them some litle counseil howe to gouerne
themselues therin: saiyng also that I should do a greate pleasure to
all my frendes and contrimen, if I would deuise at my laisure some
thīg, whiche from tyme to tyme might remaine, wherto men might in such
cases haue a recourse & present refuge at all nedes, as thē they had
none. At whose requeste, at that tyme I wrate diuerse counseiles so
shortly as I could for the present necessite, whiche they bothe vsed
and dyd geue abrode to many others, & further appoynted in my self to
fulfill (for so much as laye in me) the other parte of their honest
request for the time to come. The whiche the better to execute and
brynge to passe, I spared not to go to all those that sente for me,
bothe poore, and riche, day and night. And that not only to do thē that
ease that I could, & to instructe thē for their recouery: but to note
also throughly, the cases and circumstaunces of the disease in diuerse
persons, and to vnderstande the nature and causes of the same fully,
for so much as might be. Therefore as I noted, so I wrate as laisure
then serued, and finished one boke in Englishe, onely for Englishe mē
not lerned, one other in latine for men of lerninge more at large, and
generally for the help of thē which hereafter should haue nede, either
in this or other coūtreis, that they may lerne by our harmes. This I
had thoughte to haue set furth before christmas, & to haue geuē to your
lordshippe at new-yeres tide, but that diuerse other businesses letted
me. Neuertheles that which then coulde not be done cometh not now out
     of season, although it be neuer so simple, so it may do ease
        hereafter, which as I trust this shal, so for good wil
           I geue and dedicate it vnto your good Lordshippe,
            trustyng the same will take this with as good a
               mind, as I geue it to your honour, whiche
                  our Lorde preserue and graunt long
                             to continue.

                    At London the first of Aprill.

                                 1552.




                                  THE
                          BOKE OF JHON CAIUS
                     AGAINST THE SWEATYNG SICKNES.


Man beyng borne not for his owne vse and cōmoditie alone, but also
for the commō benefite of many, (as reason wil and al good authoures
write) he whiche in this world is worthy to lyue, ought al wayes to
haue his hole minde and intente geuen to profite others. Whiche thynge
to shewe in effecte in my selfe, although by fortune some waies I haue
ben letted, yet by that whiche fortune cannot debarre some waies again
I haue declared. For after certein yeres beyng at cambrige, I of the
age of xx. yeres, partly for mine exercise and profe what I coulde do,
but chefely for certein of my very frēdes, dyd translate out of Latine
into Englishe certein workes, hauyng nothynge els so good to gratifie
theim w^t. Wherof one of _S. Chrysostome de modo orandi deum_, that
is, of y^e manner to praye to god, I sent to one my frende then beyng
in the courte. One other, a woorke of _Erasmus de vera theologia_,
the true and redy waye to reade the scripture, I dyd geue to Maister
Augustine Stiwarde Alderman of Norwiche, not in the ful as the authore
made it, but abbreuiate for his only purpose to whome I sent it, Leuyng
out many subtile thinges, made rather for great & learned diuines, thē
for others. The thirde was the paraphrase of the same Erasmus vpon the
Epistle of S. Jude, whiche I translated at the requeste of one other my
deare frende.

These I did in Englishe the rather because at that tyme men ware not
so geuen all to Englishe, but that they dyd fauoure & maȳteine good
learning conteined in tongues & sciences, and did also study and apply
diligently the same thē selues. Therfore I thought no hurte done. Sence
y^t tyme diuerse other thynges I haue written, but with entente neuer
more to write in the Englishe tongue, partly because the cōmoditie of
that which is so written, passeth not the compasse of Englande, but
remaineth enclosed within the seas, and partly because I thought that
labours so taken should be halfe loste among them whiche sette not by
learnyng. Thirdly for that I thought it beste to auoide the iudgement
of the multitude, from whome in maters of learnyng a man shalbe forced
to dissente, in disprouyng that whiche they most approue, & approuyng
that whiche they moste disalowe. Fourthly for that the common settyng
furthe and printīg of euery foolishe thyng in englishe, both of
phisicke vnperfectly, and other matters vndiscretly diminishe the grace
of thynges learned set furth in thesame. But chiefely, because I wolde
geue none example or comforte to my countrie men, (whō I wolde to be
now, as here tofore they haue bene, comparable in learnyng to men of
other countries) to stonde onely in the Englishe tongue, but to leaue
the simplicite of thesame, and to procede further in many and diuerse
knoweleges bothe in tongues and sciences at home and in vniuersities,
to the adournyng of the cōmon welthe, better seruice of their kyng, &
great pleasure and commodite of their owne selues, to what kinde of
life so euer they shold applie them. Therfore whatsoeuer sence that
tyme I minded to write, I wrate y^e same either in greke or latine.
As firste of all certein commentaries vpon certein bokes of William
framinghā, maister of art in Cambrige, a man of great witte, memorie,
diligence and learnyng, brought vp in thesame scholes in Englande that
I was, euer frō his beginnyng vntil his death. Of the which bokes,
ij. of _cōtinētia_ (or cōtinence) wer in prose, y^e reste in metre
or verse of diuerse kindes. One a comforte for a blinde mā, entitled
_ad Aemilianum cæcum consolatio_, one other _Ecpyrosis, seu incendiū
sodomorū_, the burnyng of Sodome. The thirde _Laurentius_, expressyng
the tormentes of Saincte Laurence. The fourthe, _Idololatria_,
Idolatrie, not after the trade and veine of scripture (wherein he
was also very well exercised) but conformable to scripture and after
the ciuile and humane learnyng, declaryng them to worshippe _Mars_,
that warre, or fight: _Venus_, that lyue incontinently: _Pluto_, that
folowe riches couetousely; and so forth through all vices vsed in his
time. The fineth boke _Arete_, vertue: the sixth, Epigrāmes, conteined
in two bokes, whiche by an epistle of his owne hand before y^e boke
yet remainyng, he dedicated vnto me, purposyng to haue done many more
prety thynges, but that cruell death preuēted, and toke him away wher
he and I was borne at Norwiche, in the yere of our Lord M.d.xxxvij.
the xxix. daie of September, beynge then of the age of xxv. yeres,
vij. Monethes, and vj. daies, a greate losse of so notable a yonge
man. These workes at his death he willed to comme to my handes, by
which occasion after I had viewed thē, and perceiued them ful of al
kyndes of learnyng, thinkyng thē no workes for all mē to vnderstande
with out helpe, but such as were wel sene in all sortes of authours: I
endeuoured my selfe partely for the helpe of others, & partly for mine
owne exercise, to declare vpon theim the profite of my studie in ciuile
and humane learnynge, and to haue before mine eyes as in a worke (which
was alwaies my delyght) how muche I had profited in the same. Thys so
done, I ioyned euery of my commentaries to euery of hys saied bokes,
faier written by Nicolas Pergate puple to the saied Maister Framyngham,
myndyng after the iudgement of learned men had in thesame, to haue set
theim furthe in prynte, if it had ben so thought good to theim. For
whyche cause, at my departynge into Italie, I put an Epistle before
theym dedicatorye to the right Reuerend father in God Thomas Thirlbye,
now Bishoppe of Norwiche, because thesame maister Framyngham loued
hym aboue others. He after my departure deliuered the bokes to the
reuerende father in god Jhō Skippe, late bishop of Hereforde, then to
D. Thirtle, tutor to the sayd maister framynhā, frō him to syr Richard
Morisine, now ambassadoure for y^e kinges maiestie with thēperour, then
to D. Tailour Deane of Lincolne, and syr Thomas Smithe, secretarie
after to y^e kynges Maiestie, all great learned men. Frō these to
others they wente, among whome the bokes died, (as I suppose,) or els
be closely kept, that after my death they may be setfurthe in the names
of them which now haue thē, as their workes. Howe soeuer it be, wel I
knowe that at my returne out of Italie (after vj. yeres continuance
ther) into Englād, I coulde neuer vnderstand wher they wer, although I
bothe diligently and desirousely sought thē. After these I translated
out of Greke into Latine a litle boke of _Nicephorus_, declarynge howe
a man maye in praiynge confesse hym selfe, which after I dyd geue
vnto Jhō Grome bacheler in arte, a yong man in yeres, but in witte
& learnyng for his tyme, of great expectatiō. That done I beganne a
chronicle of the citie of Norwiche, of the beginninge therof & thinges
done ther frō time to time. The matere wherof yet rude and vndigested
lyeth by me, which at laisure I minde to polishe, and to make an
end of that I haue begunne. And to be shorte, in phisicke diuerse
thynges I haue made & settefurth in print bothe in Greke and Latine,
not mindyng to do other wise, as I haue before said, al my life: For
which cause al these thinges I haue rehersed, els superfluous in this
place. Yet see, meaning now to counseill a litle agaynst the sweatyng
sickenes for helpe also of others, notwithstandyng my former purpose,
two thynges compell me, in writynge therof, to returne agayne to
Englishe, Necessite of the matter, & good wyl to my countrie, frendes,
& acquaintance, whiche here to haue required me, to whome I thinke my
selfe borne.

Necessite, for that this disease is almoste peculiar vnto vs Englishe
men, and not common to all men, folowyng vs, as the shadowe the body,
in all countries, albeit not at al times. Therfore compelled I am to
vse this our Englishe tongue as best to be vnderstande, and moste
nedeful to whome it most foloweth, most behoueth to haue spedy remedie,
and often tymes leaste nyghe to places of succource and comforte at
lerned mennes handes: and leaste nedefull to be setfurthe in other
tongues to be vnderstand generally of all persons, whome it either
haunteth not at all, or els very seldome, as ones in an age. Thinkynge
it also better to write this in Englishe after mine own meanyng,
then to haue it translated out of my Latine by other after their
misunderstandyng.

Good wyll to my countrie frendes and acquaintance, seynge them wyth
out defence yelde vnto it, and it ferefully to inuade thē, furiousely
handle them, spedily oppresse them, vnmercyfully choke them, and that
in no small numbers, and such persons so notably noble in birthe,
goodly conditions, graue sobrietie, singular wisedōe, and great
learnynge, as Henry Duke of Suffolke, and the lorde Charles his
brother, as fewe hath bene sene lyke of their age: an heuy & pitifull
thyng to here or see. So that if by onely learned men in phisicke &
not this waye also it should be holpen, it were nedeful almost halfe
so many learned men to be redy in euery toune and citie, as their
should be sweatynge sicke folkes. Yet this notwithstandynge, I wyll
euery man not to refuse the counseill of the present or nighe physicen
learned, who maie, accordyng to the place, persone, cause, & other
circūstances, geue more particular counseil at nede, but in any wise
exhorte him to seke it with all diligence. To this enterprise also
amonge so many learned men, not a litle stirreth me the gentilnes and
good willes of al sortes of men, which I haue well proued heretofore by
my other former bokes. Mindynge therefore with as good a will to geue
my counseil in this, and trusting for no lesse gentlenes in the same, I
wyll plainly and in English for their better vnderstandynge to whome I
write, firste declare the beginnynge, name, nature, and signes of the
sweatynge sickenes. Next, the causes of the same. And thirdly, how to
preserue men frō it, and remedy them whē they haue it.

_The beginnyng of the disease._—In the yere of our Lorde God
M.CCCC.lxxxv. shortly after the vij. daye of august, at whiche tyme
kynge Henry the seuenth arriued at Milford in walles, out of Fraunce,
and in the firste yere of his reigne, ther chaunced a disease among
the people, lastyng the reste of that monethe & all september, which
for the soubdeine sharpenes and vnwont cruelnes passed the pestilence.
For this commonly geueth iij. or iiij. often vij. sumtyme ix. as that
firste at Athenes whiche _Thucidides_ describeth in his seconde boke,
sumtyme xj. and sumtyme xiiij. dayes respecte, to whome it vexeth.
But that immediatly killed some in opening theire windowes, some in
plaieng with children in their strete dores, some in one hour, many in
two it destroyed, & at the longest, to thē that merilye dined, it gaue
a sorowful Supper. As it founde them so it toke them, some in sleape
some in wake, some in mirthe some in care, some fasting & some ful,
some busy and some idle, and in one house sometyme three sometime fiue,
sometyme seuen sometyme eyght, sometyme more some tyme all, of the
whyche, if the haulfe in euerye Towne escaped, it was thoughte great
fauour. How, or wyth what maner it toke them, with what grieffe, and
accidentes it helde theym, herafter thē I wil declare, whē I shal come
to shewe the signes therof. In the mene space, know that this disease
(because it most did stand in sweating from the beginning vntil the
endyng) was called here, the Sweating sickenesse: and because it firste
beganne in Englande, it was named in other countries, the englishe
sweate. Yet some coniecture that it, or the like, hath bene before
seene among the Grekes in the siege of Troie. In thēperor Octauius
warres at _Cantabria_, called nowe Biscaie, in Hispaine: and in the
Turkes, at the Rhodes. How true that is, let the aucthours loke: how
true thys is, the best of our Chronicles shewith, & of the late begonne
disease the freshe memorie yet confirmeth. But if the name wer now to
be geuen, and at my libertie to make the same: I would of the maner and
space of the disease (by cause the same is no sweat only, as herafter
I will declare, & in the spirites) make the name _Ephemera_, which is
to sai, a feuer of one natural dai. A feuer, for the feruor or burning,
drieth & sweating feure like. Of one naturall day, for that it lasteth
but the time of xxiiij. houres. And for a distinction from the commune
_Ephemera_, that Galene writeth of, comming both of other causes,
and wyth vnlike paines, I wold putte to it either Englishe, for that
it followeth somoche English menne, to whō it is almoste proper, and
also began here: or els pestilent, for that it cōmeth by infection &
putrefaction, otherwise then doth the other _Ephemera_. Whiche thing I
suppose may the better be done, because I se straunge and no english
names both in Latine and Greke by commune vsage taken for Englishe.
As in Latin, Feure, Quotidiā, Tertian, Quartane, Aier, Infection,
Pestilence, Uomite, Person, Reines, Ueines, Peines, Chamere, Numbre,
&c. a litle altered by the commune pronunciation. In Greke, Pleuresie,
Ischiada, Hydrops, Apostema, Phlegma, and Chole: called by the vulgare
pronunciatiō, Schiatica, Dropsie, Impostume, Phleume, & Choler: Gyne
also, and Boutyre, Sciourel, Mouse, Rophe, Phrase, Paraphrase, & cephe,
wherof cometh Chaucers couercephe, in the romant of the Rose, writtē
and pronoūced comōly, kerchief in y^e south, & courchief in the north.
Thereof euery head or principall thing, is comonlye called cephe,
pronoūced & writtē, chief. Uery many other there be in our commune
tongue, whiche here to rehearse were to long. These for an example
shortelye I haue here noted. But for the name of this disease it maketh
now no matter, the name of Sweat beyng cōmōly vsed. Let vs therfore
returne to the thing, which as occasiō & cause serued, came againe in
the M.D.vi. the xxii. yeare of the said Kyng Henry the seuenth. Aftre
that, in the yeare M.D.xvii. the ix. yeare of Kyng Henry the viii,
and endured from July, vnto y^e middest of Decēbre. The iiii tyme, in
the yeare M.D.xxviii. the xx. yeare of thesaied Kyng, beginning in
thende of May, & continuing June and July. The fifth tyme of this
fearful _Ephemera_ of Englande, and pestilent sweat, is this in the
yeare M.D.LI. of oure Lorde GOD, and the fifth yeare of oure Souereigne
Lorde king Edwarde the sixth, beginning at Shrewesbury in the middest
of April, proceadinge with greate mortalitie to Ludlowe, Prestene, and
other places in Wales, then to Westchestre, Couentre, Drenfoorde, and
other tounes in the Southe, and suche as were in and aboute the way
to London, whether it came notablie the seuenth of July, and there
continuing sore, with the losse of vii. C. lxi. from the ix. day vntil
the xvi. daye, besides those that died in the vii. and viii. dayes, of
whō no registre was kept, frō that it abated vntil the xxx. day of the
same, with the losse of C. xlii. more. Then ceassing there, it wente
from thence throughe al the east partes of England into the Northe
vntill the ende of Auguste, at whiche tyme it diminished, and in the
ende of Septembre fully ceassed.

This disease is not a Sweat onely, (as it is thought & called) but a
feuer, as I saied, in the spirites by putrefaction venemous, with a
fight, trauaile, and laboure of nature againste the infection receyued
in the spirites, whervpon by chaunce foloweth a Sweate, or issueth an
humour compelled by nature, as also chanceth in other sicknesses whiche
consiste in humours, when they be in their state, and at the worste
in certein dayes iudicial, aswel by vomites, bledinges, & fluxes, as
by sweates. That this is true, the self sweates do shewe. For as in
vtter businesses, bodies yt sore do labour, by trauail of the same are
forced to sweat, so in inner diseases, the bodies traueiled & labored
by thē, are moued to the like. In which labors, if nature be strōg &
able to thrust out the poisō by sweat (not otherwise letted) ye persō
escapeth: if not, it dieth. That it is a feuer, thus I haue partly
declared, and more wil streight by the notes of the disease, vnder
one shewing also by thesame notes, signes, and short tariance of the
same, that it consisteth in the spirites. First by the peine in the
backe, or shoulder, peine in the extreme partes, as arme, or legge,
with a flusshing, or wind, as it semeth to certeine of the pacientes,
flieng in the same. Secondly by the grief in the liuer and the nigh
stomacke. Thirdely, by the peine in the head, & madnes of the same.
Fourthly by the passion of the hart. For the flusshing or wynde comming
in the vtter and extreame partes, is nothing els but the spirites of
those same gathered together, at the first entring of the euell aire,
agaynste the infection therof, and flyeng thesame from place to place,
for theire owne sauegarde. But at the last infected, they make a
grief where thei be forced, whiche cōmonly is in tharme or legge (the
fartheste partes of theire refuge) the backe or shulder: trieng ther
first a brūt as good souldiers, before they wil let their enemye come
further into theire dominion. The other grefes be therefore in thother
partes aforsaid & sorer, because the spirites be there most plētuous
as in their founteines, whether alwaies thinfection desireth to go.
For frō the liuer, the nigh stomack, braine, and harte, come all the
iij. sortes, and kyndes of spirites, the gouernoures of oure bodies,
as firste spronge there. But from the hart, the liuish spirites. In
putrifieng wherof by the euel aier in bodies fit for it, the harte is
oppressed. Wherupon also foloweth a marueilous heauinesse, (the fifthe
token of this disease,) and a desire to sleape, neuer contented, the
senses in al partes beynge as they were bounde or closed vp, the partes
therfore left heuy, vnliuishe, and dulle. Laste foloweth the shorte
abidinge, a certeine Token of the disease to be in the spirites, as wel
may be proued by the _Ephemera_ that Galene writethe of, whiche because
it consistethe in the Spirites, lasteth but one natural day. For as
fire in hardes or straw, is sone in flambe & sone oute, euen so heate
in the spirites, either by simple distemperature, or by infection and
putrefaction therin conceyued, is sone in flambe & sone out, and soner
for the vehemencye or greatnes of the same, whiche without lingering,
consumeth sone the light matter, contrary to al other diseases restyng
in humoures, wherin a fire ones kindeled, is not so sone put out, no
more then is the same in moiste woode, or fat Sea coles, as well by
the particular Example of the pestilence, (of al others most lyke
vnto this) may be declared, whyche by that it stādeth in euel humors,
tarieth as I said, sometyme, from iiij. vii. ix. & xj. vntill xiiij.
dayes, differentlie from this, by reason therof, albeit by infection
most lyke to this same. Thus vnder one laboure shortelie I haue
declared—both what this disease is, wherein it consisteth, howe and
with what accidentes it grieueth and is differente from the Pestilence,
and the propre signes, and tokens of the same, without the whiche,
if any do sweate, I take theym not to Sweate by this Sickenesse, but
rather by feare, heate of the yeare, many clothes, greate exercise,
affection, excesse in diete, or at the worst, by a smal cause of
infection, and less disposition of the bodi to this sicknes. So that,
insomoche as the body was nat al voide of matter, sweate it did when
infection came: but in that the mattere was not greate, the same coulde
neyther be perilous nor paineful as in others, in whom was greater
cause.

_The causes._—Hetherto I haue shewed the beginning, name, nature, &
signes of this disease: nowe I will declare the causes, which be ij.:
infectiō, & impure spirites in bodies corrupt by repletiō. Infection,
by thaire receiuing euel qualities, distēpring not only y^e hete, but
the hole substāce therof, in putrifieng thesame, and that generally ij.
waies. By the time of the yere vnnatural, & by the nature & site of the
soile & region—wherunto maye be put the particular accidentes of this
same. By the time of the yeare vnnaturall, as if winter be hot & drie,
somer hot and moist: (a fit time for sweates) the spring colde and
drye, the fall hot & moist. To this mai be ioyned the euel disposition
by constellation, whiche hath a great power & dominion in al erthly
thinges. By the site & nature of the soile & regiō, many wayes. First
& specially by euel mistes & exhalatiōs drawen out of the grounde
by the sūne in the heate of the yeare, as chanced amōg the Grekes in
the siege of Troy, wherby died firste dogges & mules, after, mē in
great numbre: & here also in Englād in this m.d.lj. yeare, the cause
of this pestilent sweate, but of dyuers nature. Whiche miste in the
countrie wher it began, was sene flie frō toune to toune, with suche
a stincke in morninges & eueninges, that mē could scarcely abide it.
Thē by dampes out of the earth, as out of Galenes _Barathrū_, or the
poetes _auernū_, or _aornū_, the dampes wherof be such, that thei kil
y^e birdes fliēg ouer them. Of like dampes, I heard in the north coūtry
in cole pits, wherby the laboring mē be straight killed, except before
the houre of coming therof (which thei know by y^e flame of their
cādle) thei auoid the groūd. Thirdly by putrefactiō or rot in groūdes
aftre great flouddes, in carions, & in dead men. After great fluddes,
as happened in y^e time of Gallien thēperor at rome, in _Achaia_ &
_Libia_, wher the seas sodeinly did ouerflow y^e cities nigh to y^t
same. And in the xi. yeare of _Pelagius_, when al the flouddes throughe
al Italye didde rage, but chieflye _Tibris_ at Rome, whiche in many
places was as highe as the walles of the citie.

In cariōs or dead bodies, as fortuned here in Englande vpon the sea
banckes in the tyme of King Alured, or Alfrede; (as some Chroniclers
write) but in the time of king Ethelred after Sabellicus, by occasion
of drowned Locustes cast vp by the Sea, which by a wynde were driuen
oute of Fraunce thether. This locust is a flie in bignes of a mānes
thumbe, in colour broune, in shape somewhat like a greshopper, hauing
vi. fiete, so many wynges, two tiethe, & an hedde like a horse, and
therfore called in Italy _Caualleto_, where ouer y^e city of _Padoa_,
in the yeare m.d.xiij. (as I remembre,) I, with manye more did see a
swarme of theim, whose passage ouer the citie, did laste two hours,
in breadth inestimable to euery man there. Here by example to note
infection by deadde menne in Warres, either in rotting aboue the
ground, as chaunced in Athenes by theim of Ethiopia, or els in beyng
buried ouerly as happened at Bulloigne, in the yere M.D.xlv. the
yeare aftre king Henrye theight had conquered the same, or by long
continuance of an hoste in one place, it is more playne by dayly
experience, then it neadeth to be shewed. Therefore I wil now go to
the fourth especial cause of infectiō, the pent aier, breaking out of
the ground in yearthquakes, as chaunced at Uenice in the first yeare
of _Andrea Dandulo_, then Duke, the xxiiij. day of Januarye, and xx.
hour after their computacion. By which infectiō mani died, & many were
borne before their time. The v. cause is close, & vnstirred aire, &
therfore putrified or corrupt, out of old welles, holes in y^e groūd
made for grain, wherof many I did se in & about _Pesaro_ in Italy, by
openīg thē aftre a great space, as both those coūtrimē do cōfesse, &
also by exāple is declared, for y^e manye in openīg thē vnwarely be
killed. Out of caues, & tōbes also, as chaūced first in the country of
_Babilonia_, proceding aftre into Grece, and so to Rome, by occasion
that y^e souldiers of themperour _Marcus Antoninus_, vpon hope of
money, brake up a golden coffine of _Auidius Cassius_, spiēg a litle
hole therin, in the tēple of _Apollo_ in _Seleucia_, as _Ammianus
Marcellinus_ writeth. To these mai be ioyned the particular causes of
infectiō, which I cal the accidentes of the place, augmenting thesame.
As nigh to dwelling places, merishe & muddy groundes, puddles or
donghilles, sinkes or canales, easing places or carions, deadde ditches
or rotten groundes, close aier in houses or ualleis, with suche like.
Thus muche for the firste cause.

The second cause of this Englyshe _Ephemera_, I said were thimpure
spirites in bodies corupt by repletiō. Repletion I cal here, abundance
of humores euel & maliciouse, from long time by litle & litle gathered
by euel diete, remaining in the bodye, coming either by to moche
meate, or by euel meate in qualitie, as infected frutes, meates of
euel iuse or nutrimēt; or both ioyntly. To such spirites when the aire
infectiue cometh cōsonant, thē be thei distēpered, corrupted, sore
handled; & oppressed, thē nature is forced, & the disease engendred.
But while I doe declare these impure spirites to be one cause, I must
remoue your myndes frō spirites to humours, for that the spirites
be fedde of the finest partes therof, & aftre bringe you againe to
spirites where I toke you. And forsomuche as I haue not yet forgotten
to whome I write, in this declaration I will leaue a part al learned
& subtil reasōs, as here void & vnmiete, & only vse suche as be most
euident to whom I write, & easiest to be vnderstanden of the same:
and at ones therwith shew also why it haūteth vs English men more thē
other nations. Therfore I passe ouer the vngētle sauoure or smell of
the sweate, grosenes, colour, and other qualities of the same, the
quantitie, the daunger in stopping, the maner in coming furthe redily,
or hardly, hot or cold, the notes in the excremētes, the state longer
or sorer, with suche others, which mai be tokēs of corrupt humours &
spirites, & onli wil stād upō iii. reasōs declaring y^e same swet by
gret repletiō to be in vs not otherwise for al the euel aire apt to
this disease, more thē other natiōs. For as hereaftre I wil shew, &
Galē cōfirmeth, our bodies cā not suffre any thīg or hurt by corrupt
& infectiue causes, except ther be in thē a certeī mater prepared apt
& like to receiue it, els if one were sick, al shuld be sick, if in
this countri, in al coūtres wher the infection came, which thīg we
se doth not chāce. For touching the first reasō, we se this sweting
sicknes or pestilēt _Ephemera_, to be oft in Englād, but neuer entreth
Scotland, (except the borders) albeit thei both be ioinctly within
the cōpas of on sea. The same begining here, hath assailed Brabant &
the costes nigh to it, but neuer, passed Germany, where ones it was
in like faciō as here, with great mortalitie, in the yere m.d.xxix.
Cause wherof none other there is naturall, then the euell diet of
these thre contries whiche destroy more meates and drynckes withoute
al ordre, cōueniēt time, reasō, or necessite, thē either Scotlande,
or all other countries vnder the sunne, to the greate annoiance of
their owne bodies and wittes, hinderance of theim which have nede,
and great dearth and scarcitie in their cōmon welthes. Wherfore if
_Esculapius_ the inuentour of phisike, y^e sauer of mē from death, and
restorer to life, should returne again īto this world, he could not
saue these sortes of men, hauing so moche sweatyng stuffe, so many
euill humoures laid vp in store, frō this displeasante, feareful, &
pestilent disease: except thei would learne a new lesson, & folowe a
new trade. For other wise, neither the auoidyng of this countrie (the
seconde reason) nor fleyng into others, (a commune refuge in other
diseases) wyll preserue vs Englishe men, as in this laste sweate is by
experience well proued in Cales, Antwerpe, and other places of Brabant,
wher only our contrimen ware sicke, & none others, except one or ii.
others of thenglishe diete, which is also to be noted. The cause hereof
natural is onely this, that they caried ouer with thē, & by lyke diete
ther incresed that whiche was the cause of their disease. Wherefore
lette vs asserteine our selues, that in what soeuer contrie lyke cause
and matter is, there commyng like aier and cause efficient, wil make
lyke effecte and disease in persōs of agreable complexions, age, and
diete, if the tyme also doe serue to these same, and in none others.
These I putte, for that the tyme of the yere hote, makethe moche to
the malice of the disease, in openynge the pores of the body, lettynge
in the euill aier, resoluynge the humores and makynge them flowable,
and disposing therfore the spirites accordyngly, besyde, that (as I
shewed in the first cause of this pestilente sweate) it stirreth and
draweth out of the erthe euill exhalations and mistes, to thinfection
of the aier and displeasure of vs. Diet I put, for that they of the
contrarie diete be not troubled with it at all. Age and complexion,
for this, that although it spareth nō age of bothe kyndes, nor no
complexion but some it touchethe, yet for the most parte (wherby rules
and reasones be alwayes to be made) it vexed theim of the middle age,
beste luste, and theim not moch vnder that, and of complexions hote &
moiste, as fitteste by their naughty & moche subtiltie of blode to fede
the spirites: or nigh and lyke to thesame in some one of the qualities,
as cholerike in hete, phlegmatike in moister, excepte thother their
qualities, as drinesse in cholerike, & cold in phlegmatike, by great
dominion ouer thother, did lette. For the clene contrarie complexiōs
to the infected aier, alwaies remaine helthful, saulfe and better then
tofore, the corrupte and infected aier notwithstandyng. Therfore cold
and drie persones either it touched not at all, or very fewe, and that
wyth no danger: such I say as beside their complexion, (whiche is so
harde to finde in any man exacte and simple, as exacte helthes) were
annoied with some corrupt humoures & spirites, and therfore mete by so
moch to receiue it, & that by good reasō. For nothing can naturally
haue power to do ought against any thing, excepte the same haue in
it selfe a disposicion by like qualities to receiue it. As the cause
in the fote cānot trouble the flanke and leue the knee (the mean
betwixte) except there were a greater consent and likenes of nature in
sufferance (whiche we call _sympathian_) betwixte those then thother.
Nor fire refusynge stones, canne burne hardes, strawe, stickes and
charcole, oile, waxe, fatte, and seacole, except these same first of
al wer apte, and by conuenient qualities disposed to be enflamed and
burned. Nor any man goeth about to burne water, because the qualities
thereof be contrary, and the body vndisposed to the like of fire. By
whiche reason it may also be perceiued, that y^e venemouse qualitie
of this corrupt aire is hote and moiste, for it redily enfectethe the
lyke complexions, and those nigh vnto theim, and the contrary not
at all, or hardly: & easely doth putrify, as doe the Southe wyndes.
Therfore next vnto those colde and drie cōplexions, olde men escaped
free, as like to theim by age: and children, as voide of replecion
consumed by their great hete, and therefore alwaies redy to eate. But
in this disease the subtile humour euill and abundant in full bodies
fedyng y^e spirites, is more to be noted then the humour complexional,
whiche notwithstanding, as an helper or hinderer to y^e same, is not
to be neglected. For els it should be in all contries and persones
indifferently, wher all complexiones be. The thirde and laste reason
is, y^t they which had thys sweat sore with perille or death, were
either men of welthe, ease, & welfare, or of the poorer sorte such as
wer idle persones, good ale drinkers, and Tauerne haunters. For these,
by y^e great welfare of the one sorte, and large drinkyng of thother,
heped vp in their bodies moche euill matter: by their ease and idlenes,
coulde not waste and consume it. A comfirmacion of this is, that the
laborouse and thinne dieted people, either had it not, because they dyd
eate but litle to make the matter: or with no greate grefe and danger,
because they laboured out moche thereof. Wherefore vpon small cause,
necessarily must folowe a smal effecte. All these reasones go to this
ende, that persones of all contries of moderate and good diete, escape
thys Englishe _Ephemera_, and those be onely vexed therewith, whiche
be of immoderate and euill diete. But why? for the euill humores and
corrupte aier alone? No, for thē the pestilence and not the swet should
rise. For what then? For y^e impure spirites corrupte in theim selues
and by the infectiue aier. Why so? for that of impure and corrupte
humores, whether thei be blode or others, can rise none other then
impure spirites. For euery thynge is suche as that whereof it commeth.
Now, that of the beste and fineste of the blode, yea in corrupte bodies
(whyche beste is nought) these spirites be ingendred and fedde, I
before expressed. Therfor who wyl haue them pure and cleane, and him
selfe free from sweat, muste kepe a pure and cleane diete, and then he
shalbe sure.

_The preseruacion._—Infection by the aier, and impure spirites by
repletion thus founde and declared to be the causes of this pestilente
sweate or Englishe _ephemera_, lette vs nowe see howe we maye preserue
our selues from it, and howe it may be remedied, if it chaunce, wyth
lesse mortalitie. I wyll begynne wyth preseruation. That most of all
dothe stande in auoidyng the causes to come of the disease, the thinges
helping forward the same, and remouyng that whiche is alredy had &
gotten. Al be done by the good order of thynges perteynyng to the
state of the body. Therfore I will begin with diete where I lefte, &
then go furth with aier where I beganne in treatyng the causes, and
declare the waie to auoide infection, and so furthe to the reste in
order. Who that lustethe to lyue in quiete suretie, out of the sodaine
danger of this Englishe _ephemera_, he aboue all thynges, of litle and
good muste eate & spare not, the laste parte wherof wyl please well
(I doubt not) vs Englishe men: the firste I thinke neuer a deale. Yet
it must please theim that entende to lyue without the reche of this
disease. So doyng, they shall easely escape it. For of that is good,
can be engendred no euill: of that is litle, can be gathered no great
store. Therfore helthful must he nedes be and free from this disease,
that vsethe this kinde of liuynge and maner in dietynge. An example
hereof may the wise man _Socrates_ be, which by this sorte of diete
escaped a sore pestilence in Athenes, neuer fleynge ne kepyng close him
selfe from the same. Truly who will lyue accordynge to nature and not
to lust, may with this diete be well contented. For nature is pleased
with a litle, nor seketh other then that the mind voide of cares and
feares may be in quiete merily, and the body voide of grefe, maye be in
life swetly, as _Lucretius_ writeth. Here at large to ronne out vntill
my breth wer spent, as vpon a common place, against y^e intemperāce
or excessiue diete of Englande, thincommodities & displeasures of
the same many waies: and contrarie, in commēdation of meane diete
and temperance (called of _Plato sophrosyne_, for that it cōserneth
wisdome) and the thousande commodities therof, both for helthe, welthe,
witte, and longe life, well I might, & lose my laboure: such be our
Englishe facions rather then reasones. But for that I purpose neither
to wright a longe work but a shorte counseill, nor to wery the reders
with that they luste not to here, I will lette that passe, and moue thē
that desire further to knowe my mynde therin, to remember that I sayd
before, of litle & good eate and spare not, wherby they shall easely
perceiue my meanyng. I therefore go furth with my diete, wherin my
counseill is, that the meates be helthfull, and holsomly kylled, swetly
saued, and wel prepared in rostyng, sethyng, baking, & so furth. The
bred, of swet corne, well leuened, and so baked. The drinke of swete
malte and good water kyndly brued, without other drosse nowe a daies
vsed. No wine in all the tyme of sweatyng, excepte to suche whose
sickenes require it for medicin, for fere of inflamynge & openynge,
nor except y^e halfe be wel soden water. In other tymes, old, pure, &
smal. Wishīg for the better executiō hereof & ouersight of good and
helthsome victalles, ther wer appointed certein masters of helth in
euery citie and toune, as there is in Italie, whiche for the good order
in all thynges, maye be in al places an example. The meates I would to
be veale, muttone, kidde, olde lambe, chikyn, capone, henne, cocke,
pertriche, phesane, felfare, smal birdes, pigeon, yong pecockes, whose
fleshe by a certeine natural & secrete propertie neuer putrefie, as
hath bene proued. Conies, porke of meane age, neither fatte nor leane,
the skynne takē awaye, roste, & eatē colde: Tartes of prunes, gelies
of veale & capone. Yong befe in this case a litle poudered is not to
be dispraised, nor new egges & good milke. Butter in a mornyng with
sage and rewe fastynge in the sweatynge tyme, is a good preseruatiue,
beside that it nourisheth. Crabbes, crauesses, picrel, perche, ruffe,
gogion, lampreis out of grauelly riuers, smeltes, dace, barbell,
gornerd, whityng, soles, flunders, plaice, millers thumbes, minues, w^t
such others, sodde in water & vinegre w^t rosemary, time, sage, & hole
maces, & serued hote. Yea swete salte fishe and linge, for the saltes
sake wastynge y^e humores therof, which in many freshe fishes remaine,
maye be allowed well watered to thē that haue none other, & wel lyke
it. Nor all fishes, no more then al fleshes be so euil as they be takē
for: as is wel declared in physik, & approued by the olde and wise
romaines moche in their fisshes, lusty chartusianes neuer in fleshes,
& helthful poore people more in fishe then fleshe. But we are nowe a
daies so vnwisely fine, and womanly delicate, that we may in no wise
touch a fisshe. The olde manly hardnes, stoute courage, & peinfulnes of
Englande is vtterly driuen awaye, in the stede wherof, men now a daies
receive womanlines, & become nice, not able to withstande a blaste of
wynde, or resiste a poore fishe. And children be so brought vp, that if
they be not all daie by the fire with a toste and butire, and in their
furres, they be streight sicke.

Sauces to metes I appoint firste aboue all thynges good appetite, and
next Oliues, capers, iuse of lemones, Barberies, Pomegranetes, Orenges
and Sorel, veriuse, & vineigre, iuse of vnripe Grapes, thepes or
Goseberies. After mete, quinces, or marmalade, Pomegranates, Orenges
sliced eaten with Suger, Succate of the pilles or barkes therof, and
of pomecitres, olde apples and peres, Prunes, Reisons, Dates & Nuttes.
Figges also, so they be taken before diner, els no frutes of that yere,
nor rawe herbes or rotes in sallattes, for that in suche times they be
suspected to be partakers also of the enfected aire.

Of aire so much I haue spoken before, as apperteinethe to the
declaration of enfection therby. Nowe I wyl aduise and counseill howe
to kepe the same pure, for somoche as may be, or lesse enfected, and
correcte the same corrupte. The first is done in takynge a way y^e
causes of enfectiō. The seconde, by doynge in all pointes the contrary
thereto. Take awaye the causes we maye, in damnyng diches, auoidynge
cariōs, lettyng in open aire, shunning suche euil mistes as before I
spake of, not openynge or sturrynge euill brethynge places, landynge
muddy and rottē groundes, burieng dede bodyes, kepyng canelles cleane,
sinkes & easyng places sweat, remouynge dongehilles, boxe and euil
sauouryng thynges, enhabitynge high & open places, close towarde the
sowthe, shutte toward the winde, as reason wil & thexperience of _M.
varro_ in the pestilēce at _Corcyra_ confirmethe. Correcte in doyng
the contrary we shall, in dryenge the moiste with fyres, either in
houses or chambers, or on that side the cities, townes, & houses,
that lieth toward the infection and wynde commyng together, chefely
in mornynges & eueninges, either by burnyng the stubble in the felde,
or windfallynges in the woodes, or other wise at pleasure. By which
policie skilful _Acron_ deliuered Athenes in _Gretia_, and diuine
_Hippocrates abderā in Thratia_ frō y^e pestilēce, & preserued frō
the same other the cities in _Grece_, at diuerse times cōyng with the
wynde frō _æethiopia_, _illyria_ & _pŒonia_, by putting to the fires
wel smelling garlādes, floures & odoures, as _Galene_ and _Soranus_
write. Of like pollicie for purgyng the aier were the bonfires made
(as I suppose) frō long time hetherto vsed in y^e middes of sommer,
and not onely for vigiles. In cōfortyng the spirites also, and by
alterynge the aier with swete odoures of roses, swet perfumes of the
same, rosemary leaues, baies, and white sanders cutte, afewe cloues
steped in rose water and vinegre rosate, the infection shalbe lesse
noious. With the same you maye also make you a swete house in castynge
it abrode therin, if firste by auoidynge the russhes and duste, you
make the house clene. Haue alwaies in your handcercher for your nose
and mouth, bothe with in your house and without, either the perfume
before saide, or vinegre rosate: and in your mouth a pece either of
setwel, or of the rote of _enula campana_ wel steped before in vinegre
rosate, a mace, or berie of Juniper. In wante of suche perfumes as is
beforesaide, take of mirrhe & drie rose leues of eche a lyke quantite,
with a little franke encense, for the like purpose, and caste it
vpon the coles: or burne Juniper & their beries. And for so moche as
clenelines is a great help to helthe, mine aduise is, that all your
clothes be swete smellynge and clene, and that you wasshe your handes
and face not in warme water, but with rose water and vinegre rosate
colde, or elles with the faire water and vinegre wherein the pilles
or barkes of orenges and pomegranates are sodden: or the pilles of
pomecitres & sorel is boiled: for so you shalle close the pores ayenst
the ayre, that it redily entre not, and cole and tempre those partes so
wasshed, accordynge to the right entente in curynge this disease. For
in al the discurse, preseruatiō, and cure of thys disease, the chefe
marke & purpose is, to minister suche thynges as of their nature haue
the facultie by colyng dryenge and closyng, to resiste putrefaction,
strength and defende the spirites, comforte the harte, and kepe all
the body ayenst the displeasure of the corrupte aire. Wherfor it shal
be wel done, if you take of this cōposition folowyng euery mornyng
the weight of ij. d. in vi. sponefulles of water or iuleppe of Sorel,
& cast it vpon your meate as pepper. ℞ seīs citri. acetos. ros. rub.
sādal. citrin. ān. ʒ i boli armeni oriētal. ʒ i. s, terr. sigil. ʒ s,
margarit. ʒ i, fol. auri puri. n^o. iiij, misce. & f. pul. diuidatur
ad pōd. ʒ s. Or in the stede of this, take fasting the quantitie of a
small bene of _Mithridatum_ or Uenice triacle in a sponeful of Sorel,
or Scabious water, or by the selfe alone. And in goyng abrode, haue
in youre hande either an handekercher with vinegre and rose water, or
a litle muske balle of nutmegges, maces, cloues, saffrō, & cinamome,
of eche the weight of ij. d. finely beatē; of mastike the weight
of ij. d. ob. of storax, v. d. of ladane x. d. of Ambre grise vi.
graines, of Muske iii. graines dissolued in ryght Muscadel: temper
al together, & make a balle. In want of _Mithridatum_ or suche other
as I haue before mencioned, vse dayly the Sirupes of Pomegranates,
Lemones, and Sorell, of eche half an vnce, with asmuche of the watres
of Tormentille, Sorell, and Dragones, fasting in the morning, and one
houre before supper. A toste in vinegre or veriuse of Grapes, with a
litle poulder of Cinamome and Settewelle caste vppon it. Or two figges
with one nutte carnelle, and tenne leaues of rue in eche, and a litle
salt. Or boutire, rue, and sage, with breade in a morning eaten nexte
your harte, be as good preseruatiues, as theie be easye to be hadde.
These preseruatiues I here appoincte the more willingly among many
others further to be fetched, because these maye easelier be hadde, as
at hande in niede, which now to finde is my most endeuour, as moste
fruictfulle to whome I write. And this to be done I counsaille in the
sickenesse tyme, when firste you heare it to be comming and begonne,
but not in the fitte. Alwayes remembryng, not to go out fastinge. For
as _Cornelius Celsus_ wrytethe, Uenime or infection taketh holde muche
soner in a bodye yet fasting, then in the same not fastinge. Yet this
is not so to be vnderstande, that in the mornynge we shal streight as
our clothes be on, stuffe our bellies as fulle as Englishe menne, (as
the Frenche man saieth to our shames,) but to be contente with oure
preseruatiues, or with a little meate bothe at breakefaste (if custome
and nede so require) dynner and supper. For other wise nature, if the
disease shoulde take vs. shoulde haue more a doe againste the full
bealy and fearce disease, then it were able to susteyne.

Aftre diete and ayer followethe filling or emptieng. Of filling in the
name of repletiō I spake before. Of ēptieng, I will now shortely write
as of a thing very necessary for the conseruation of mannes healthe.
For if that whiche is euel within, be not by good meanes & wayes wel
fet oute, it often times destroyeth the lyfe. Good meanes to fet out
the euelle stuffe of the body be two, abstinence, & auoydance.

Abstinence, in eatynge and drinckynge litle, as a lytle before I sayed,
and seldome. For so, more goeth awaie then comethe, and by litle and
litle it wasteth the humours & drieth. Therfore (as I wiene) throughe
the counseil of Phisike, & by the good ciuile, & politique ordres,
tēdring the wealth of many so much geuē to their bellies to their own
hurtes & damages, not able for wāt of reasō to rule thē selues, &
therby enclined to al vices and diseases: for thauoiding of these same,
increase of vertue, witte and health, sauing victualles, making plenty,
auoyding lothesomenesse or wearinesse, by chaunge, in taking sometime
of that in the sea, and not alwaies destroieng y^t of the lande, an
ordre (without the whiche nothing can stand) and comon wealth, dayes of
abstinence, and fasting were firste made, and not for religion onely.

Auoidance, because it cānot be safely done withoute the healpe of a
good Phisicien, I let passe here, expressing howe it shoulde bee done
duelye accordinge to the nature of the disease and the estate of the
personne, in an other booke made by me in Latine, vppon this same
matter and disease. Who therfore lusteth to see more, let him loke
vpon that boke. Yet here thus much wil I say, that if after euacuation
or auoiding of humors, the pores of the skinne remaine close, and y^e
sweating excrement in the fleshe continueth grosse (whiche thinge howe
to know, hereafter I will declare) then rubbe you the person meanly
at home, & bathe him in faire water sodden with Fenel, Chamemil,
Rosemarye, Mallowes, & Lauendre, & last of al, powre water half colde
ouer al his body, and so dry him, & clothe him. Al these be to be don
a litle before y^e end of y^e spring, that the humours may be seatled,
and at rest, before the time of the sweting, whiche cometh comonly
in somer, if it cometh at al. For the tormoiling of the body in that
time when it ought to be most quiete, at rest, and armed against his
enemy, liketh me not beste here, no more then in the pestilence. Yet
for the presente nede, if it be so thoughte good to a learned and
discrete Phisicien, I condescend the rather. For as in thys, so in
alle others before rehearsed, I remytte you to the discretion of a
learned manne in phisike, who maye iudge what is to be done, and how,
according to the present estate of youre bodies, nature, custome, and
proprety, age, strength, delyghte and qualitie, tyme of the yeare, with
other circumstaunces, and thereafter to geue the quantitie, and make
diuersitie of hys medicine. Other wise loke not to receiue by this boke
that good which I entend, but that euel which by your owne foly you
vndiscretelye bring. For good counseil may be abused. And for me to
write of euery particular estate and case, whiche be so manye as there
be menne, were so great almost a busines, as to numbre the sandes in
the sea. Therfore seke you out a good Phisicien, and knowen to haue
skille, and at the leaste be so good to your bodies, as you are to your
hosen or shoes, for the wel making or mending wherof, I doubt not but
you wil diligently searche out who is knowē to be the best hosier or
shoemaker in the place where you dwelle: and flie the vnlearned as a
pestilence in a comune wealth. As simple women, carpenters, pewterers,
brasiers, sopeballesellers, pulters, hostellers, painters, apotecaries
(otherwise then for their drogges,) auaunters thē selues to come from
Pole, Constantinople, Italie, Almaine, Spaine, Fraunce, Grece and
Turkie, Inde, Egipt or Jury: from y^e seruice of Emperoures, kinges &
quienes, promising helpe of al diseases, yea vncurable, with one or
twoo drinckes, by waters sixe monethes in continualle distillinge, by
_Aurum potabile_, or _quintessence_, by drynckes of great and hygh
prices, as though thei were made of the sūne, moone, or sterres,
by blessynges and Blowinges, Hipocriticalle prayenges, and foolysh
smokynges of shirtes Smockes and kerchieffes, wyth suche others theire
phantasies, and mockeryes, meaninge nothinge els but to abuse your
light belieue, and scorne you behind your backes with their medicines
(so filthie, that I am ashamed to name theim) for your single wit and
simple belief, in trusting thē most, whiche you know not at al, and
vnderstād least: like to them whiche thinke, farre foules haue faire
fethers, althoughe thei be neuer so euel fauoured & foule: as thoughe
there coulde not be so conning an Englishman, as a foolish running
stranger, (of others I speake not) or so perfect helth by honest
learning, as by deceiptfull ignorance. For in the erroure of these
vnlerned, reasteth the losse of your honest estimation, diere bloudde,
precious spirites, and swiete lyfe, the thyng of most estimation and
price in this worlde, next vnto the immortal soule.

For consuming of euel matter within, and for making our bodies lustye,
galiard, & helthful, I do not a litle cōmende exercise, whiche in vs
Englishe men I allowe quick, and liuishe: as to runne after houndes
and haukes, to shote, wrastle, play at Tēnes and weapons, tosse the
winde balle, skirmishe at base (an exercise for a gentlemanne, muche
vsed among the Italianes,) and vaughting vpon an horse. Bowling, a
good excercise for women: castinge of the barre and camping, I accompt
rather a laming of legges, then an exercise. Yet I vtterly reproue
theim not, if the hurt may be auoyded. For these a conueniente tyme
is, before meate: due measure, reasonable sweatinge, in al times of
the yeare, sauing in the sweatinge tyme. In the whiche I allow rather
quietnesse then exercise, for opening the body, in suche persons
specially as be liberally & freely brought vp. Others, except sitting
artificers, haue theire exercises by daily labours in their occupatiōs,
to whom nothing niedeth but solace onely, a thing conuenient for euery
bodye that lusteth to liue in helth. For els as nō other thing, so
not healthe canne be longe durable. Thus I speake of solace, that I
meane not Idlenesse, wisshing alwayes no man to be idle, but to be
occupied in some honest kinde of thing necessary in a cōmon welth.
For I accompt thē not worthi meate & drink in a cōmō welth, y^t be
not good for some purpose or seruice therin, but take thē rather as
burdennes vnprofitable and heauye to the yearth, men borne to fille a
numbre only, and wast the frutes whiche therthe doeth grue, willing
soner to fiede the Lacedemonians old & croked asse, whiche labored for
the liuing so long as it coulde for age, then suche an idle Englisshe
manne. If the honestye and profite of honeste labour and exercise,
conseruation of healthe, preseruation from sickenesse, maintenaunce
of lyfe, aduancement, safety from shamefull deathes, defence from
beggerye, dyspleasures by idlenesse, shamefulle diseases by the same,
hatefulle vices, and punishemente of the immortalle soule, canne not
moue vs to reasonable laboure and excercise, and to be profitable
membres of the commune welthe, let at the least shame moue vs, seyng
that other country menne, of nought, by their owne witte, diligence,
labour and actiuitie, can picke oute of a cast bone, a wrethen strawe,
a lyghte fether, or an hard stone, an honeste lyuinge: Nor ye shal
euer heare theym say, alas master, I haue nō occupaciō, I must either
begge or steale. For they can finde other meanes betwene these two.
And forsomuche as in the case that nowe is, miserable persons are
to be relieued in a cōmon welth, I would wisshe for not fauouring
the idle, the discretion of _Marc. Cicero_ the romaine were vsed in
healping them: Who wolde compassion should be shewed vpon them, whome
necessitie compelled to do or make a faute: & no cōpassion vpon them,
in whome a faulte made necessitie. A faulte maketh necessitie, in this
case of begging, in them, whyche might laboure and serue, & wil not
for idlenes: and therfore not to be pitied, but rather to be punished.
Necessitie maketh a fault in thē, whiche wold labor and serue, but
cānot for age, īpotēcy, or sickenes, and therfore to be pitied &
relieued. But to auoyde punishmente & to shew the waye to amendmente,
I would again wishe, y^t forsomuch as we be so euel disposed of our
selfes to our own profites and comodities with out help, this old law
were renued, which forbiddeth the nedy & impotent parentes, to be
releued of those their welthi chyldren, that by theym or theire meanes
were not broughte vppe, eyther in good learning and Science, or honeste
occupation. For so is a man withoute science, as a realme withoute a
kyng. Thus muche of exercise, and for exercise. To the which I wolde
now ioyne honeste companye betwene man and woman, as a parte of natural
exercise, and healpe to y^e emptieng & lightning the bodye in other
tymes allowed, in this sweating tyme for helthes sake, & for feare of
opening the bodye, and resoluing the spirites, not approued, but for
dout, that w^t lengthing the boke, I shold wery y^e reader. Therfore I
let y^t passe & come to sleping & waking, whiche without good ordre,
be gretly hurtful to the bodie. For auoiding the whiche, I take the
meane to be best, and against this sweat moste commendable. But if by
excesse a man must in eyther part offend, I permit rather to watch to
muche, then to lie in bedde to longe: so that in watchinge, there be no
way to surfetting. Al these thinges duely obserued, and well executed,
whiche before I haue for preseruation mencioned, if more ouer we can
sette a parte al affections, as fretting cares & thoughtes, dolefull
or sorowfull imaginations, vaine feares, folysh loues, gnawing hates,
and geue oure selues to lyue quietly, frendlie, & merily one with an
outher, as men were wont to do in the old world, whē this countrie
was called merye Englande, and euery man to medle in his own matters,
thinking theim sufficient, as thei do in Italye, and auoyde malyce and
dissencion, the destruction of commune wealthes, and priuate houses: I
doubte not but we shall preserue oure selues, bothe from this sweatinge
syckenesse, and other diseases also not here purposed to be spoken of.

_The cure or remedy._—But if in leauinge a parte these or some of them,
or negligently executing them, it chaunceth the disease of sweating
to trouble our bodies, then passinge the bondes and compasse of
preseruation, we must come to curation, the way to remedie the disease,
& the third and last parte (as I first sayed) to be entreated in this
boke. The principalle entente herof, is to let out the venime by sweate
accordinge to the course of nature. This is brought to passe safely
two waies, by suffring and seruing handsomly nature, if it thruste it
oute readily and kindely: and helping nature, if it be letted, or be
weake in expellinge. Serue nature we shall, if in what time so euer
it taketh vs, or what so euer estate, we streyghte lay vs downe vppon
oure bedde, yf we be vp and in oure clothes, not takyinge them of:
or lie stille, if we be in bed out of our clothes, laiyng on clothes
both wayes, if we wante, reasonably, and not loadinge vs therewith
vnmeasurably. Thus layed and couered, we must endeuoure our selues so
to continue wyth al quietnes, & for so much as may be without feare,
distruste, or faintehartednesse, an euel thinge in al diseases. For
suche surrendre and geue ouer to the disease without resistence. By
whiche occasion manye more died in the fyrste pestilence at _Athenes_,
that I spake of in the beginnynge of thys boke, then other wyse should.
Oure kepers, friendes and louers, muste also endeuoure theym selues
to be handesome and dilygente aboute vs, to serue vs redilye at al
turnes, and neuer to leaue vs duringe foure and twentie houres, but
to loke welle vnto vs, that neyther we caste of oure clothes, nor
thruste out hande or foote, duryng the space of the saide foure and
twenty houres. For albeit the greate daungere be paste after twelue
houres, or fourtene, the laste of trial, yet many die aftre by to muche
boldenes, when thei thinke theim selues most in suretye, or negligence
in attendaunce, when they thinke no necessitie. Wherby it is proued
that without dout, the handsome diligence, or carelesse negligence, is
the sauing, or casting awaye of many. If ij. be taken in one bed, let
theym so continue, althoughe it be to their vnquietnesse. For feare
wherof, & for the more quietnesse & safetye, very good it is duryng all
the sweating time, that two persones lye not in one bed. If with this
quietnes, diligēce, and ordre, the sicke do kindelye sweate, suffre
them so to continue, without meate all the xxiiij. houres: withoute
drincke, vntil the fifth houre, if it maie be. Alwayes taking hede to
theim in the fourth, seuenth, nineth, & eleuenth houres speciallye, and
fourteenth also, as the laste of triall and daungier, but of lesse in
bothe. For these be most perilous, as I haue obserued this yere in this
disease, hauing y^e houres iudicial, as others haue theire dayes, and
therfore worse to geue anye thinge in, for troublyng nature standyng
in trialle. Yet wher more daunger is in forbearyng then in takyng, I
counseill not to spare in these howres to do as the case requireth with
wisdome & discretion, but lesse then in other howres. In the fifthe
howre geue theim to drinke clarified ale made only doulcet with a litle
suger, out of a cruet, or glasse made in cruet facion, with a nebbe,
for feare of raisynge theim selues to receiue the drinke offered, & so
to let the sweat, by the ayer strikyng in. But if the sicke on this
wise beforesaid cānot sweate kyndly, then nature must be holpen, as I
sayd before. And for so moch as sweat is letted in this disease fower
waies, by disorder, wekenes of nature, closenes of the pores in the
skinne, & grosnes of the humoures: my counseil is to auoide disorder by
suche meanes as hetherto I haue taught, and next to open the pores if
they be close, and make thinne the matter, if it be grosse, and prouoke
sweat, if nature be weke. Those you shal doe by gentle rubbynges,
this by warme drinckes as hereafter streight I will declare. And for
that euery man hath not the knowlege to discerne which of these is
the cause of let in sweatyng, I wil shewe you plainly howe to do with
moste suretie and leste offense. I wyll beginne with wekenes of nature.
Therefore remember well that in treatynge the causes of this disease, I
sayed that this sweate chauncethe cōmonly in theim of the mydde age and
beste luste, the infection hauyng a certein concordance, or conuenience
with the corrupte spirites of theim more then others. Knowe agayne that
nature is weke, ij. waies, either in the selfe, or by the annoiance of
an other. In the selfe, by wante of strength consumed by sicknes or
other wise. By annoiaunce of an other, when nature is so ouerlaid with
the quantitie of euill humours that it can not stirre. Betwene thes two
set youre witte, and se whether the persō be lustye or sickly. If he
be lustye, vnderstande that the sweat doth not stoppe for wekenes of
nature in it selfe. Then of necessitie it must be for some of thother
causes. But for whiche, thus knowe. Consider whether the lusty person
were in foretyme geuen to moche drynkyng, eatyng and rauenyng, to moch
ease, to no exercise or bathinges in his helth, or no. If all these you
finde in him, knowe that bothe nature is wekened by the annoiance of
the humoures, and that the skinne is stopped, and the humoure grosse,
and that for thys the sweate is letted. If you finde onely some of
these, and that rauenynge, annoiance is the cause. If want of exercise
or bathinges, stoppinges of the pores and closenesse, or grosenes of
humours, or bothe, be the cause of not sweatying. On the othersyde, if
the persō be sickely, it is easely knowē that his wekenes consisteth in
nature the self. And for so moche as weke folkes and sicke shal also
by other causes not sweate, consider if in his sickenes he hath swette
moche or no, or hath bē disposed to it and coulde not. If he neither
hath swette, nor coulde sweat disposed, knowe that closenes of the
skinne, and grosenes of the humour is the cause. Therfore euery thing
in his kynde muste be remedied, Wekenes of nature, by drinkes prouokyng
sweate: closenes, & grosenes, by rubbynge, as I said. But be ware
neither to rubbe or geue drinkes, excepte you see cause as beforesayd.
For other wise, the one hindrethe nature, and thother letteth out the
spirites & wasteth y^e strength. Therefore accordyngly, if rubbe you
must, geue to the sicke in to their beddes a newe and somewhat harde
kerchefe, well warmed but not hote, and bydde theim rubbe all their
bodies ouer therewith vnder the clothes, neither to moche neither to
litle, nor to harde or to softe, but meanely betwene, takyng you hede
whiche be aboute them, that by stirrynge their armes they raise not
the clothes to let in the ayer. This done, if case so require, geue
thē a good draught of hote possette ale made of swiete milke turned
with vinegre, in a quarte wherof percely, and sage, of eche haulfe one
litle handfull hath been sodden, wyth iii. sliftes of rosemary, ii.
fenel rootes cutte, and a fewe hole maces. Alwaies remembrynge here,
as in other places of this boke, to heate the herbes in a peuter dishe
before the fyre, or washe theim in hote water, before you putte them
in to the posset ale, and that you putte their to no colde herbes
at any tyme durynge the hole fitte. Or geue theim posset ale hote
with rosemary, dittane, & germander. Or baie beries, anise seades, &
calamintes with claret wine sodden and dronke warme. Or white wine with
hore and wilde tansy growen in medes sodden therin, and ii. d. weight
of good triacle, dronke hote, or in y^e stede of that, wilde tanesy,
mogwort or feuerfue. These prouoke sweat, may easely be hadde, & be
metest for thē which haue al y^e causes beforesayde of lettyng thesame.
But specially if for colde and grose humoures, or for closenes of the
skinne, the sweate commethe not furthe. If with one draught they sweate
not, geue theim one other, or ij. successiuely, after halfe one houre
betwene, and encrease the clothes, first a litle aboue the meane,
after, more or lesse as the cause requireth, & make a litle fire in the
chamber of clene woode, as ashe & oke, with the perfume of bdellium: or
swiet woode, as Juniper, fyrre, or pine, by theimselues: remembrynge
to withdrawe the fire, when they sweat fully, and the clothes aboue
the meane, by litle and litle as you laide theim on, when they firste
complaine of faintyng. And after xii. or xiiii. houres, some also of
the meane, but one after an other by halfe one houre successiuely with
discrecion, alwaies not lokyng so moche to the quantitie of the sweat,
as what the sicke may saufely beare. And in suche case of faintynge,
suffer competent open aier to come into the chamber, if the same and
the wether be hote, for smoderynge the pacient, by suche windowes as
the wynde liethe not in, nor openeth to the south. Put to their noses
to smell vinegre and rose water in an handkercher, not touchynge theim
there with so nighe as maye be. Cause theim to lie on their right side,
and bowe theim selues forward, call theim by their names, and beate
theim with a rosemary braunche, or some other swete like thynge. In the
stede of posset ale, they whiche be troubled with gowtes, dropsies,
reumes, or suche other moiste euill diseases, chauncing to sweat, may
drinke a good draught of the stronger drinke of _Guaiacum_ so hote as
they can, for the lyke effecte, as also others may, not hauynge these
deseases, if it be so redy to theim as the other. After they ones sweat
fully, myne aduise is not to geue any more posset ale, but clarified
ale with suger, duryng the hole fitte, neither vnreasonably, nor so
ofte as they call for it, neither yet pinchyng theym to moche when they
haue nede, alwayes takynge hede not to putte any colde thynge in their
mouthe to cole and moiste them with, nor any colde water, rose water,
or colde vinegre to their face duryng the sweat and one daie after
at the leaste, but alwaies vse warmeth accordynge to nature, neuer
contrariyng thesame so nighe as may be. If they raue or be phrenetike,
putte to their nose thesame odour of rose water & vinegre, to lette the
vapoures from the headde. If they slepe, vse theim as in the case of
faintyng I said, with betyng theim and callynge theim, pullyng theim
by the eares, nose, or here, suffering them in no wise to slepe vntil
suche tyme as they haue no luste to slepe, except to a learned mā in
phisicke the case appere to beare the contrary. For otherwise the
venime in slepe continually runneth inward to y^e hart. The contrary
hereof we muste alwaies intende, in prouokyng it outwarde by all meanes
duryng the fitte, whyche so longe lasteth in burnynge and sweatyng, as
the matter thereof hath any fyrie or apte partes therfore. For as great
& strong wine, ale, or bere, so longe do burne as there is matter in
theim apte to be burned, and then cesse when that whiche remainethe
is come againe to hys firste nature: that is, to suche water clere &
vnsauery, as either the bruer receiued of the riuer, or vine of the
earth: euen so the body so longe continuethe burnynge and sweatynge,
as their is matter apte therefore in the spirites, and then leaueth,
when the corrupcion taken of the finest of the euill blode is consumed,
and the spirites lefte pure and cleane as they were before the tyme of
their corruption.

This done, and the body by sufficient sweate discharged of the venime,
the persone is saulfe. But if he by vnrulines & brekyng his sweate,
sweateth not sufficiently, thē he is in daunger of death by y^t venime
that doth remaine, or at the leaste to sweat ones againe or oftener, as
many hath done, fallynge in thrise, sixe tymes, yea, xii. tymes some.
If sufficiently the sweate be come, you shal know by the lightnes &
cherefulnes of the body, & lanckenes in all partes, by the continuall
sweatyng the hole daie and out of all partes, whyche be the beste and
holsome sweates. The other which come but by tymes and onely in certein
partes, or broken, be not sufficient nor good, but very euill, of
whose insufficiency, ij. notes learne: a swellyng in y^e partes with
a blackenes, & a tinglyng or prickyng in the same. Suche I aduise to
appointe theim selues to sweat againe to ridde their bodies of that
remaineth, & abide it out vntill they fele their bodies lanke & light,
and to moue the sweat as before I said, if thesame come not kyndly
by the selfe. If they cānot forbeare meate during y^e space of their
fitte, and faste out their xxiiij. houres, without danger, geue theim a
litle of an alebrie onely, or of a thinne caudel of an egge sodden with
one hole mace or ij. If they be forced by nature to ease them selues
in the meane time, let them do it rather in warme shetes put into them
closely, then to arise. After they haue thus fully swette, conuey
closely warme clothes into theyre beddes, and bid them wipe themselues
there with in al partes curiouslye: and be ware that no ayer entre into
theire open bodies (and speciallye their arme holes, the openest &
rarest parte therof) to let the issue of that whych doeth remaine. The
lyke may be done in the reste of their fitte, with lyke warenes, for
that clenlinesse comfortethe nature, and relieueth the pacient. If in
duringe oute the foure and twentye houres there be thought daungiere
of death without remouing, rather warme well the other side of the
bedde, and wil hym to remoue himself into it, thē to take him vp &
remoue hym to an other bed, which in no case mai be done. For better
is a doubtful ware hope, then a certeine auentured death. The foure
and twenty houres passed duly, they may putte on theire clothes warme,
aryse, and refresshe theym selues with a cawdle of an egge swietelye
made, or such other meates and sauces reasonably and smally taken, as
before I mencioned. And if their strength be sore wasted, let theym
smelle to an old swiet apple (as Aristotle did by his reporte in the
boke _de pomo_) or hotte new bread, as _Democritus_ did, by the record
of _Laertius_ in his life, either by it self alone, or dipped in wel
smelling wyne, as Maluesey or Muscadelle, & sprinckled with the pouder
of mintes. Orenges also and Lemones, or suche muske balles as I before
described, be thinges mete for this purpose. For as I saied in my ij.
litle bokes in Latine _de medendi methodo_, of deuise to cure diseases,
there is no thinge more comfortable to the spirites then good and swiet
odoures. On this wise aduised how to order your selues in al the time
of the fitte, now this remaineth, to exhorte you not to go out of your
houses for iij. dayes, or ij. at the least after the fitte passed, and
then wiselye, warely, and not except in a faire bright daye, for feare
of swouning after great emptinesse, and vnwont ayer, or for forcyng
nature by soubdaine strikyng in of thesame aier, colde, or euil, in
to the open body. For nature so forced, maketh often tymes a sore and
soubdaine fluxe, as wel after auoidaunce of these humores by sweate,
(as was this yere well sene in many persones in diuerse contries of
Englande for none other cause) as of others by purgation.

Thus I haue declared the begynning, name, nature, accidentes, signes,
causes, preseruations, and cures naturall of this disease the sweatynge
sickenes, English _Ephemera_, or pestilent sweate, so shortly & plainly
as I could for y^e cōmune saufty of my good countrimen, help, relieue,
& defence of thesame against y^e soubdaine assaultes of the disease,
& to satisfie the honeste requeste of my louynge frendes and gentleὣ
acquaintance. If other causes ther be supernatural, theim I leue to the
diuines to serche, and the diseases thereof to cure, as a matter with
out the compasse of my facultie.


+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|                             FOOTNOTES:                               |
|                                                                      |
| [348] The author seems to me here to allude to what Sydenham calls   |
| the “constitutio epidemica,” as if he would say, “The epidemic       |
| constitution as it exists at any one time, is but a step,” &c.       |
|                                                                      |
| [349] _Grafton_, Vol. II. pp. 147. 155.                              |
|                                                                      |
| [350] _Hall_, p. 425.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [351] For suddenlie a deadlie burning sweat so assailed their        |
| bodies and distempered their blood with a most ardent heat, that     |
| _scarce one amongst an hundred_ that sickened did escape with life;  |
| for all in maner as soone as the sweat tooke them, or within a       |
| short time after, yeelded the ghost. _Holinshed_, Vol. III. p. 482.  |
| _Godwin_, p. 98. _Polydor._ _Vergilius_, L. XXVI. p. 567. _Wood_,    |
| T. I. A. 1485. p. 233. _Wood_ takes his testimony respecting the     |
| symptoms of the disease at third hand from _Carol_. _Valesius_,      |
| (Cap. XIV. p. 226,) a French physician at Rome, about 1650, who      |
| employs _P. Foreest’s_ words. This last author, however, did not     |
| himself observe the English sweating sickness.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [352] _Bacon_, p. 36.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [353] _Fabian_, p. 673.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [354] _Swetynge sykenesse_ in the Chronicles.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [355] The Mayors’ names were _Thomas Hylle_ and _William Stocker_.   |
| _Fabian_, loc. cit.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [356] Until the 30th of October. _Grafton_, p. 158.                  |
|                                                                      |
| [357] _Wood_, loc. cit.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [358] _Phil. de Comines_, Tom. I. p. 344. Compare the English        |
| chronicles quoted. The history of Croyland Abbey states that the     |
| 1st of August was the day of _Richmond’s_ arrival at Milford Haven.  |
| There exists no reason for departing from this statement with some   |
| modern writers, namely, _Kay, du Chesne_, p. 1192; _Lilie_, p. 382,  |
| and _Marsolier_, who assert the landing of the army to have taken    |
| place on the 7th of August. Historia Croylandensis, p. 573, in _Jo.  |
| Fell_.                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [359] _Grafton_, p. 147.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [360] _Stow_, p. 779.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [361] According to the unanimous statements of the chroniclers.      |
|                                                                      |
| [362] Histor. Croylandens, p. 573. _Fell_.                           |
|                                                                      |
| [363] _Bacon_, p. 7. _Marsolier_, p. 142. Yet in the autumn of that  |
| same year _Henry_ established, what no prior king of England ever    |
| had, a body-guard. It consisted of only 50 “Yomen of the Crowne,”    |
| to each of whom there were appointed two men on foot—an archer and   |
| a demi-lance, and a groom to attend to his three horses. The first   |
| commander of this body-guard, which formed the most ancient stock    |
| whence sprang the English standing army, was _Henry Bourchier_,      |
| Earl of Essex. _Herbert of Cherbury_, p. 9. _Grafton_, and the       |
| other chroniclers, loc. cit. _Baker_, p. 254.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [364] _Bacon_, _Stow_, _Baker_, loc. cit. Rapin considered the       |
| middle of September as the period of the outbreak. T. IV. p. 386.    |
|                                                                      |
| [365] “Infinite persons.” _Bacon._ “A wonderful number.” _Stow._     |
| “Many thousands.” _Baker_, loc. cit.                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [366] The plague can scarcely be said to furnish this immunity, for  |
| though a second attack is an exception to a pretty general rule, it  |
| is one of by no means unfrequent occurrence.—_Transl. note._         |
|                                                                      |
| [367] _Holinshed_, Vol. III. p. 482.                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [368] _Wood_, p. 233.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [369] Histor. Croyland. p. 569. _Fell._                              |
|                                                                      |
| [370] No physick afforded any cure. _Baker_, p. 254.                 |
|                                                                      |
| [371] Henry VII., and Henry VIII. Compare the excellent              |
| biographical account of this learned man by _Aikin_.                 |
|                                                                      |
| [372] _Erasmus_ expresses himself on this subject in his usual       |
| manner. He was on terms of strict friendship with _Linacre_, whom    |
| on other occasions he greatly lauds. This, however, does not         |
| prevent him from lashing him with his satire as a philological       |
| pedant. “Novi quendam πολυτεχνότατον, græcum, latinum,               |
| mathematicum, philosophum, medicum, καὶ ταῦτα βασιλικὸν, jam         |
| sexagenarium, (he was born in 1460, and died in 1524,) qui _ceteris  |
| rebus omissis_, annis plus viginti se torquet ac discruciat in       |
| grammatica, _prorsus felicem se fore ratus, si tamdiu liceat         |
| vivere, donec certo statuat, quomodo distinguendæ sint octo partes   |
| orationis_, quod hactenus nemo Græcorum aut Latinorum ad plenum      |
| præstare valuit.” Laus Stultitiæ, p. 200. That _Linacre_ is here     |
| meant is quite plain; the passage applies to no other contemporary.  |
|                                                                      |
| [373] See the author’s History of Medicine, Book II. p. 311.         |
|                                                                      |
| [374] _Grafton_, p. 161, and the other chroniclers.                  |
|                                                                      |
| [375] _Wood_, loc. cit.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [376] The luscious Greek wines were at this time the most in vogue,  |
| especially Cretan wine, Malmsey, and Muschat. _Lemnius_, de compl.   |
| L. II. fol. 111. b. _Reusner_, p. 70.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [377] _Werlich_, p. 248.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [378] _Spangenberg_, Mansf. Chr. fol. 395. f.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [379] _Werlich_, p. 236. _Spangenberg_, loc. cit. Overflow of the    |
| Lech, 1484. _Werlich_, p. 239.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [380] _Frank von Wörd._ fol. 211. a.                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [381] _Grafton_, p. 133, and all the other chroniclers. _Short_,     |
| Vol. I. p. 201, and several others, even _Schnurrer_, erroneously    |
| asserted this inundation to have taken place in the year 1485.       |
|                                                                      |
| [382] _Campo_, p. 132. _Pfeufer_, p. 32.                             |
|                                                                      |
| [383] _Frank v. Wörd_, fol. 211. a. In the plague which followed,    |
| about 20,000 people died in Brixen, and 30,000 in Venice.            |
|                                                                      |
| [384] _Fracastor_, p. 182. Morb. Contag. L. II.                      |
|                                                                      |
| [385] _Wurstisen_, p. 474. cap. 15. _Fracastor_, p. 136.             |
| _Spangenberg_ (Pestilentz) calls this Epidemic of 1482,              |
| which spread all over Germany, Switzerland and France, “_das         |
| phrenitische, schwerhitzig Pestilentzfieber_”, the phrenitic,        |
| intensely ardent, plague-fever. Compare _Stumpff._ fol. 742. b.      |
|                                                                      |
| [386] The so called _Hauptkrankheit_.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [387] _Spangenberg_, Mansfeld. Chr. fol. 396. a.                     |
|                                                                      |
| [388] In many places women and children were obliged to draw the     |
| plough, from the want of draught cattle; they were obliged too to    |
| carry on the cultivation by night, that they might not be observed   |
| by the king’s inhuman revenue officers.—_Mezeray_, Tom. II. p. 750.  |
|                                                                      |
| [389] “Il couroit alors (1482) dans la France une dangereuse et      |
| mortelle maladie, qui affligeoit indifferemment les grands et les    |
| petits, bien qu’elle ne fut pas contagieuse. C’étoit une espèce      |
| de _fièvre chaude et frenetique, qui s’allumoit tout d’un coup       |
| dans le cerveau, et le brûloit avec de si cruelles douleurs, que     |
| les uns s’en cassoient la teste contre les murailles, les autres     |
| se précipitoient dans les puits_, ou se tuoient à force de courir    |
| çà et là. On en attribu la cause à quelque maligne influence des     |
| astres et à la corruption, que la mauvaise nourriture de l’année     |
| précédente avoit formé dans le corps; d’autant que les vins et       |
| les bleds n’étant point venus à maturité, la disette avoit été si    |
| grande, principalement dans les provinces de delà la Loire, que les  |
| peuples n’avoient vécu que de racines et d’herbes.” _Mezeray_, Tom.  |
| II. p. 746.                                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [390] It is expressly affirmed by the historians that many of        |
| the higher classes were sleepless from _the constant alarm and       |
| fear of Tristan’s sword_. How greatly must such a condition have     |
| predisposed the mind to receive this destructive fever!              |
|                                                                      |
| [391] _Jacques Cotier._ He extorted from his patients 10,000         |
| dollars a month, but, after his master’s death, was obliged to       |
| refund to _Charles_ VIII., 100,000 dollars. _Comines_, L. VI. c.     |
| 12. p. 400.                                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [392] _Mezeray_, loc. cit.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [393] _Spangenberg_, Mansfeld. Chron. fol. 379. a. Pestilentz, 1485. |
|                                                                      |
| [394] Compare _Webster_, T. I. p. 147.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [395] _Spangenberg_, Mansfeld. Chron. fol. 398. a., and many other   |
| chroniclers. The reader will have the goodness to observe, here and  |
| in similar places, that the text is not stating the opinion of the   |
| author, but the way in which these events were viewed in that age.   |
|                                                                      |
| [396] —Il y avoit seulement en Normandie quelque troupes de          |
| franc-archers, de ceux, que _Louis XI_. avoit licenciez, qui         |
| couroit la campagne: et plusieurs faineants s’étant joints avec      |
| eux, ils detruisoient tout le païs, et on devoit même craindre,      |
| que ce mal ne se communiquât aux provinces voisines. Mais il se      |
| présenta alors une belle occasion de delivrer la France de ces       |
| pillards ... et lui donna (_Charles VIII._) tout ces francs-archers  |
| et _brigands_ de Normandie jusqu’au nombre de 3000. _Mezeray_, T.    |
| II. p. 762.                                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [397] “La milice estoit plus cruelle et plus desordonnée que         |
| jamais.” So says _Mezeray_ of the French soldiers in general. T.     |
| II. p. 750.                                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [398] _Schiller_, Sect. II. c. 1. p. 131. b.                         |
|                                                                      |
| [399] _Angelus_, p. 253. _Spangenberg_, M. Chr. fol. 398. b. The     |
| scurvy affected society far more in the 15th and 16th centuries      |
| than it does at present, and made its appearance on several          |
| occasions as an epidemic. Compare, in particular, _Reusner_, whose   |
| work on the history of epidemics is one of general importance.       |
| _Sennert_, _Wier_, and others.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [400] _Schiller_, loc. cit.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [401] It was conceived not to bee an epidemicke disease, but to      |
| proceed from a malignity in the constitution of the aire, gathered   |
| by the predispositions of seasons: and the speedie cessation         |
| declared as much. _Bacon_, p. 9.                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [402] The name passed into the French, English, and Italian          |
| languages—Lansquenet, Lancichinecho.                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [403] ——“flock together like flies in summer, so that any one would  |
| wonder where all these swarms have sprung from, and how they are     |
| maintained during the winter; and truly they are such a miserable    |
| crew, that one ought rather to pity than envy the kind of life they  |
| lead and their precarious fortune.” _Franck’s_ Chronicle. “_On the   |
| destructive Lansquenets_,” fol. 217. b.                              |
|                                                                      |
| [404] 1518. “This year there was a great gathering of the            |
| Landsknechts, who, as soon as they had assembled, went forth from    |
| Friesland, committed great ravages and made an incursion into the    |
| country at Gellern, and were beaten by _Vernlow_.” _Wintzenberger_,  |
| fol. 23. a.                                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [405] “Not to mention too the curtailment of life, for one _seldom   |
| meets with an old Landsknecht_.” _Franck_, loc. cit.                 |
|                                                                      |
| [406] Those Moors were so called who, in order to remain in Spain    |
| after the conquest of Granada, embraced Christianity.—_Transl.       |
| note._                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [407] The petechial fever which will be spoken of further on.        |
|                                                                      |
| [408] _Grafton_, p. 220. _Webster_, Vol. I. p. 149.                  |
|                                                                      |
| [409] _Stow_, p. 809. _Fabian_, p. 689. _Hall_, p. 502. _Grafton_,   |
| p. 230. _Holinshed_, p. 536. _Bacon_, p. 225.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [410] _Spangenberg_, M. Chr. fol. 403. a. Pestilenz, A. 1505.        |
|                                                                      |
| [411] _Webster_, Vol. I. p. 151. _Franck_, fol. 219. a. _Pingré_,    |
| T. I. p. 481.                                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [412] _Bacon_, p. 225. _Stow_, p. 809. Compare the other             |
| chroniclers, who most of them notice this event in great detail.     |
|                                                                      |
| [413] _Bacon_, p. 231.                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [414] _Empson_ and _Dudley_, ministers of Henry VII., who left       |
| behind him treasure to the amount of £1,800,000 sterling. Compare    |
| _Hume_, Hist. of Eng. Vol. III., _Bacon_, and almost all the         |
| chroniclers. Both ministers were executed in the following reign,    |
| in the year 1509. _Grafton_, p. 236.                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [415] _Villalba_, T. I. pp. 69. 99.—_Ferdinand’s_ conflicts with     |
| the Saracens began in 1481, and ended with the fall of Granada in    |
| 1492. The disease is called in Spanish _Tabardillo_, which name,     |
| however, _Villalba_ has not quoted at so early a period as 1490.     |
|                                                                      |
| [416] _Villalba_, loc. cit. p. 66.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [417] Ibid. p. 69—_Fracastor_, de morbis contagios. L. II. c. 6. p.  |
| 155.—_Schenck von Grafenberg_, L. VI. p. 553. T. II.                 |
|                                                                      |
| [418] Besides those already named, the writings of _Omodei_ and      |
| _Pfeufer_. Compare _Schnurrer_, Book II. p. 27.                      |
|                                                                      |
| [419] It was called Puncticula or Peticulæ, also Febris stigmatica,  |
| Pestis petechiosa. _Reusner_, p. 11. For later synonimes, see        |
| _Burserius_, Vol. II. p. 293.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [420] Consimilem ergo _infectionem in aëre_ primum fuisse censendum  |
| est, quæ mox in nos ingesta tale febrium genus attulerit, quæ        |
| tametsi pestilentes veræ non sunt, in limine tamen earum videntur    |
| esse. Analogia vero ejus contagionis ad sanguinem præcipue esse      |
| constat, quod et maculæ illæ, quæ expelli consuevere, demonstrant,   |
| etc. p. 161.                                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [421] Compare the whole of the sixth and seventh chapters of         |
| _Fracastor._ loc. cit. What was the general judgment of the Italian  |
| physicians respecting the spotted fever, may be gathered from _Nic.  |
| Massa_, whose confused work, however, contributes nothing to the     |
| history of the disease. Cap. IV. fol. 67, seq. Compare _Schenck      |
| von Grafenberg’s_ excellent and very copious treatise, de febre      |
| stigmatica. L. VI. p. 553, Tom. II.                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [422] _Osorio_, fol. 113. b., 114. a.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [423] See further on.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [424] _Villalba_, p. 78, et seq.                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [425] _Spangenberg_, M. Chr. fol. 402. a. _Angelus_, p. 261.         |
| _Pingré_, T. I. p. 479.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [426] Compare _Webster_, who has collected together whatever could   |
| be found on this subject. Vol. II. p. 82.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [427] _Spangenberg_, M. Chr. fol. 402. a.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [428] The same. _Franck_, fol. 219. a.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [429] Author’s History of Medicine. Book II. p. 146.                 |
|                                                                      |
| [430] _Sigebert. Gembl._ fol. 58. a. _Spangenberg_, M. Chr. fol.     |
| 66. b.                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [431] _Sigebert. Gembl._ fol. 82. a. _Hermann. Contract_, p. 186.    |
| _Witichind._ p. 34.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [432] Compare on this subject _Nees v. Esenbeck’s_ Supplement to     |
| _R. Brown’s_ Miscellaneous Botanical Writings, Book I. p. 571; and   |
| _Ehrenberg’s_ New Observations on Blood-like Appearances in Egypt,   |
| Arabia, and Siberia, together with a review and critique on what     |
| was earlier known, in _Poggendorff’s_ Annalen, 1830; the two best    |
| works on this subject; wherein is also contained a criticism on      |
| _Chladni’s_ Hypermeteorological Views.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [433] _Crusius_ is the most circumstantial on this point, for        |
| he gives the names of many persons on whose clothes crosses          |
| were visible. On a maiden’s shawl the instruments of Christ’s        |
| martyrdom were supposed to have been seen marked. In the vicinity    |
| of Biberach, a miller’s lad made rude sport of the painting of       |
| crosses, but he was seized and burned. Book II. p. 156.              |
|                                                                      |
| [434] _Mezeray_, T. II. p. 819.                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [435] _Angelus_, p. 261.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [436] Perhaps Sporotrichum vesicarum, or a kind of Mycoderma.        |
|                                                                      |
| [437] _Vincenzo Sette_ describes a kind of red mould, which in the   |
| year 1819 coloured vegetable and animal substances in the province   |
| of Padua, and excited superstitious apprehensions among the people.  |
| See his work on this subject.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [438] “Autumnali vero tempore, cum jam vestes, lintea, culcitræ,     |
| panes, omnis generis obsonia, sub dio, vel in conclavibus            |
| patentibus locata talem situ _mucorem_ contraxerunt, qualis oritur   |
| in penore, in opacis domus cellis collocato, aut etiam in ipsis      |
| cellis diu non repurgatis, pestis præsentes ad nocendum vires        |
| habet.” L. I. p. 45. _Agricola’s_ Treatise on the Plague is among    |
| the cleverest which the sixteenth century produced.                  |
|                                                                      |
| [439] For example, at the time of the Justinian Plague, and of the   |
| Black Death.                                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [440] _Mezeray_, T. II. p. 828.                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [441] See above, p. 189.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [442] The former mortality was so far from having ceased, yea,       |
| rather in the great heat (of summer) was still more vehement,        |
| that in some places a third part, and in some even the half of       |
| the people were snatched away by death, and that not by one only,    |
| _but by various and hitherto unheard of diseases_. Men caught the    |
| burning fever so rapidly and violently, that they thought they       |
| must be totally consumed. Some were seized with such _severe and     |
| insupportable headache_ that they were deprived of their senses,     |
| some with such _a violent cough_ that they _expectorated blood_      |
| incessantly—some with such a very rapid flux, that it broke their    |
| hearts: the bodies of some putrefied, and were so offensive that     |
| no one could remain near them. And by reason of such extraordinary   |
| diseases, it was a most sorrowful and troublous year, and there      |
| followed a hard winter, in the which, the cold lasted for three      |
| months. _Spangenberg_, M. Chr. fol. 402. b. Compare _Angelus_, p.    |
| 263, who, following some contemporaries, mentions a comet (doubted   |
| by _Pingré_, I. 479) as having appeared in the year 1504.            |
|                                                                      |
| [443] From a Poem on Henry VIII. in _Herbert of Cherbury_.           |
|                                                                      |
| [444] They found grazing more profitable, and converted large        |
| tracts of arable land into pasture. _Hume_, T. IV. p. 277.           |
|                                                                      |
| [445] _Lemnius_, fol. III. b.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [446] _Grafton_, p. 294. This insurrection is called by the          |
| Chroniclers, “Insurrection of Evill May-day.”—_Hume_, T. IV. 274.    |
|                                                                      |
| [447] “Of the common sort they were numberless, that perished by     |
| it.” _Godwyn_, p. 23.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [448] Is valde sibi videbatur adversus contagionem victus            |
| moderatione munitus: qua factum putavit, ut quum in nullum pene      |
| incideret, cujus non tota familia laboraverat, neminem adhuc e suis  |
| id malum attigerit, _id quod et mihi et multis præterea jactavit,    |
| non admodum multis horis antequam extinctus est_.“-_Erasm._ Epist.   |
| L. VII. ep. 4. col. 386. The date of the year of this letter from    |
| Sir _Thomas More_ to _Erasmus_, 1520, is clearly erroneous, as       |
| is that of many other letters in this collection, for at that        |
| time the Sweating Sickness did not prevail in London; it is          |
| also sufficiently well known from other researches (Biographie       |
| Universelle—General Biographical Dictionary), that Ammonius died     |
| in 1517. The date of the month, however, 19th August, seems to be    |
| correct. _Sprengel_ has, in consequence of this false date of the    |
| year, been misled to assume a specific epidemic Sweating Sickness    |
| as having taken place in the year 1520, (Book II. p. 686,) which is  |
| wholly unconfirmed.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [449] _Grafton_, p. 294, is very detailed. Compare _Holinshed_, p.   |
| 626. _Baker_, p. 286. _Hall_, p. 592.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [450] _Godwyn_, p. 23. _Stow_, p. 849.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [451] This, from the foregoing remark upon the death of _Ammonius_,  |
| may be concluded with the greatest probability.                      |
|                                                                      |
| [452] —“omnibus fere intra paucos dies decumbentibus, amissis        |
| plurimis, optimis atque honestissimis amicis.” _Th. More_ in         |
| _Erasmus’s Epist._ L. VII. ep. 4. col. 386.                          |
|                                                                      |
| [453] Ibid. The only place where the disease is spoken of as having  |
| spread across the channel.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [454] _Spangenberg._ M. Chr. fol. 408. a.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [455] _Crusius._ T. II. p. 187.                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [456] _Wintzenberger_, fol. 21. a. _Angelus_, p. 282.                |
| _Spangenberg_, loc. cit. _Pingré_, T. I. p. 483.                     |
|                                                                      |
| [457] Such was the name given in Germany to the already              |
| oft-mentioned pernicious fever with inflammation of the brain. We    |
| recognise it for the first time, as an epidemic, in France, in the   |
| year 1482. (See above, p. 189.) It frequently made its appearance    |
| throughout the whole of the sixteenth century.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [458] _Crusius_, T. II. p. 187.                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [459] On the 16th of June, 1517, there was a great earthquake, and   |
| a tremendous storm of wind at Nördlingen, so that the parish church  |
| at St. Emeran was completely forced out of the ground and thrown     |
| down, and it was reckoned that there were 2000 houses and stables    |
| in that place which, for a space of two miles long, were overthrown  |
| and rent, and there were few houses there which were not, like the   |
| church, damaged and shaken to pieces. _Wintzenberger_, fol. 21. b.   |
|                                                                      |
| [460] In Xativa. _Villalba_, T. I. p. 83.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [461] “_Il est saoul comme un Angloys._”—_Rondelet_, de dign. morb.  |
| fol. 35. b.                                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [462] _Elyot_, in his “Castell of Health,” quoted by _Aikin_, p.     |
| 64. _Rondelet_, loc. cit.                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [463] In 1724, which was a great fruit year, there arose in this     |
| very county, from the immoderate use of cyder, an epidemic cholic;   |
| the Colica Damnoniorum. Vide _Huxham_, Opera. (Lips. 1764.) Tom.     |
| III. p. 54.                                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [464] _Elyot_, in _Aikin_, p. 63.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [465] _Le Grand d’Aussy_, T. I. p. 143.                              |
|                                                                      |
| [466] _Hume_, T. IV. p. 273. _Aikin_, p. 59.                         |
|                                                                      |
| [467] “Now-a-days, if a boy of seven years of age, or a young man    |
| of twenty years, have not two caps on his head, he and his friends   |
| will think that he may not continue in health; and yet, if the       |
| inner cap be not of velvet or satin, a serving-man feareth to lose   |
| his credence.” _Elyot_, in _Aikin_, p. 64.                           |
|                                                                      |
| [468] ——“ubi homines perpetuo in hypocaustis degunt, multoque        |
| carnium esu se ingurgitant, et alimentis piperatis continuo          |
| utuntur. Quare factum est, ut continua hypocaustorum æstuatione      |
| meatuum cutis relaxatio consequeretur, quæ sudoris promptissima      |
| et potentissima causa esse solet, _cuius materia in humorum          |
| exsuperantia consistebat, quam frequens alimentorum multum           |
| nutrientium et piperatorum usus colligerat_.” _Rondelet_, loc. cit.  |
|                                                                      |
| [469] The floors of the houses generally are made of nothing but     |
| loam, and are strewed with rushes, which being constantly put on     |
| fresh, without a removal of the old, remain lying there, in some     |
| cases for twenty years, with fish-bones, broken victuals and other   |
| filth underneath, and impregnated with the urine of dogs and men.    |
| _Erasm._ Epist. L. xxii. ep. 12. col. 1140. This description is in   |
| all probability overdrawn, and applicable only to the poorest huts.  |
| It is, however, certainly not fictitious, and is not refuted by      |
| _Kaye_.                                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [470] _Fracastoro_, _Fernel_, _Valleriola_, _Houlier_, and most of   |
| the other learned physicians of the sixteenth century.               |
|                                                                      |
| [471] ——“_quod, vulgaria diversoria parum tuta sunt a contagio       |
| sceleratæ pestis_, quæ nuper ab Anglis—in nostras regiones           |
| demigravit,” speaking of the English Sweating Sickness in Germany    |
| (1529). _Erasm._ Epist. L. xxvii. ep. 16. col. 1519. c.              |
|                                                                      |
| [472] _Brown’s_ “Opportunity.”                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [473] _Erasm._ Epist. L. vii. ep. 4. col. 386.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [474] _Mezeray_, T. II. p. 853. _Paré_, p. 823. _Holler_, Comm. II.  |
| in secund. sect. Coac. Hippocrat. p. 323.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [475] “Un étrange rhûme qu’on nomma coqueluche, lequel tourmenta     |
| toute sorte de personnes, et leur rendit la voix si enrouée, que     |
| le barreau et les collèges en furent muets.”—_Mezeray._ Compare      |
| _Diderot_ et _d’Alembert_, Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné     |
| des Sciences, etc. T. IV. p. 182.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [476] _Pasquier_, Livr. IV. Ch. 28, pp. 375, 376. The following is   |
| the passage. “En l’an 1411, y eut une autre sorte de maladie, dont   |
| _une infinité de personnes_ furent touchez, par laquelle on perdoit  |
| le boire, le manger et le dormir, et toutefois et quantes que le     |
| malade mangeoit, il auoit une forte fievre; ce qu’il mangeoit luy    |
| sembloit amer ou puant, tousiours trembloit, et auec ce estoit si    |
| las et rompu de ses membres, que l’on ne l’osoit toucher en quelque  |
| part que ce fust: Aussi estoit ce mal accompagné _d’une forte        |
| toux_, qui tourmentoit son homme iour et nuit, laquelle maladie      |
| dura trois semaines entieres, _sans qu’une personne en mourust_.     |
| Bien est vray que par la vehemence de la toux plusieurs hommes se    |
| rompirent par les genitoires, et plusieurs femmes accoucherent       |
| avant le terme. Et quand venoit au guerir, ils iettoient grande      |
| effusion de sang par la bouche, le nez et le fondement, _sans        |
| qu’aucun médecin peust iuger dont procedoit ce mal, sinon d’une      |
| generale contagion de l’air, dont la cause leur estoit cachée_.      |
| Cette maladie fut appellée le _Tac_: et tel autrefois a souhaité     |
| par risée ou imprecation le mal du Tac à son compagnon, qui ne       |
| sçavoit pas que c’estoit.—L’an 1427, vers la S. Remy (1. Oct.)       |
| cheut un autre _air corrompu_ qui engendra une très mauvaise         |
| maladie, que l’on appelloit _Ladendo_ (dit un auteur de ce temps     |
| là) e n’y auoit homme ou femme, qui presque ne s’en sentist durant   |
| le temps qu’elle dura. _Elle commençoit aux reins, comme si on eust  |
| eu une forte gravelle_, en après venoient les frissons, et estoit    |
| en bien huict ou dix iours qu’on ne pouvoit bonnement boire, ne      |
| manger, ne dormir. Après ce venoit une toux si mauvaise, que quand   |
| on estoit au Sermon, on ne pouvoit entendre ce que le Sermonateur    |
| disoit par la grande noise des tousseurs. Item elle eust une très    |
| forte durée jusques après la Toussaincts (1. Nov.) bien quinze       |
| iours ou plus. Et n’eussiez gueres veu homme ou femme qui n’eust la  |
| bouche ou le nez tout esseué de grosse rongne, et s’entre-mocquoit   |
| le peuple l’un de l’autre, disant: As tu point eu Ladendo?”          |
|                                                                      |
| [477] _Reusner_, p. 75.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [478] _Valleriola_, Loc. med. Comm. Append. p. 45. _Schenck a        |
| Grafenberg_, Lib. VI. p. 552. Compare _Short_, T. I. p. 221.         |
|                                                                      |
| [479] _Reusner_, p. 72. Some of the synonymes here adduced will      |
| shew the medical views of the period respecting these diseases:      |
| Catarrhus febrilis. Febris catarrhosa. Ardores suffocantes.          |
| Febris suffocativa. Catarrhus epidemicus. Tussis popularis.          |
| _Cephalæa catarrhosa._ Cephalalgia contagiosa. _Gravedo anhelosa_,   |
| _Fernel_. Der böhmische Ziep (the Bohemian pip). Der Schafhusten     |
| (the sheep-cough). Die Schafkrankheit (the sheep disease).           |
| Die Lungensucht (phthisis). Das Hühnerweh (the poultry cough,        |
| or chicken contracted to chin-cough), and many others. In the        |
| influenza of 1580, violent perspiration was occasionally observed,   |
| so that some physicians thought that the English sweating sickness   |
| was about to return, just as in the Gröninger intermittent (1826),   |
| and in the cholera of 1831, without any knowledge on the subject,    |
| they talked of the Black Death.—_Schneider_, L. IV. c. 6. p. 203.    |
|                                                                      |
| [480] That the physicians of the sixteenth century were familiar     |
| with this observation, is proved by the following quotation from     |
| _Houlier_. “Nulla fere corporis humani ægritudo est, quæ non         |
| defluxione humoris alicuius e capite aut excitari aut incrementum    |
| accipere possit.” Morb. int. L. I. fol. 68. b.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [481] _Hvitfeldt_, Danmarks Riges Kronike.                           |
|                                                                      |
| [482] _Forest_, Lib. VI. Obs. IX. p. 159.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [483] _Webster_, vol. I. p. 157. 165. _Villalba_, T. I. p. 102.      |
| 117., and _Schnurrer_.                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [484] _Spangenberg_, M. Chr. fol. 408. b.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [485] _Tyengius_, in _Forest_: Lib. VI. Obs. II. Schol. p. 152.      |
|                                                                      |
| [486] _Forest_ availed himself of the unprinted and probably lost    |
| works of this distinguished physician, of whom, but for him, we      |
| should have known nothing.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [487] The moderns, who prefer powerful remedies, employ for this     |
| purpose, without any better effect, the lunar caustic.               |
|                                                                      |
| [488] _Wurstisen_, p. 707. In this seventeenth year there arose an   |
| unknown epidemic. The patients’ tongues and gullets were white,      |
| as if coated with mould; they could neither eat nor drink, but       |
| suffered from headache together with a pestilential fever which      |
| rendered them delirious. By this disease 2000 persons perished in    |
| Basle within the space of eight months. Besides other means, it was  |
| found very efficacious to cleanse the mouth and gullet every two     |
| hours, even to the extent of making the surface bleed, and then to   |
| soften them with honey of roses.                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [489] _Bretonneau’s_ Diphtheritis. Compare _Naumann’s_ treatise on   |
| the subject in the author’s Wissenschaftlichen Annalen der ges.      |
| Heilkunde, Vol. XXV. II. 3. p. 271.                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [490] _Forest._ Lib. VI. obs. ix. p. 159.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [491] _Petr. Martyr._ Dec. IV. cap. 10. p. 321. Compare _Moore_, p.  |
| 106.                                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [492] 24th of Feb. 1525.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [493] _Lautrec._                                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [494] At first under _Hugo de Moncada_; afterwards under the Prince  |
| of _Orange_.                                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [495] 1495, the year of the epidemic Lues.                           |
|                                                                      |
| [496] Among them some regiments of Swiss.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [497] Two hundred knights under Sir _Robert Jerningham_, and         |
| afterwards under _Carew_: both died of the Camp Fever. _Herbert of   |
| Cherbury_, p. 212. seq.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [498] The 6th of May, 1527.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [499] _Jovius_, L. XXVI. Tom. II. p. 129.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [500] Ibid. p. 114.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [501] According to _Mezeray_, the pestilence was at its height at    |
| the end of July. This is in accordance with _Jovius_, who fixes the  |
| termination of the great mortality, with rather too much precision   |
| perhaps, on the 7th of August.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [502] With reference to this seemingly inflammatory state of         |
| excitement, it is, perhaps, worthy of notice, that the commander     |
| in chief himself is stated to have been twice bled. _Jovius_, loc.   |
| cit. p. 125.                                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [503] _Jovius_, loc. cit. p. 116–118.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [504] _Mezeray_, T. II. p. 963.                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [505] _Fracastor._ Morb. Contag. L. II. c. 6. p. 155, 156.           |
|                                                                      |
| [506] It broke out in the beginning of February, and prevailed       |
| throughout the following month. _Campo_, p. 151.                     |
|                                                                      |
| [507] _Guicciardini_, p. 1054.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [508] _Mezeray_, T. II. p. 957.                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [509] _Guicciardini_, p. 1276.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [510] Ibid. p. 1315.                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [511] See above, p. 201.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [512] It was also observed, as is well known, in the summer of       |
| 1831, before the breaking out of the cholera.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [513] _Gratiol._ p. 129, 130.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [514] See above, p. 204.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [515] _Jovius_, loc. cit. p. 115.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [516] _Mezeray_, p. 963.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [517] The Spanish name for the lues venerea, which it obtained in    |
| consequence of the prevailing eruptions. It corresponds with the     |
| French “la vérole,” and with the German “französische Pocken.” We    |
| must not, therefore, think that it means “buboes.” _Sandoval_, Part  |
| II. pp. 12. 14. Compare _Astruc_, T. I. p. 4.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [518] In the Madrid edition of the same work, 1675. fol. L. XVII.    |
| p. 232. b.                                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [519] “Auster namque ventus per eos dies perflare et mortiferum      |
| crassioris nebulæ vaporem ex palustri ortum uligine, per castra      |
| dissipare et circumferre ita cœperat, ut _aliis ex causis conceptæ   |
| febres_ in contagiosum morbum verterentur.” _Jovius_, L. XXVI. p.    |
| 127.                                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [520] In Torgau where, in 1813 and 1814, 30,000 Frenchmen found      |
| their graves, there prevailed two diseases, typhus and diarrhœa,     |
| altogether distinct from one another. See _Richter_.                 |
|                                                                      |
| [521] _Schwelin_, p. 143.                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [522] See page 189.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [523] Trousser, in an obsolete sense, signifies to cause speedy      |
| death.                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [524] _Mezeray_, T. II. p. 965, where the best notices of it are to  |
| be found.                                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [525] His account applies to the town of Puy in the Auvergne, where  |
| he seems himself to have seen the disease. Livr. XXII. c. 5. p. 823. |
|                                                                      |
| [526] _Forest._ L. VI. obs. 7. p. 156. _Sander_ writes from          |
| numerous observations which he made in and about Cambray.            |
|                                                                      |
| [527] _Sauvages_, T. I. p. 487, hence calls the Trousse-galant       |
| “Cephalitis verminosa,” although neither inflammation of the brain   |
| nor worms existed in all cases, and takes his description from       |
| _Sander_, as again _Ozanam_ has taken it from _Sauvages_, T. III.    |
| p. 27.                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [528] _Forest._ p. 157. Schol.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [529] _Paré_, loc. cit.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [530] So small-pox and measles, it is well known, are the            |
| forerunners of plague.                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [531] _Fabian_, p. 699.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [532] _Sir William Compton_, and _William Carew_, besides many       |
| other distinguished persons who are not named.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [533] _Grafton_, p. 412, the principal passage. Compare              |
| _Holinshed_, p. 735. _Baker_, p. 293. _Hall_, p. 750. _Herbert of    |
| Cherbury_, p. 215.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [534] During _Henry_ the Eighth’s reign (1509 to 1547), 72,000       |
| malefactors were, according to Harrison, executed for theft and      |
| robbery, making nearly 2000 for each year. _Hume_, T. IV. p. 275.    |
|                                                                      |
| [535] _Stow_, p. 885.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [536] _Fabian_, loc. cit.                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [537] ——“it seeming to be but the same contagion of the aire,        |
| varied according to the clime.” _Herbert of Cherbury_, loc. cit.     |
|                                                                      |
| [538] _Stow_, loc. cit.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [539] _Campo_, pp. 150, 151.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [540] _Grafton_, p. 431. _Wagenaar_, Vol. II. p. 516.                |
|                                                                      |
| [541] _Haftitz_, p. 130.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [542] Annales Berolino-Marchici, (no numbers to the pages.)          |
|                                                                      |
| [543] _Magnus Hundt_, fol. 4. b., and many others.                   |
|                                                                      |
| [544] _Bonn_, p. 143. A girl in Lübeck died of fright at this        |
| meteor.                                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [545] _Haftitz._ p. 131. _Angelus_, p. 317.                          |
|                                                                      |
| [546] It must not be thought that the author, because he has         |
| brought forward these notices, has any pre-formed opinions whatever  |
| respecting the import of these heavenly bodies. The historian        |
| cannot pass over contemporaneous occurrences, whatever may be the    |
| conclusion which the limited extent of our knowledge enables us to   |
| draw from them.                                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [547] _Pingré_, T. I. p. 485. _Spangenberg_, M. Chr. fol. 410. a.    |
|                                                                      |
| [548] _Pingré_, p. 486. _Angelus_, p. 318. _Crusius_, Vol. II. p.    |
| 223.                                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [549] _Pingré_, p. 487. _Campo_, p. 154. _Angelus_, p. 320, and      |
| numerous other accounts. It performs its revolution in 76 years,     |
| and was observed in 1456, 1531, 1607, 1682, and 1759.                |
|                                                                      |
| [550] _Pingré_, p. 491. _Spangenberg_, M. Chr. fol. 433. b.          |
|                                                                      |
| [551] _Pingré_, p. 496. _Angelus_, p. 322. _Spangenberg_, M. Chr.    |
| fol. 435. a.                                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [552] Erfurt Chronicle. _Spangenberg_, who has availed himself       |
| frequently of this chronicle, makes use of the same words, M. Chr.   |
| fol. 431. b.                                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [553] They called the sour wine of this year den                     |
| _Wiedertäufer-Wein_; the Anabaptist wine. _Schwelin_, p. 144.        |
|                                                                      |
| [554] _Crusius_, Vol. II. p. 323. St. Vitus’s day is on the 15th     |
| of June. On the river Neckar, at Heidelberg, they took out a child   |
| which had floated down the stream in its cradle unharmed for a       |
| distance of six (German) miles. _Franck_, fol. 252. b.               |
|                                                                      |
| [555] _Spangenberg_, M. Chr. fol. 432. a.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [556] _Klemzen_, p. 254.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [557] _Schwelin_, p. 144. _Newenar_, fol. 69. a. “fecit tamen        |
| huius anni, ac fortasse etiam præcedentium intemperies, fluminum     |
| exundationes, frigora cum humiditate perpetuo coniuncta, _ut jam in  |
| Germania Britannicus quidam aër suscitatus videri possit_.” Similar  |
| accounts are met with in almost all the chronicles.                  |
|                                                                      |
| [558] _Leuthinger_, p. 90. see “Scriptorum,” etc.                    |
|                                                                      |
| [559] Compare _Autenrieth’s_ excellent work on this subject.         |
|                                                                      |
| [560] _Schiller_, sect. I. cap. 2. fol. 3. b.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [561] _Franck_, fol. 243. b.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [562] Basle among others was particularly distinguished.             |
| _Stettler_, part II. p. 34.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [563] _Spangenberg_, loc. cit.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [564] _Leuthinger_, p. 89.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [565] From Whitsuntide till towards St. James’s day, the 25th of     |
| July. _Klemzen_, p. 254.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [566] Two masters of vessels, who had quitted the helm from a        |
| sudden attack of this kind, were in danger of grounding upon the     |
| Mole. Their situation was, however, noticed, and they were saved.    |
| _Klemzen._                                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [567] _Spangenberg_, M. Chr. fol. 432. a.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [568] Ibid. fol. 433. a. 435. b. _Schwelin_, pp. 149, 150.           |
|                                                                      |
| [569] A Chronicler of the Marches even assures us that it lasted     |
| until 1546. Annales Berol. Marchic: but the other contemporary       |
| writers contradict this.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [570] _Spangenberg_, fol. 432. a.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [571] _Newenar_ indeed maintains that the Sweating Fever used to     |
| break out in England every year, fol. 68. b., but such general and   |
| unsupported assertions coming from foreigners (the Graf _Hermann     |
| von Newenar_ was provost of Cologne) are wholly unworthy of          |
| credence.                                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [572] About the 25th of July.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [573] From St. James’s day, the 25th of July, until the Assumption   |
| of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the 15th of August. _Staphorst._       |
|                                                                      |
| [574] It appears, for instance, somewhere in the second volume of    |
| _Leibnitz_, Scriptores rerum Brunsvicensium, that 8000 people had    |
| died of the Sweating Fever in Hamburgh. An unknown Chronicler in     |
| _Staphorst_, Part II vol. I. p. 85, states 2000.                     |
|                                                                      |
| [575] “Moreover in the year 1529, about St. James’s day, Almighty    |
| God sent a terrible disease upon the city of Hamburgh; it was the    |
| Sweating Sickness, which showed itself in a different manner, and    |
| began when Captain _Hermann Evers_ came from England on St. James’s  |
| day with many young companions, of whom, in the course of two days,  |
| twelve died of this disease, which was unknown as well in Hamburgh   |
| as in other countries, so that the oldest person did not recollect   |
| to have seen a similar disease.” An unknown eye-witness, quoted      |
| in _Staphorst_, Part II. Vol. I. p. 83. Another person expresses     |
| himself to the same effect, p. 85. “The disease had its origin in    |
| England, for the people were there attacked in the street when they  |
| came on shore, and those who came in contact with them, many of      |
| whom were of the lower class, took it.” Notices of uncertain date    |
| to be found in _Adelung_, at p. 77. _Steltzner_, Part II. p. 219.    |
| In the abbrev. Hamb. Chron. p. 45, and elsewhere.                    |
|                                                                      |
| [576] “As soon as the ship arrived in Hamburgh people began to die   |
| throughout the city, and in the morning it was rumoured that four    |
| persons had died of it.” From _Reimar Koch’s_ MS. Chron. of Lübeck.  |
| For the extract from it the author is indebted to the kindness of    |
| Professor _Ackermann_ of Lübeck.                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [577] _Klemzen_, p. 254. It was thought that the waters of the       |
| Baltic were poisoned.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [578] _Reimar Kock’s_ Chronicle of Lübeck.                           |
|                                                                      |
| [579] “In the year 1529, this violent disease passed in a very       |
| short time all over Germany, and in Lübeck many of its most          |
| distinguished citizens died on the vigil of St. Peter in Vinculis.”  |
| _Regkman_, p. 135. Compare _Kirchring_, p. 143. _Bonn_, p. 144.      |
|                                                                      |
| [580] _Reimar Kock._                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [581] _Schmidt_, p. 307.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [582] See above, p. 243; and _Klemzen_, p. 254.                      |
|                                                                      |
| [583] _Euric. Cordus._                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [584] _Gruner_, It. p. 23.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [585] Namely, on the Tuesday after the Beheading of John the         |
| Baptist (29th Aug.), which fell on a Sunday, for S. Ægidius was      |
| on the Wednesday. The dates are given throughout according to        |
| _Pilgrim’s_ Calendarium chronologicum.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [586] _Klemzen_, p. 255.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [587] _Curicke_, p. 271.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [588] Kronica der Preussen, fol. 191. b.                             |
|                                                                      |
| [589] _Stettler_, II. p. 33.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [590] In _Gratorol._ fol. 74. b.                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [591] _Gruner_, It. p. 25, according to MS. Chronicles.              |
|                                                                      |
| [592] _Franck_, fol. 253. a.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [593] By _Joseph Franck_, in the latest edition of his Praxeos       |
| Medicæ Universæ Præcepta. Compare _Gruner_, It. p. 28.               |
|                                                                      |
| [594] _Klemzen_, p. 254.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [595] This appears from a letter of _Euricius Cordus_ to the         |
| Hessian private secretary, _Joh. Rau von Nordeck_, at the end of     |
| the 2d edition of his _Regimen_.                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [596] _Magnus Hundt_ closed his on the 7th October.                  |
|                                                                      |
| [597] _Bayer von Elbogen_, cap. 7.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [598] It was called there the _Ingelsche Sweetsieckte_, or the       |
| Sweating Sickness.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [599] _Forest._ L. VI. Obs. VII. Schol. p. 157. Obs. VIII. c.        |
| Schol. p. 158. _Wagenaar_, T. II. p. 508.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [600] _Pontan._ p. 762. _Haraeus_, T. I. p. 581. Antwerpsch          |
| Chronykje, p. 31. _Ditmar_, p. 473.                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [601] “Laquelle (sa suette) s’estendit par le pays d’Oostlande, de   |
| Hollande, Zeelande, et autres des pays bas, on en étoit endedens     |
| vingt et quatre heures mort ou guarry, elle ne dura in Zeelande      |
| pour le plus que 15 jours, dont plusieurs en moururent.” _Le         |
| Petit_, T. I. Livr. VII. p. 81.                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [602] _Forest_, loc. cit.                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [603] _Erasm._ Epist. Lib. XXVI. ep. 58. col. 1477. b. At _Zerbst_   |
| the Sweating Fever lasted, in like manner, only five days.           |
| _Gruner_, It. p. 29.                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [604] It was called there “den engelske Sved.”                       |
|                                                                      |
| [605] _Frederick I._ Histor. p. 181. The same words in _Huitfeld_,   |
| T. II. p. 1315.                                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [606] _Boesens_ Beskrivelse over Helsingöer. For this statement the  |
| author has to thank Dr. _Mansa_, regimental physician at Copenhagen. |
|                                                                      |
| [607] Dr. _Baden_, D. C. L., took much pains, at the request of      |
| _Gruner_, in making researches, but has elicited nothing more than   |
| _Huitfeld_ has given. A copy of his Latin letter to _Gruner_ on      |
| this subject, has likewise reached the author through Dr. _Mansa_.   |
|                                                                      |
| [608] _Dalin_, D. III. p. 221. _Engelske Svetten._ In _Tegel’s_      |
| History of king Gustavus I. Part I. p. 267, general notices only     |
| are to be found respecting the English Sweating Sickness in          |
| Sweden, without any exact date (autumn of 1529) or description       |
| of the disease, such as are met with without number in the           |
| German Chronicles. _Sven Hedin_ clearly estimates the mortality      |
| in the epidemic sweating fever too highly, when he compares          |
| it, p. 27, with the depopulation caused by the Black Death. He       |
| gives (p. 47) a striking passage on the Sweating Sickness from       |
| Linneus’s pathological prælections. The great naturalist has,        |
| however, allowed free scope to his imagination, and, like all the    |
| physicians of modern times who have delivered their sentiments on    |
| the English Sweating Sickness, knows far too little of the facts     |
| to be able to form a right judgment on the subject. (Supplement      |
| till Handboken för Praktiska Läkare-vetenskapen, rörande             |
| epidemiska och smittosamma sjukdomar i allmänhet, och särdeles de    |
| Pestilentialiska. 1 sta St. Stockholm, 1805. 8vo.)                   |
|                                                                      |
| [609] From _Reimar Kock’s_ MS. Chronicle of Lübeck, and _Forest_,    |
| loc. cit. Compare _Gruner’s_ Itinerarium, which is prepared          |
| throughout with laudable and even tedious diligence, but which met   |
| with so little acknowledgment in the Brunonian age, that it has      |
| already become a rare work.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [610] “According to which it was given out by some, that a sweat     |
| must be kept up for twenty-four hours in succession, and in the      |
| mean time, that no air should be admitted to the patient. This       |
| treatment sent many to their graves.”—Erfurt Chronicle.              |
|                                                                      |
| [611] Erfurt Chronicle, and in the same strain _Spangenberg_,        |
| M. Chr. fol. 402. b. _Pomarius_, p. 617. and _Schmidt_, p. 305.      |
| _Gemma_ writes of the Netherlands, L. I. c. 8. p. 189, having        |
| received his account from his father, who was himself the subject    |
| of the Sweating Sickness: “Consuti (sewn up) et violenter operti     |
| clamitabant misere, obtestabantur Deum atque hominum fidem,          |
| sese dimitterent, se _suffocari iniectis molibus, sese vitam in      |
| summis angustiis exhalare_, sed assistentes has querelas ex rabie    |
| proficisci, _medicorum opinione persuasi_, urgebant continue usque   |
| ad 24 horas,” etc.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [612] _Schmidt_, loc. cit.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [613] ——“_Animos omnium terrore perculit adeo ut multis metus et     |
| imaginatio morbum conciliarit._” _Erasm._ Epist. L. XXVI. ep. 56.    |
| c. 1476. a. _Spangenberg_, loc. cit.                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [614] “Many an one sweats for fear and thinks he has the English     |
| sweat, and when he afterwards hath slept it off, acknowledges that   |
| it was all nonsense.” _Bayer v. Elbogen_, cap. 8.                    |
|                                                                      |
| [615] The author could adduce some extraordinary instances of this   |
| kind which have occurred in his own practice.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [616] It was a greengrocer in Paris. _Berliner Vossische Zeitung_,   |
| Sept. 2, 1833.                                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [617] _Carlstadt_, _Nic. Storch_, _Marcus Thomii_, _Marus Stubner_,  |
| _Marlin Cellarius_ and _Thomas Münzer_.                              |
|                                                                      |
| [618] “For all love hath grown cold in all nations; the axe lieth    |
| at the root of the tree, the rope is already applied, no one         |
| observeth it. For the world is stricken with thick blindness, faith  |
| is extinguished. All singleness and Godly fear hath withdrawn from   |
| the land for ever, and nothing but false hypocritical make-believe   |
| work is to be found among the Baptists, and at most a false,         |
| fictitious, fruitless, dead, tottering faith in the other sects,     |
| and yet the world thinks, notwithstanding, that she sees and sits    |
| in light. In short, for the one devil of the Baptists whom she       |
| has driven out, she is beset with seven more subtle and wickeder     |
| spirits, though she think that she be freed, and that they all be    |
| gone forth.” _Franck_, fol. 248, a. This same Chronicle contains a   |
| very lively description of the Peasant-war.                          |
|                                                                      |
| [619] _Ad. Clarenbach_ and _Peter Flistedt_.                         |
|                                                                      |
| [620] _Schmidt_, p. 308.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [621] Nusquam pax, nullum iter tutum est, rerum charitate, penuria,  |
| fame, pestilenti laboratur ubique, sectis dissecta sunt omnia: ad    |
| tantam malorum lernam accessit letali sudor, multos intra horas      |
| octo tolleus e medio, etc. _Erasm._ Epist. L. XXVI. ep. 58. c.       |
| 1477. b.                                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [622] _Fuhrmann_, Part II. p. 745.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [623] Chronicon Monasterii Mellicensis. In _Pez_, T. I. col. 285.    |
|                                                                      |
| [624] The Assembly of the Reformers began there on the 2nd of        |
| October.                                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [625] The pamphlet written by _Magnus Hundt_ is ornamented with a    |
| wood-cut, where, under the throne of God, and seated on lions who    |
| are spitting forth fire, a great host of angels, armed with swords,  |
| are hovering round men, whom they treat worse than Herod’s soldiers  |
| treated the children of Bethlehem.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [626] _Reimar Kock’s_ Chronicle of Lübeck.                           |
|                                                                      |
| [627] _Kersenbroick_ in Sprengel, II. p. 687. Compare _Sleidan_, L.  |
| VI. Tom. I. p. 380, who plainly and simply states the fact.          |
|                                                                      |
| [628] Culpam eius rei plerique conferebant in theologos              |
| concionatores, qui suppliciis impiorum placandam esse clamabant      |
| iram Dei, novo morbi genere nos verberantis. _Sleidan_, loc. cit.    |
| p. 380.                                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [629] _Haftitz_, p. 131. _Angelus_, p. 319. _Cramer_, Book III. p.   |
| 76, and many others.                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [630] “Verum quamplurimi, tam nobiles quam populares viri ac         |
| mulieres, hoc morbo misere suffocati sunt, _ob libellos erroneos_,   |
| ab indoctissimis hominibus in vulgus emissos, qui in eiusmodi lue    |
| curanda peritiam et experientiam jactabant, multosque in Angliâ      |
| aliisque regionibus sese curasse dicebant, cum omnia falsa essent.   |
| Tales inquam minima pietate fulti erga ægrotos, _illorum loculos     |
| tantum expilabant_, ac in sui commodum convertebant, nullam de       |
| aliorum damnis nec morte ipsa curam gerentes, sed quæ sua sunt       |
| tantum curantes, nulla arte instructi miseros ægros, passim sua      |
| ignorantia trucidabant.” _Forest._ L. VI. obs. 8. p. 158. a.         |
|                                                                      |
| [631] “Ditissimi negociatores, lectis adfixi medicos ad se           |
| vocabant, montes auri promittentes, si curarentur.” _Ditmar_, p.     |
| 473.                                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [632] “Nam occlusis rimis omnibus, et excitato igne copioso,         |
| opertisque stragulis, quo magis tutiusque suderent, æstu præfocati   |
| sunt.” _Forest._ loc. cit. p. 157. b.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [633] _Wild_, in _Baldinger_, p. 278.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [634] The printer _Frantz_. _Schmidt_, p. 307.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [635] _Stelzner_, Part II. p. 219.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [636] This appears from the Wittenberg regimen.                      |
|                                                                      |
| [637] _Reimar Kock’s_ Chronicle of Lübeck.                           |
|                                                                      |
| [638] _Klemzen_, p. 255.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [639] In _Gratoroli_: _Petrus_, proto medicus, fol. 90.              |
|                                                                      |
| [640] See his pamphlet.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [641] I here give the whole pamphlet, which only occupies five       |
| pages. It is entitled, “The Remedy, Advice, Succour and Consolation  |
| against the dreadful, and as yet by us Germans unheard-of, speedy,   |
| and mortal Disease, called the English Sweating Sickness, from       |
| which may Almighty God mercifully protect us.”                       |
|                                                                      |
| “When the disease and sweating sets in, ask what o’clock it is, and  |
| note it. “If any one be afflicted with this pestilence (may God      |
| protect us from it!) it attacks him either with heat or with cold,   |
| and he will sweat violently; and this will take place all over his   |
| body. Some take the disease with sudden eructations, and do not      |
| sweat; and to those who do not sweat, a flower of mace with warm     |
| beer is given, and then they sweat.                                  |
|                                                                      |
| “But if the pestilence and disease, from which may God preserve      |
| us! attack any one after he has lain down in bed, he must be left    |
| there; but if he has a feather bed, though a thin one, over him,     |
| cut it open and take the feathers out, that it may consist only of   |
| the ticking or covering. If it be too thin, add a cool coverlet,     |
| and let the patient lie under that, covered up to the neck, and      |
| take care that the air do not touch or strike upon his breast, or    |
| under his arms, and the soles of his feet, and let him not toss      |
| about.                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| “Item. Two men should attend the patient, to prevent him from        |
| uncovering himself, and from going to sleep.                         |
|                                                                      |
| “Item. The same two men must watch the patient, and guard him        |
| against sleeping: if they neglect this, and do not so prevent him,   |
| and the patient sleep, he will lose his senses, and go raving mad.   |
|                                                                      |
| “In order, however, that he may be prevented from sleeping, take a   |
| little rosewater, and by means of a sponge or clean napkin, bathe    |
| his temples with it between the eyes and the ears, and by means of   |
| a sponge or napkin, apply pungent wine or beer vinegar to his nose,  |
| and talk constantly to him so that he fall not asleep.               |
|                                                                      |
| “If he would drink, give him a thin beverage, which should be a      |
| little warm; and he ought not to be given more than two spoonfuls    |
| at a time.                                                           |
|                                                                      |
| “Item. On the patient’s head should be placed a linen night-cap,     |
| and a woollen one over it.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| “Item. A warm towel should be taken, and with it the sweat wiped     |
| from the face.                                                       |
|                                                                      |
| “Item. Whoever is attacked in the day-time must be put to bed: if    |
| it be a man, in his stockings and breeches; if a woman, in her       |
| clothes; and let them be covered over with not more than two thin    |
| coverings; and, above all things, no feather bed; and then treat     |
| them as above written.                                               |
|                                                                      |
| “Item. The disease attacks most people from great dread and from     |
| irregular living, from which a man should guard himself with great   |
| pains.                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| “Once for all, the patient must not have his own way; what he would  |
| have you do for him, that must not be done.                          |
|                                                                      |
| “Item. With respect to those whom it attacks in the night, and who   |
| lie naked, if they will not lie still, let them be sewn up in the    |
| sheets, and let the sheets be sewn to the bed, so that no air can    |
| come from beneath; and then cover them as before.                    |
|                                                                      |
| “Summa. Whoever can thus endure for twenty-four hours, by the        |
| blessing of God, will be cured of the sickness, and get well.        |
|                                                                      |
| “If a man has held out for twenty-four hours, let him be taken       |
| up, and wrapped in a warm sheet lest he become cold, and throw       |
| something over his feet, and bring him to the fire; and above all    |
| things, let him not go into the air for four days, and let him       |
| avoid much and cold drink.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| “If he would sleep, provided twenty-four hours have been passed,     |
| let him sleep freely; and may God preserve him!                      |
|                                                                      |
| “The Lord is Almighty over us! Amen.”                                |
|                                                                      |
| The place of publication is wanting. It was, probably, either        |
| Leipzig or Wittenberg.                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [642] _Magnus Hundt_, fol. 27. a. “Nullis vero aliis medicamentis    |
| utuntur adversus ipsam, quam expectatione sudoris, nam quibus        |
| advenit, omnes fere evadunt, quibus autem retinctur, maxima pars     |
| perit.” _Forest._ loc. cit. p. 159. a. Schol.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [643] Born about 1483; died 1549.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [644] Born 1492; died 1555.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [645] Died 1558.                                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [646] Died 1545. “Vir gravis; eximia litterarum cognitione,          |
| singulari judicio, summa experientia, et prudenti consilio Doctor.”  |
| _Aikin_, p. 47.                                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [647] In _Henry VIII._                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [648] See their biography, in _Aikin_.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [649] _Thomas Gale’s_ description of this class of medical           |
| practitioners gives the best notion of their abilities. “I           |
| remember,” says he, “when I was in the wars at Montreuil, (1544,)    |
| in the time of that most famous Prince, Henry VIII., there was       |
| a great rabblement there, that took upon them to be surgeons.        |
| Some were sow gelders, and some horse gelders, with tinkers and      |
| cobblers. This noble sect did such great cures, that they got        |
| themselves a perpetual name; for like as Thessalus’ sect were        |
| called Thessalions, so was this noble rabblement, for their          |
| notorious cures, called dog-leaches; for in two dressings they       |
| did commonly make their cures whole and sound for ever, so that      |
| they neither felt heat nor cold, nor no manner of pain after. But    |
| when the Duke of Norfolk, who was then general, understood how       |
| the people did die, and that of small wounds, he sent for me and     |
| certain other surgeons, commanding us to make search how these       |
| men came to their death, whether it were by the grievousness of      |
| their wounds, or by the lack of knowledge of the surgeons, and we,   |
| according to our commandment, made search through all the camp, and  |
| found many of the same good fellows which took upon them the names   |
| of surgeons, not only the names, but the wages also. We asking of    |
| them whether they were surgeons or no, they said they were; we       |
| demanded with whom they were brought up, and they, with shameless    |
| faces, would answer, either with one cunning man, or another, which  |
| was dead. Then we demanded of them what chirurgery stuff they had    |
| to cure men withal; and they would show us a pot or a box, which     |
| they had in a budget, wherein was such trumpery as they did use      |
| to grease horses’ heels withal, and laid upon scabbed horses’        |
| backs, with verval and such like. And others that were cobblers and  |
| tinkers, they used shoemakers’ wax, with the rust of old pans, and   |
| made therewithal a noble salve, as they did term it. But in the      |
| end this worthy rabblement was committed to the Marshalsea, and      |
| threatened by the Duke’s Grace to be hanged for their worthy deeds,  |
| except they would declare the truth, what they were and of what      |
| occupations, and in the end they did confess, as I have declared to  |
| you before.”                                                         |
|                                                                      |
| In another place Gale says, “I have, myself, in the time of King     |
| Henry VIII., holpe to furnish out of London, in one year, which      |
| served by sea and land, three score and twelve surgeons, which were  |
| good workmen, and well able to serve, and all English men. At this   |
| present day there are not thirty-four, of all the whole company, of  |
| Englishmen, and yet the most part of them be in noblemen’s service,  |
| so that if we should have need, I do not know where to find twelve   |
| sufficient men. What do I say? sufficient men: nay, I would there    |
| were ten amongst all the company, worthy to be called surgeons.”     |
|                                                                      |
| [650] _Klemzen_, p. 255.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [651] Part I. cap. 8.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [652] _Gruner_, Script, p. 11.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [653] “Vix malevolorum _cachinnos_ morsusque præteriit.”             |
| _Schiller_, Epist. nuncupator. the title which _Gruner_, Script. p.  |
| 12, gives to the original work, still existing in the library at     |
| Strasburg, and a Latin extract from it. _Gratoroli_, fol. 39.        |
|                                                                      |
| [654] See the Catalogue in the Appendix, “Ein Regiment,” &c.         |
|                                                                      |
| [655] Any kind of weak beer with the chill off. Warm beer was        |
| a beverage in general use in the north of Germany. The beer of       |
| _Eimbeck_ and _Bernau_ was stronger, and was recommended by medical  |
| men during the convalescence.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [656] “I had in my house seven lying ill with the same disease, of   |
| which, thank God, none died.” From the letter of an inhabitant of    |
| Hamburgh, given in the same pamphlet, “Ein Regiment,” &c.            |
|                                                                      |
| [657] _Gratorol._ fol. 87. b.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [658] _Gratorol._ fol. 90.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [659] _Stettler_, Part II. p. 33.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [660] _Wagenaar_, op. cit. p. 509.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [661] His proper name was _Henry Spaten_, (German _Spät_, in         |
| English _late_,) whereof _Cordus_ (the last born or late-born)       |
| seems to have been a translation.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [662] The second of September.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [663] ℞ Pulveris cardiaci, (very complex, containing precious        |
| stones and many other ingredients,) Ʒij; Pulveris cornu cervi Ʒj;    |
| Seminis Santonici, Myrrhæ, aā Ʒſs ♏. ft. Pulv. Sum^t. Ʒj; in warm    |
| wine-vinegar.                                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [664] Chronicle, p. 473.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [665] Born 1505; died 1577.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [666] It is the _Electuarium liberans Gasseri_:—℞ Spec. liberant.    |
| Galen, Spec. de gemm. aā Ʒj, Pulveris Dictamn., Tormentill,          |
| Serpentinæ, aā ℈iv, Pimpinell. Zedoariæ. aā Ʒſs, Bol. Armen, lot.;   |
| Terr. sigillat. aā ℈ij Rasur. Cornu cervin. ℈j, Zingiber. Ʒſs,       |
| Conserv. Rosar, rec. ℥ſs, Theriac. veteris ℥j, Syrup. acetositatis   |
| citri. q. s. ut ft. electuar. spiss.—Velsch, p. 19.—_Gasser_ states  |
| in his Augsburg Chronicle, that there were more than 3000 cases of   |
| the disease there, but that not more than 600 died. See _Mencken_,   |
| Scriptores rerum Germanicarum.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [667] _Gratorol._ fol. 74. b.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [668] _Gratorol._ fol. 85. Probably this epistle does not differ     |
| essentially from the Latin work of this author on the sweating       |
| fever which appeared separately. (De ἱδροπυρετοῦ seu sudatoræ        |
| febris curatione Liber. Coloniæ, 1529. 4.)                           |
|                                                                      |
| [669] _Gratorol._ fol. 64.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [670] _Gratorol._ fol. 69. b.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [671] Videmus, quam multi de sudore convalescant, fol. 66. a.        |
|                                                                      |
| [672] This town is called in Flemish Tienen, (Thenæ in Montibus,)    |
| translated by _Damianus_ Decicopolis.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [673] Fol. 117. a.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [674] Fol. 109. a.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [675] Fol. 116. b.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [676] Fol. 118. a. _Damianus_ wrote his, by no means unimportant,    |
| treatise, during the prevalence of the epidemic sweating fever in    |
| Ghent.                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [677] He styles himself _Schiller von Herderen_, from an estate in   |
| the village of that name close to Freiburg.                          |
|                                                                      |
| [678] _Schiller_ says with great naïveté, “that the symptoms of the  |
| disease are evident, and that those which he has not indicated must  |
| be imagined.” Sect. II. c. 1. fol. 206.                              |
|                                                                      |
| [679] “Habet inconstantes notas morbus.” _Schiller._ “Diversos       |
| diversimode adoritur.” _Damian._ fol. 115. b.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [680] See above, the remedium, p. 267, note e. Sudoris absentia      |
| plurimum nocebat.—_Forest._ p. 158. Schol.                           |
|                                                                      |
| [681] See above, p. 245. _Klemzen_, p. 254.                          |
|                                                                      |
| [682] _Bayer_, cap. 6. _M. Hundt_, fol. 5. a.                        |
|                                                                      |
| [683] _Bayer_, loc. cit.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [684] _Angelus_, p. 319. _Schiller_, _Stettler_, locis cit.: and     |
| many others.                                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [685] _Damian._ fol. 115. b.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [686] _Schiller_, loc. cit.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [687] The Regimen of Wittenberg.                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [688] _Damian._ fol. 115. b.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [689] _Klemzen_, p. 255.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [690] “Ungues potissimum excruciat, alas ita comprimit, ut etiam     |
| si velis, non posses attollere.” _Forest._ p. 157. Schol. “In        |
| extremitatibus puncturis retorquentur dolorosis—extremitates         |
| obstupefiunt, dolet orificium ventriculi, nervorum contractiones     |
| nascuntur, plantarum pedumque dolores.”—_Damian._ fol. 116. a.       |
|                                                                      |
| [691] _Damian._ loc. cit.                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [692] _Klemzen_, loc. cit.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [693] “Nec quenquam vidimus ita delirantem restitutum                |
| incolumitati.”—_Damian._ fol. 116. a.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [694] _Schiller_, _Stettler_.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [695] Somnolentia et _inevitabilis sopor_, _Schiller_; _a deep       |
| sleep_, in almost all the chroniclers.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [696] _Schiller._                                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [697] “Aliis mox tument manus et pedes, aliis facies, quæ et         |
| in pluribus livet; nonnullis sola labia et superciliorum loca:       |
| mulieribus etiam inguina inflantur.”—_Damian._ fol. 116. a.          |
|                                                                      |
| [698] “Maximus denique calor haud procul a corde sentitur,           |
| qui ad cerebrum devolans delirium adducit, internecionis             |
| nuncium.”—_Damian._ loc. cit.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [699] _Damian._ loc. cit.                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [700] _Schiller_, loc. cit.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [701] “Primo insultu aliis cervices aut scapulas, aliis crus         |
| aut brachium _occupavit_,” p. 15. _Kaye_ does not state what he      |
| precisely means by this “occupare.” From an analogous more modern    |
| observation, it appears, however, that by it are meant tearing       |
| rheumatic pains. “Add to this, that the patients complained one and  |
| all, some more some less, of a tearing pain in the neck.” _Sinner_,  |
| p. 10.                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [702] Pulsus concitatior, frequentior. The only remark upon the      |
| pulse which is to be found in all the writers. _Caius_, p. 16.       |
| Probably most of the physicians were afraid of contagion, and, on    |
| this account, omitted to examine the pulse.                          |
|                                                                      |
| [703] Page 252.                                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [704] Odoris teterrimi. _Tyengius_ in _Forest._, p. 158.             |
|                                                                      |
| [705] _Newenar_, fol. 72. b.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [706] Page 190.                                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [707] _Schiller_, _Kaye_, loc. cit.                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [708] —— “cum alvi solutione ac lotii haud modica eiectione, in ea   |
| morbi specie, quæ curatum itura est.” _Damian._ fol. 116. a.         |
|                                                                      |
| [709] _Rondelet_, de dignosc. morbis, loc. cit.                      |
|                                                                      |
| [710] To avoid exposure to cold, they preferred allowing the         |
| patient to pass his evacuations in bed. Bed-pans were unknown.       |
| _Kaye_, p. 110, and most of the other writers.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [711] _Tyengius_ in _Forest._, p. 158. b. “Febrem sudor finiebat,    |
| _post se relinquens_ in extremitatibus corporis, _pustulas parvas_,  |
| admodum _exasperantes_ diversas et malignas secundum humorum         |
| malignitatem.”                                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [712] When care was not taken that the hands and feet were kept      |
| under the clothes they died, and _their bodies became as black as a  |
| coal all over, and were covered with vesicles_, and stunk so, that   |
| it was necessary to bury them deep in the earth by reason of the     |
| stench. _Staphorst_, Part II. Vol. I. p. 83.                         |
|                                                                      |
| [713] Spots, (maculæ quas ronchas (?) vocant,) which were on other   |
| occasions considered as signs of approaching death, or which did     |
| not come out until death had occurred, broke out, after a return of  |
| sweating which had been repressed, all over the body of the learned  |
| _Margaretha Roper_, the eldest daughter of _Thomas More_, who was    |
| the subject of sweating fever in 1517 or 1528, and recovered. _Th.   |
| Stapleton_, Vita et obitus Thomæ Mori, c. 6, p. 26. See _Mori_       |
| Opera.                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [714] And certainly only after very appropriate and careful          |
| treatment. See the Wittenberg Regimen, _Kaye_, loc. cit. _Schmidt_,  |
| p. 307, and _Klemzer_, p. 256.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [715] _Newenar_, fol. 72. b.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [716] _Erasm._ Epist. L. XXVI. Ep. 58. p. 1477. b. “Et crebro quos   |
| reliquit brevi intervallo repetens, nec id semel, sed bis, ter,      |
| quater, donec in hydropem aut aliud morbi genus versus, tandem       |
| extinguat miseris excarnificatum modis.”                             |
|                                                                      |
| [717] _Kaye_, p. 110.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [718] Idem. p. 113.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [719] _Staphorst_, Part II. vol. I. p. 83.                           |
|                                                                      |
| [720] “Immunes erant pueri et senes ab hoc malo.” _Ditmar_,          |
| p. 473. “Pueri infra decem annos rarissime hac febre                 |
| corripiuntur.” _Newenar_, fol. 72. a. “Senibus solis quandoque       |
| pepercit,—præternavigavit etiam magna ex parte atrabilarios et       |
| emaciatos corpore, quoniam et horum corpora putris succi expertia    |
| erant.” _Schiller_, fol. 4. a.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [721] _Schmidt_, p. 307.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [722] As for instance, _Schiller_, to name but one among thousands.  |
| “Juvit etiam auxitque malum frequens multaque crapula, et in         |
| potationibus otiosa vita nostra,” fol. 3. b.                         |
|                                                                      |
| [723] Let it be observed _under similar circumstances_. It ought     |
| not to be affirmed that they are free from rheumatic diseases, but   |
| only that they are less disposed to be affected by them.             |
|                                                                      |
| [724] That _a rheumatic state makes the body an isolator_, _A.       |
| von Humboldt_ discovered as early as 1793, and he found that the     |
| observation was confirmed by subsequent experiments. “I have         |
| observed in myself that, when labouring under a severe attack of     |
| catarrhal fever, I was unable, by the most powerful metals, to       |
| excite the galvanic flash before my eyes; that I interrupted every   |
| connecting link between the muscular and nervous apparatus. As       |
| the rheumatic malady lessens the irritability of organs, so also     |
| it seems to diminish their conducting power. How is this? As yet     |
| nothing is known about it. I have every now and then met with        |
| isolating persons who were in perfect health, but can we not yet,    |
| amidst such an ocean of uncertainty, discover a condition by which   |
| we may determine every case?” _Versuche_ in Vol. I. p. 159. _Pfaff_  |
| believes that, during the existence of rheumatic diseases, the       |
| proper electricity of the body sinks down to nothing. See his Essay  |
| on the peculiar Electricity of the Human Body in _Mechel’s_ Archiv.  |
| Vol. III. No. 2. p. 161.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [725] The author has at times made extraordinary experiments of      |
| this kind upon himself.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [726] This phenomenon may justly be compared with the very similar   |
| but more enduring morbid sequelæ of cholera. Paralysis and a         |
| repletion of the returning vessels must be regarded in the same      |
| light in both.                                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [727] After _Henry_ VIIIth’s death in 1547, _Edward_ VI., who was    |
| only nine years old, came to the throne. He died in 1553.            |
|                                                                      |
| [728] _Caius_, p. 2.                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [729] Ibid. p. 28.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [730] _Godwyn_, p. 142. _Stow_, p. 1023.                             |
|                                                                      |
| [731] _Caius_, p. 3.                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [732] Ibid. p. 7.                                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [733] “Which miste in the countrie wher it began, was sene flie      |
| from toune to toune, with suche a stincke in morninges and           |
| evenings, that men could scarcely abide it.”—_Kaye._ See Appendix,   |
| also Lat. edit. pp. 28, 29. It is to be remarked here, that in the   |
| year 1529, _Damianus_ observed in Ghent, that more people sickened   |
| in the morning at sunrise than at any other time. p. 115. b.         |
|                                                                      |
| [734] _Hosack_ admits in cases of this kind, a “_fermentative or     |
| assimilating process_” in the atmosphere. T. I. p. 312. Laws of      |
| Contagion. _Lucretius_ had already expressed the same thought in     |
| poetry. L. VI. v. 1118. to 1123.                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [735] _Caius_, p. 29.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [736] Ibid. pp. 2–8.                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [737] _Holinshed_, p. 1031, and others.                              |
|                                                                      |
| [738] _Stow_, p. 1023. _Baker_, p. 332.                              |
|                                                                      |
| [739] _Godwyn_, p. 142.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [740] Among others, the Duke of _Suffolk_ and his brother.           |
| _Godwyn_, loc. cit.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [741] “And the same being whote and terrible, inforced the people    |
| greatly to call upon God and to do many deedes of charity: but _as   |
| the disease ceased, so the devotion quickly decayed_.” _Grafton_,    |
| p. 525.                                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [742] History of Medicine, Vol. II. p. 136.                          |
|                                                                      |
| [743] _Caius_, p. 30, and at other places quoted. “And it so         |
| folowed the Englishmen, that such marchants of England, as were      |
| in Flaunders and Spaine, and other countries beyond the sea, were    |
| visited therewithall, and none other nation infected therewith.”     |
| _Grafton_, loc. cit. Compare _Baker_, p. 332. _Holinshed_, p. 1031.  |
|                                                                      |
| [744] _Caius_, p. 48.                                                |
|                                                                      |
| [745] See Appendix, “these thre contryes (England, the Netherlands,  |
| and Germany) whiche destroy more meates and drynckes without         |
| al order, convenient time, reason, or necessitie then either         |
| Scotlande, or all other countries under the sunne, to the great      |
| annoiance of their owne bodies and wittes,” &c. Compare p. 46 of     |
| the Lat. edit.                                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [746] _Godwyn_, loc. cit., expressly assures us, that gluttons who   |
| were taken with the disease when their stomachs were full, fell      |
| victims to it; and _Kaye_ states, that besides aged persons and      |
| children, the poor, who from necessity lived frugally, and endured   |
| hardships, either remained free, or bore the disease more easily,    |
| p. 51.                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [747] See above, pp. 231, 232.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [748] _Caius._ See Appendix.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [749] _Schwelin_, p. 177.                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [750] _Spangenberg_, fol. 463. a.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [751] Chron. Chron. p. 401.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [752] Ibid, and _Spangenberg_, loc. cit.                             |
|                                                                      |
| [753] Chron. Chron. loc. cit.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [754] _Spangenberg_, fol. 463. b.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [755] _Angelus_, p. 344. _Spangenberg_, fol. 464. a. Chron. Chron.   |
| p. 401.                                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [756] _Spangenberg_, fol. 464. a.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [757] Chron. Chron. p. 402.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [758] _Haftitz_, p. 167. _Angelus_, p. 344.                          |
|                                                                      |
| [759] Chron. Chron. p. 403. _Leuthinger_, p. 248.                    |
|                                                                      |
| [760] _Angelus_, loc. cit.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [761] _Spangenberg_, fol. 465. a. Magdeburg was besieged at this     |
| time for having refused to accept the “Interim.”                     |
|                                                                      |
| [762] _Wurstisen_, p. 624. _Spangenberg_, fol. 466. a.               |
|                                                                      |
| [763] In the March of Brandenburg, crosses, as they were called,     |
| were seen upon clothes in the year 1547 (_Leuthinger_, p. 216);      |
| red water was seen at Zörbig, in the year 1549, (Ibid. p. 231,)      |
| and frequently likewise in the year 1551. (Chron. Chron. p. 402.)    |
| _Agricola_ seems to point to these connected phenomena in the        |
| passage already quoted; see p. 206, note e.                          |
|                                                                      |
| [764] “Pestis insuper in certis sæviebat Germaniæ provinciis         |
| (1533,) præsertim Nurenbergæ et Babenbergæ, et villis oppidisque     |
| per girum. Et est stupenda res, quod hæc plaga nunquam totaliter     |
| cessat, sed omni anno regnat, jam hic, nunc alibi, de loco           |
| in locum, de provincia in provinciam migrando, et si recedit         |
| aliquamdiu, tamen post paucos annos et circuitum revertitur,         |
| et juventutem interim natam in ipso flore pro parte majore           |
| amputat.”—_Jo. Lange_, Chron. Nuremburgens. eccles., in _Mencken_,   |
| T. II. col. 88.                                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [765] _Spangenberg_, fol. 369. b.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [766] _Fernel_, de abditis rerum causis, L. II. p. 107.              |
|                                                                      |
| [767] See _Fernel_. _Wurstisen_, (p. 613,) however, states that the  |
| preceding winter had been very warm. Thus Aph. 12. sect. III. would  |
| hold good.                                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [768] _Wurstisen_, loc. cit.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [769] L’année des vins rostis, of the French. _Stettler_, p. 119.    |
|                                                                      |
| [770] _Spangenberg_, fol. 439. a. Chron. Chron. p. 375.              |
|                                                                      |
| [771] _Kircher_, p. 147.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [772] _Spangenberg_, fol. 439. b.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [773] _Villalba_, T. I. p. 93. They committed great ravages in       |
| Spain.                                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [774] See Appendix, and p. 25. of the Latin edition.—Compare         |
| _Haftitz_, p. 149, and others.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [775] _Spangenberg_, fol. 439. b.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [776] _Jordan_, Tr. I. c. 19. p. 220.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [777] _Spangenberg_, fol. 440. b.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [778] _Villaba_, T. I. p. 94. The author has not been able to        |
| obtain the work of Sixtus Kepser, an observer of this disease.       |
| (Consultatio saluberrima de causis et remediis epidemiæ sive         |
| pestiferi morbi Bambergensium civitatem tum infestantis.) Bambergæ,  |
| 1544. 4to.                                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [779] See p. 236.                                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [780] _Mezeray_, p. 1036.                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [781] See p. 236.                                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [782] _Thuan._ L. IV. p. 73.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [783] _Spangenberg_, fol. 458. a. b. 459. a.                         |
|                                                                      |
| [784] _Leuthinger_, p. 241.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [785] _Spangenberg_, fol. 460. a.                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [786] _Crusius_, p. 280.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [787] _Villalba_, T. I. p. 95.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [788] See above, p. 221.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [789] _Wurstisen_, (1552, pestilential epidemic in Basle,)           |
| p. 627.—_Spangenberg_, fol. 467. b., 468. a. (Pestilence and         |
| Phrenitis.)                                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [790] _Aikin_, p. 103, et seq.                                       |
|                                                                      |
| [791] See Appendix.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [792] 1556.—This edition is very rare, and is probably not to be     |
| found in Germany. The edition brought out by the author, (1833,) is  |
| taken from a very good London reprint of 1721.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [793] In the German, sometimes called “eines Tags pestilentziches    |
| Fieber.”                                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [794] P. 15. Lat. edit.—II. ἑλώδης τυφώδης, ἱδρώδης.                 |
|                                                                      |
| [795] Ibid. p. 17. seq.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [796] Ibid. p. 49.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [797] P. 31. Lat. edit.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [798] See above, p. 272.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [799] P. 43. Lat. edit.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [800] P. 44. Lat. edit. See above, p. 214.                           |
|                                                                      |
| [801] Ibid. p. 74.                                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [802] P. 94. Lat. edit.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [803] Practica, fol. 43. a. 263. a.                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [804] _Fallop._ de compos. medic. cap. 41. p. 208.                   |
|                                                                      |
| [805] P. 102. Lat. edit.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [806] P. 106, 7. Ibid.                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [807] Shortly before his death he resigned the Mastership, but       |
| continued to reside in the College as a fellow-commoner. See         |
| _Aikin_, p. 109.—_Transl. note._                                     |
|                                                                      |
| [808] He gave for a new building to this establishment, more than    |
| 1,800_l._, a very considerable sum for those times.                  |
|                                                                      |
| [809] De medendi methodo, ex Cl. Galeni Pergameni, et Joh. Bapt.     |
| Montani, Veronensis, principum medicorum, sententia, Libri           |
| duo. Basil. 1554. 8. He dedicated this frivolous book to the         |
| _court-physician in ordinary_, _Butts_. See _Balæus_, fol. 232. b.   |
|                                                                      |
| [810] Compare his own work, “De Libris Propriis,” in _Jebb_, which   |
| is a similar imitation of Galen, and is written in nearly the same   |
| spirit.                                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [811] De canibus Britannicis et de rariorum animalium et stirpium    |
| historia, in _Jebb_.                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [812] See p. 270.                                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [813] “Sudor anglicus fere similis ei sudori, quem cardiacum         |
| dicebamus.” De morb. int. L. II. fol. 60. a.                         |
|                                                                      |
| [814] “Est autem _cor_ præstans atque salutaris corpori particula,   |
| præministrans omnibus sanguinem membris, atque spiritum.” _Cæl.      |
| Aurel._ Acut. L. II. c. 34. p. 154. Compare _the Author’s_           |
| “Doctrine of the circulation, before _Harvey_,” Berlin, 1831. 8.     |
|                                                                      |
| [815] _Cæl. Aurel._ cap. 30. p. 146.                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [816] Ibid. cap. 34. p. 156.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [817] The whole 34th chapter, loc. cit. _Aurelian_ gives, from       |
| the 30th to the 40th cap., the fullest information respecting the    |
| Morbus cardiacus.                                                    |
|                                                                      |
| [818] Torpor frigidus, C. 35. p. 157.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [819] Hallucinatio.                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [820] _Cæl. Aurel._ p. 157.                                          |
|                                                                      |
| [821] Spiratio præfocabilis.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [822] C. 34. p. 154. Thoracis gravedo.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [823] C. 35. p. 156.                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [824] _Aretæus_, L. II. c. 3. p. 30.                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [825] _Cæl. Aurel._ loc. cit.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [826] Diaphoretici, cardiaci.                                        |
|                                                                      |
| [827] Febres continuæ flaminatæ. _Cæl. Aurel._ c. 31. p. 147.        |
|                                                                      |
| [828] _Aretæus_, Cur. ac. L. II. c. 3. p. 188.                       |
|                                                                      |
| [829] _Cæl. Aurel._ c. 33. p. 150.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [830] L. II. c. 3. p. 30.                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [831] _Aret._ Cur. ac. L. II. c. 3. p. 193.                          |
|                                                                      |
| [832] _Cæl. Aurel._ c. 31. p. 146.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [833] _Cæl. Aurel._ c. 31. p. 146.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [834] _Cæl. Aurel._ c. 33. p. 153. A perfectly similar observation   |
| is made in the present day, on the increasing frequency of liver     |
| complaints in England. Parents who have been a long time in the      |
| East Indies, entail the predisposition to these diseases, which      |
| are altogether foreign to the temperate zones, on their posterity,   |
| among whom there is no need of a tropical heat, but merely common    |
| causes acting in their own country, to call forth various liver      |
| complaints. See _Bell_ (_George Hamilton_).                          |
|                                                                      |
| [835] _Cæl. Aurel._ c. 36. p. 159.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [836] On this subject, read the classical work of _Baccius_.         |
|                                                                      |
| [837] _Celsus_, L. III. c. 19. p. 140. _Cæl. Aurel._ from c. 37. on. |
|                                                                      |
| [838]Ἢν γὰρ ἐπὶ συγκοπῇ καὶ σμικρὸν ἁμαρτῴη, ῥηϊδίως εἰς ἅδου        |
| τρέπει. Cur. ac. L. II. c. 3. p. 188.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [839] _Cæl. Aurel._ c. 37. p. 169.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [840] _Cæl. Aurel._ c. 38. p. 171.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [841] Græcum salsum, οἶνος τεθαλασσωμένος, a mixture of wine and     |
| sea-water which was very much in use.                                |
|                                                                      |
| [842] _Cæl. Aurel._ c. 39. pp. 174, 175.                             |
|                                                                      |
| [843] _Cæl. Aurel._ c. 38. p. 171.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [844] “nihil jugulatione differre.” Ibid.                            |
|                                                                      |
| [845] _Celsus_ recommended a sextarium and a half a-day, which is    |
| about 42 cubic inches, loc. cit. Cardiacorum morbo unicam spem in    |
| vino esse, certum est. _Plin._ Hist. Nat. L. xxiii. c. 2. T. II.     |
| p. 303. Bibere et sudare vita cardiaci est. _Senec._ Epist. 15. T.   |
| II. p. 68. Ed. Ruhkopf. Cardiaco cyathum nunquam mixturus amico.     |
| _Juvenal._ Sat. v. 32.                                               |
|                                                                      |
| [846] _Celsus._                                                      |
|                                                                      |
| [847] Aspergines, sympasmata, diapasmata. _Cæl. Aurel._ c. 38. p.    |
| 171.                                                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [848] _Cæl. Aurel._ c. 37. p. 161.                                   |
|                                                                      |
| [849] _Aretæus_, p. 192.                                             |
|                                                                      |
| [850] _Celsus_, loc. cit.                                            |
|                                                                      |
| [851] For instance, in the villages of Rue-Saint-Pierre and          |
| Neuville-en-Hez, between Beauvais and Clermont. _Rayer_, Suette, p.  |
| 74.                                                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [852] _Godofredi Welschii_ Historia medica novum puerperarum morbum  |
| continens. Disp. d. 20. April. 1655. Lipsiæ, 4to. The principal      |
| work upon the first visitation of miliary fever in Germany.          |
|                                                                      |
| [853] For example, in the epidemic of 1782, which, during the        |
| course of a few months, carried off in Languedoc upwards of 30,000   |
| people. _Pujol_ observed in that epidemic four forms of exanthem.    |
| 1. A Purpura urticata—elevated rose-like spots, or papulæ of         |
| smaller circumference: it was very favourable, and sometimes passed  |
| off without fever. 2. Spots consisting of very small miliary         |
| vesicles and pustules which ran into each other: less favourable.    |
| 3. Small hemispherical pimples, from the size of a mustard seed      |
| to that of a corn of maize. They were surmounted by a white point    |
| before they died away, and the large kind became converted into      |
| pustules, filled with matter or greyish semitransparent phlyctænæ,   |
| with red inflamed bases. This form was the commonest, and extended,  |
| mixed with the others, over the whole surface, especially the        |
| trunk. 4. An exanthem resembling flea-bites, of a bright red, with   |
| a small grey miliary vesicle in the middle, almost invisible,        |
| except through a lens: this form was the worst. _Pujol_, Œuvres      |
| diverses de Médecine Pratique, 4 vols. _Castres_, 1801. 8vo.         |
|                                                                      |
| [854] _Foderé_, III. p. 222.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [855] On this point see _Allioni_, who drew his classical            |
| description of miliary fever from the Piedmont epidemics.            |
|                                                                      |
| [856] _Bellot_, An febri putridæ, Picardis Suette dictæ sudorifera?  |
| Diss. præs. _Ott. Cas. Barfeknecht_. Paris, 1733. 4to.               |
|                                                                      |
| [857] _Rayer_, Suette, p. 426, where the principal passage of        |
| _Bellot’s_ dissertation is reprinted word for word.                  |
|                                                                      |
| [858] Best in _Rayer_, p. 421. Not so well in _Ozanam_, T. iii. p.   |
| 105. The writers are very numerous.                                  |
|                                                                      |
| [859] _Rayer_, _Mazet_, _Bally_, _François_, _Pariset_, and many     |
| others.                                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [860] _Bally_ and _François_, in the Journal Général de Médecine,    |
| T. LXXVII. p. 204. Compare _Foderé_, T. III. p. 227. _Ozanam_, T.    |
| III. p. 116. _Rayer_, Suette, p. 148. Mal. d. l. p. T. I. p. 320.    |
|                                                                      |
| [861] We may add to them also those observed in the south of         |
| Germany, in the œtiology of which _Schönlein_ lays much stress       |
| on the contamination of the air in the process of steeping hemp.     |
| _Vorlesungen_, II. p. 324.                                           |
|                                                                      |
| [862] It is not complete, but may render apparent the power and      |
| extent of the disease. See _Rayer_, Suette, p. 465.                  |
|                                                                      |
| [863] At that time inhabited by about two hundred and fifty country  |
| people. _Sinner_, p. 7.                                              |
|                                                                      |
| [864] _Dr. Thein_, government physician of the town of Aub.          |
|                                                                      |
| [865] The whole number of cases and of deaths is not stated. _Dr.    |
| Sinner_ found nine bodies, none of which had been opened, shortly    |
| before the cessation of the disease.                                 |
|                                                                      |
| [866] Everything heating was avoided; the air was cautiously         |
| purified, cooling beverage was given, and contrary to the method     |
| of Brown, at that time in vogue, few medicines, such as valerian,    |
| spirits of hartshorn, Hoffman’s drops, &c., were employed. Blisters  |
| were of service, and likewise, under some circumstances, camphor.    |
| The convalescents were well nourished.                               |
|                                                                      |
| [867] Those works only which have been consulted by the author       |
| himself are here enumerated.                                         |
|                                                                      |
| [868] He treats only of petechial fevers, and that very              |
| superficially.                                                       |
|                                                                      |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+


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