The Black Plague of the fourteenth century was more destructive even
than the bubonic pest of the sixth century, and all other epidemics
observed up to the present day. In the space of four years more than
twenty five millions of human beings perished—one-half the population
of the world. Like all other pestilences, it came from the Orient—from
India, and perhaps from China. Europe was invaded from east to west,
from south to north. After Constantinople, all the islands and
shores of the Mediterranean were attacked, and successively became
so many foci of disease from which the pestilence radiated inland.
Constantinople lost two-thirds of its population. Cyprus and Cairo
counted 15,000 deaths. Florence paid an awful tribute to the disease,
so great being the mortality that the epidemic has often been called
_Peste de Florence_; “100,000 persons perished,” says Boccaccio. Venice
lost 20,000 victims, Naples 60,000, Sicily 53,000, and Genoa 40,000,
while in Rome the dead were innumerable.
In Spain, Germany, England, Poland, and Russia the malady was as fatal
as in Italy. At London they buried 100,000 persons in the cemeteries.
It was the same in France. Avignon lost 150,000 citizens in seven
months, among whom was the beautiful Laura de Noves, immortalized by
Petrarch, who expired from the plague in 1348, aged forty-one years.
At Marseilles 56,000 people died in one month; at Montpellier three
quarters of the population, including all the physicians, went down in
the epidemic. Narbonne had 30,000 deaths and Strasbourg 16,000 in the
first year of the outbreak. Paris was not spared; the _Chronique de
Saint Denis_ informs us that “in the year of Grace 1348, commenced the
aforesaid mortality in the Realms of France, the same lasting about a
year and a half, increasing more and more until Paris lost each day 800
inhabitants; so that the number who died there amounted to more than
500,000 people, while in the town of Saint Denis the number reached
16,000.[13]
Among the victims were Jeanne de Bourgogne, wife of Philip VI.; Jeanne
II., Queen of Navarre, grandchild of Philip the Beautiful. In Spain,
died Alphonse XI. of Castille. “Happily,” says the _Chronicle_, “during
the years following the plague the fecundity of women was prodigious—as
though nature desired to repair the ravages wrought by death.” The
symptoms and history of this plague have been described by several
ocular witnesses, among others Guy de Chauliac, the celebrated surgeon
and professor at Montpellier, who has left the following recital in
quaint old French:
“The disease was such that one never before saw a like mortality. It
appeared in Avignon in the year of our Saviour 1348, in the sixth year
of the Pontificate of Clement VI., in whose service I entered, thanks
to his Grace.
“Not to displease you, I shall briefly narrate for your edification the
advent of the disease.
“It commenced—the aforesaid mortality—in January and lasted for the
space of seven months.
“The disease was of two kinds. The first type lasted two months, with
a continued fever and spitting of blood. This variety killed in three
days, however.
“The second type of the disease, prevailing during the epidemic time,
also had a continued fever, with apostumes and carbuncles at the
external parts, principally on the axilla and in the groin; all such
attacked usually died in five days.
“The malady was so contagious, especially that form in which
blood-spitting was noticed, that one not only caught it from sojourning
with the sick, but also, it sometimes seemed, from looking at the
disease, so that men died without their servants and were buried
without priests.
“The father visited not his son, nor the son his father. Charity was
dead and hope disappeared.
“I call the epidemic great, inasmuch as it conquered all the earth.
“For the pestilence commenced at the Orient, and cast its fangs against
all the world, passing through Paris towards the West.
“It was so destructive that it left only a quarter of the population of
mankind behind.
“It was a shame and disgrace to medicine, as many doctors dared not
visit the sick through fear of becoming infected; and those who visited
the sick made few cures and fewer fees, for the sick all died save a
few. Not many having buboes escaped death.
“For preservation, there was no better remedy than to fly from the
infection, to purge one’s self with aloe pills, to diminish the blood
by phlebotomy, to purify the air with fire, to comfort the heart
with cordials and apples and other things of good odor; to console
the humors with Armenian bole and resist dry rot by the use of acid
things. For the cure of the plague we used bleedings and evacuations,
electuaries, syrups and cordials, and the external apostumes or
swellings were poulticed with boiled figs and onions mixed with oil
and butter; the buboes were afterwards opened and treated by the usual
cures for ulcers.
“Carbuncles were leeched, scarified and cauterized.
“I, to avoid infamy, dared not absent myself from the care of the sick,
but lived in continual fear, preserving myself as long as possible by
the before-mentioned remedies.
“Nevertheless, towards the end of the epidemic, I fell into a fever,
which continued with an aposthume in the groin, and was ill for nigh
on six weeks, being in such danger that all my companions believed I
should die; nevertheless, the bubo being poulticed and treated as I
have above indicated, I recovered, thanks be to the will of God.”
According to the records of that time, many persons died the first
day of their illness. These bad cases were announced by a violent
fever, with cephalgia, vertigo, drowsiness, incoherency in ideas,
and loss of memory; the tongue and palate were black and browned,
exhaling an almost insupportable fetidity. Others were attacked by
violent inflammation of the lungs, with hemorrhage; also gangrene,
which manifested itself in black spots all over the body; if, to the
contrary, the body was covered by abscesses, the patients seemed to
have some chance for recovery.
Medicines were powerless, all remedies seeming to be useless. The
disease attacked rich and poor indiscriminately; it overpowered the
robust and debilitated; the young and the old were its victims. On the
first symptom the patients fell into a profound melancholy and seemed
to abandon all hope of recovery. This moral prostration aggravated
their physical condition, and mental depression hastened the time of
death. The fear of contagion was so great that but few persons attended
the sick.
The clergy, encouraged by the Pope, visited the bedsides of the
dying who bequeathed all their wealth to the Church. The plague was
considered on all sides as a punishment inflicted by God, and it was
this idea that induced armies of penitents to assemble on the public
streets to do penance for their sins. Men and women went half naked
along the highways flagellating each other with whips, and, growing
desperate with the fall of night, they committed scandalous crimes. In
certain places the Jews were accused of being the authors of the plague
by poisoning the wells; hence the Hebrews were persecuted, sometimes
burned alive by the fanatical sects known as Flagellants, Begardes
and Turlupins, who were encouraged in their acts of violence by the
priests, notwithstanding the intervention of Clement VI.
Physicians were not only convinced of the contagious nature of the
disease, but also believed that it could be transmitted by look and
word of mouth. Such doctors obliged their patients to cover their
eyes and mouth with a piece of cloth whenever the priest or physician
visited the bedside. “_Cum igitur medicus vel sacerdos, vel amicus
aliquem infirmum visitare voluerit, moneat et introducat aegrum suos
claudere et linteamine operire._”
Guillaume de Machant, poet and _valet de chambre_ of Philip the
Beautiful, mentions this fact in one of his poems, _i. e._:
“They did not dare, in the open air
To even speak by stealth,
Lest each one’s breath might carry death
By poisoning the other’s health.”
And, in the preface of the “Decameron,” Boccaccio remarks in his turn,
“The plague communicated direct, as fire to combustible matter. They
were often attacked from simply touching the sick, indeed it was not
even necessary to touch them. The danger was the same when you listened
to their words or even if they gazed at you.”
One thing is certain, that is, that those who nursed the patients
surely contracted the disease.
All the authorities of the Middle Ages concur in their statements as to
the contagious nature of the plague. The rules and regulations enforced
against the afflicted were barbarous and inhuman. “Persons sick and
well, of one family, when the pest developed,” says Black,[14] “were
held, without distinction, in close confinement in their home, while on
the house door a red cross was traced, bearing the sad and desperate
epitaph, ‘_Dieu ayez pitie de nous!_’ No one was permitted to leave
or enter the plague-stricken house save the physician and nurse, or
other persons who might be authorized by the Government. The doors of
such dwellings were guarded and kept closed until such a time as the
imprisoned had all died or recovered their health.”
We can well judge of the terror inspired by the pestilence by the
precautions taken by the physicians in attendance on the sick. In his
treatise on the plague Mauget describes the costume worn by those who
approached the bedsides of patients:
“The costumes worn, says he, “were of Levant morocco, the mask having
crystal eyes and a long nose filled with subtile perfumes. This nose
was in the form of a snout, with the openings one on each side; these
openings served for respiratory passages and were well filled at the
anterior portion with drugs, so that at each breath they contained
a medicated air. Under a cloak the doctor also wore buskins made of
morocco; closely sewed breeches were attached to the bottines above the
ankle; the shirt, the hat and gloves were also of soft morocco.”
Thus accoutered the doctor resembled a modern diver clad in a bathing
suit of leather.
In order not to alarm the population all public references to funerals
were forbidden. In the ordinances of magistrates of Paris, passed
September 13, 1553, we read, “And likewise be it declared that the
aforesaid Chamber forbids by statute all criers of funerals and wines,
and all others, no matter what be their state or condition, to render
for sale at any church, house, doorway or gate of this city, or on
the streets thereof, any black cloth or mourning stuffs such as are
used for mortuary purposes, under penalty of forfeiture of their
licenses and property, and confiscation of all goods, especially of the
aforesaid black cloths.”
Let it be well understood that the great epidemics of plague in the
sixth and twelfth centuries were of a nature to terrify ignorant
populations. The narratives of the historians of that epoch show them
to be imbued with the superstitious ideas of antiquity. This attack
of an invisible enemy whose blows fell right and left paralyzed
and terrified every one. “In the midst of this orgie of death,”
remarks Anglada, “the thought of self-preservation absorbed every
other sentiment. Dominated by this selfish instinct the human mind
shamelessly displayed its cowardice, egotism and superstition. Social
ties were rudely sundered, the affections of the heart laid aside. The
sick were deserted by their relatives; all flew with horror from the
plague-breathing air and contact with the dreadful disease. The corpses
of the victims of the epidemic abandoned without sepulture exhaled a
horrible putrid odor, and became the starting point of new infectious
centres. The worse disorder overthrew all conditions of existence.
Human passion raged uncontrolled; the voice of authority was no longer
respected; the wheels of civilization ceased to revolve.”
As to the other epidemics of the plague that periodically devastated
France from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century we possess but few
historical documents. We have had in our hands an opuscule by Pierre
Sordes, who was attacked by the plague in 1587, at the age of twenty,
who afterward wrote a treatise on the epidemic, which work he dedicated
to Cardinal de Sourdis, the Archbishop of Aquitaine.
The author in this monograph endeavors to explain the remedies then
in use for preservation against the infection of the disease. “Avoid
all fatigue, anger, intemperance, too much association with women, as
the act ennervates our forces and enfeebles our spirits. One should
clothe himself in the wools of Auvergne and the camulets of Escot.”
Moreover, says our author, “one should perfume his clothes with laurel,
rosemary, serpolet, marjolane, sage, fennel, sweetbriar, myrrh, and
frankincense.” When the room was to be disinfected “one should use
fumigations of good dry hay. One should not go out early without eating
and taking a drink. One should close the ears with a little cotton
scented with musk and hold in his mouth a clove or piece of angelica
root. One should hold in his hand a piece of sponge saturated in
vinegar, which should be smelled frequently. One should wear upon his
stomach an acorn filled with quicksilver and a small pouch containing
arsenic. Finally, one should take twice a week a pill composed of
aloes, myrrh, and saffron.”
Notwithstanding all these precautions, Pierre Sordes was attacked by
the plague; having a buboe in the left groin, which caused him acute
pain and to which he applied “_un emplastre de diachyllum cum gummis_”
and afterwards a blister. Not being able to obtain resolution, feeling
his strength undermined and perceiving his entire body “covered with
black lumps and spots, fatal prognostic signs to all who are found thus
marked, I called for a surgeon, the last one left alive, and he brought
his cautery and with it pierced through the apostume. From then the
fever disappeared little by little, and I was perfectly cured eight
days after the application of the aforesaid cautery, with the exception
that, reading in a draught Bartas “Treatise on the Plague,” I brought
on another attack of fever that well nigh carried me off.
“This is my experience at Figeac in the year 1587, when the plague
destroyed 2500 people, with all the miseries and calamities that can be
read in Greek and Roman histories.”