Pestilential diseases have ever been considered a punishment inflicted on
mankind for their manifold offences. The ancients deified the calamity,
and viewed it in the light of an avenging god. In the Oedipus of
Sophocles, the chorus implore Minerva to preserve them from that divinity,
which, without sword or buckler, strews the Theban streets with corpses,
and is more invincible than Mars himself. Lucretius describes the plague
of Athens as a holy fire,--
Et simul, ulceribus quasi inustis, omne rubore
Corpus, ut est, per membra _sacer_ quum diditur _ignis_.
The plague was known in an early era both to the Israelites and to the
Greeks, and its ancient and modern histories have descended to us depicted
in the most terrific colours, in a regular stream of Hebrew, Greek,
Arabic, and Roman writers, in most instances offering little variety from
the descriptions of neoteric observers.
The pestilences that visited the Israelites were, however, of a different
character. They were also considered as a Divine chastisement of the sins
of that stiff-necked nation. This visitation, accurately described in Holy
Writ, has led to the most curious disquisitions. Bryant has endeavoured by
the most recondite researches to give us the reasons why the Creator
thought proper thus to visit his disobedient people. It has been truly
observed that the sublime is not far removed from the ridiculous; and it
may be said with equal correctness, that enthusiasm in religion too
frequently borders upon impiety. Bryant, in his erudite labour, has
unhappily fallen into this extreme, in assigning human motives to the
decrees of the Deity. This matter is treated in so curious a manner that
it will not be irrelevant to notice his bold assertions.
In the first instance, taking the language of the Exodus in the most
literal sense, he tells us that the river was turned into blood, _because_
it was a punishment particularly well adapted to that blinded and
infatuated people, as a warning to the Israelites of the insufficiency of
the false gods that the Egyptians worshipped. They had rendered divine
homage to the Nile; and Herodotus informs us that the Persians held their
rivers in the highest veneration; while the same worship obtained among
the Medes, the Parthians, and the Sarmatians. The Greeks adored the
Spercheius, to whose god Peleus vowed the hair of his son; the laureated
Peneus, the earth-born Achelous, and the loving Alpheus. For, although it
may be said that these streams were merely venerated as the symbols of
their respective gods, it is possible that the Greeks might have fallen
into the same errors as the worshippers of saintly images in more modern
and enlightened times. Therefore, says our learned author, there was a
great propriety in the judgment brought upon this people by Moses. They
must have felt the utmost astonishment and horror when they beheld the
sacred stream changed and polluted, and the divinity which they worshipped
so shamefully soiled and debased. Moreover, he tells us that the Egyptian
priests were particularly nice and delicate in their outward habits,
making constant ablutions; and abhorred blood, or any stain of gore. In
this plague the fish that were in the river died, and the river stunk. Now
the priests and holy men not only never tasted fish, but looked upon them
as deities. A city was built in honour of the god-fish, Oxyrunchus; the
Phagrus[12] was worshipped at Syene, the Maeotis at Elephantis, and
Antiphanes tells us that the Egyptians equally reverenced the eel.
The second plague were frogs, _because_, further saith our sapient
authority, they added to the stink of the land, as they "died out of the
houses, out of the villages, and out of the fields, and were gathered
together in heaps, and the land stunk," Exodus viii. 13, 14. Bryant
candidly confesses that he is rather uncertain if this reptile was an
object of reverence, or of abhorrence to the Egyptians; nevertheless, he
draws the conclusion that, as the ancients worshipped many deities of
dread, and others that they despised, (such as Priapus, Fatua, Vacuna,
Cloacina,) Mephitis, or foul effluvia, was held in religious awe,--and, to
use his own expressions, since Mephitis "signified stink in the abstract,"
and had a temple at Cremona, the pestilential emanation from the dead
frogs might have been considered as entitled to some reverence.[13]
Plutarch tells us that the frog was an emblem of the sun in Egypt, and
that the brazen palm-tree at Delphi had many of these animals engraved on
its basis. On the Bembine table we find it sitting upon the lotus, a
circumstance observed in various ancient gems; the water-lily being,
perhaps, congenial to this aquatic tribe, which were denominated the
attendants of the deities of streams and fountains. It is also alleged
that the frog was deemed an emblem of Apollo and Osiris, from its habit of
inflation, which was looked upon as being typical of inspiration. That
frogs were considered as evil symbols further appears in the Apocalypse,
where we find that "three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth
of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of
the false prophet; they are the spirits of devils working miracles."
The third plague was lice, _because_ the Egyptian priests affected great
external purity, wore linen under their woollen garments, and shaved their
heads, according to Herodotus, every third day, to prevent any louse, or
any other detestable object, from finding a comfortable shelter. Some
scholastics have ventured to insinuate that this insect was a species of
gnat; but St. Jerome and Origen very properly observe that this would have
been a presumptious anticipation of the plague of flies, which constituted
the _fourth_ visitation, _because_ flies were also held sacred by the
Egyptians, and were worshipped under the name of _Achon_, _Acoron_, and
_Zebub_, more particularly in the city of _Acaron_ or _Accoron_. Baal was
the god of flies, and the fly was worshipped at _Ekron_, where it was
called _Baal-ze-bub_,--hence _Belzebub_.
The next plague was the murrain of beasts; _because_ it was necessary that
the Israelites should not only see that the cattle of the Egyptians were
all infected, while theirs were exempted from the evil; but that their
very living symbol of the bull Apis, in whom the soul of Osiris had taken
up its dwelling, was affected with epizooty in common with other herds of
horned deities, who were called _Dii Stercorei_; though it appears that
the ass and the camel were involved in the same calamity.
Our commentator attempts to account for the sixth plague of boils and
blains with equal ingenuity. He affirms that this cruel disorder was sent
among the Egyptians to show the Israelites that the medical men to whom
they attributed divine powers, could neither cure nor alleviate the
disease. The science of medicine bequeathed by Isis to her son Orus was of
no avail, and the learned records of Tosorthrus yielded no information. In
vain did their leeches search their cryptae and sacred caverns, or consult
their mystic obelisks, which, according to Manetho, were inscribed with
the aphorisms of medical experience; their physicians only increased the
number of the _botches_ of the land. The Scriptures state that this
pestilential malady was produced by the ashes that Aaron and Moses
scattered up towards heaven to be wafted over the country. Bryant also
accounts for this circumstance, and attributes this method of extending
the calamity to the barbarous practice of the Egyptians of burning human
victims and scattering the ashes in the air, in a like manner to
propitiate their gods.
The fall of rain, hail, fire, and thunder, that constituted the seventh
plague, was a chastisement inflicted on the worshippers of these supposed
elements. Their Isis presided over the waters, and Osiris and Hephaistus
governed fire. Moreover the flax was smitten, whereby the Egyptians were
deprived of the means of making linen, the finest of which was their boast
and their pride. The barley was also destroyed, and they had no materials
for brewing their favourite potation, barley-wine; a species of beer which
constituted their chief beverage when the waters of the Nile were turbid
and not potable.[14]
But, according to Jacob Bryant, this destruction was not deemed
sufficient, since the fecundity of Egypt would soon have replenished their
granaries, manufactures, and breweries; therefore locusts were sent to
devour every thing that the former devastation had spared; and this plague
was a punishment of their belief that Hercules and Apollo had the power of
controlling these ravenous insects, which were called _Parnopes_ and
_Cornopes_, whence Apollo was named _Parnopius_, and Hercules _Cornopion_.
It also appears that the grasshoppers, or _cicadae_, were venerated, both
as sacred and musical; and the Athenians wore golden ones in their hair,
to denote the antiquity of their race of earth-born breed.
Now it is somewhat singular, that while our ingenious author makes such
learned inquiries to account for the motives that induced God thus to
visit the Egyptians, he does not venture to assign motives for similar
calamities which befel other nations and countries; although his
researches on the subject are so curious and interesting, that they
deserve insertion.
The following is the account given by Beauplam of the destructive inroad
of these devourers in the Ukraine:--"Next to the flies, let us talk of the
grasshoppers or locusts, which here are so numerous, that they put one in
mind of the scourge of God sent upon Egypt when he punished Pharaoh. These
creatures do not only come in legions, but in whole clouds, five or six
leagues in length, and two or three in breadth, eating up all sorts of
grain or grass, so that wheresoever they come, in less than two hours they
crop all they can find, which causes great scarcity of provisions. It is
not easy to express their numbers, for all the air is full and darkened;
and I cannot better represent their flight to you, than by comparing it to
the flakes of snow driven by the wind in cloudy weather; and when they
alight to feed, the plains are all covered. They make a murmuring noise as
they eat, and in less than two hours they devour all close to the ground;
then rising, they suffer themselves to be carried away by the wind. When
they fly, though the sun shines never so bright, the air is no lighter
than when most clouded. In June 1646, having stayed in a new town called
Novogorod, I was astonished to see so vast a multitude. They were hatched
here last spring; and being as yet scarcely able to fly, the ground was
all covered, and the air so full of them, that I could not eat in my
chamber without a candle, all the houses being full of them, even the
stables, barns, chambers, garrets, cellars, &c. I have seen at night, when
they sit to rest themselves, that the roads have been four inches thick of
them, one upon another. By the wheels of the carts and the feet of our
horses bruising these creatures, there came from them such a stink, as
not only offended the nose but the brain. I was not able to endure the
stench, but was forced to wash my nose with vinegar, and to hold a
handkerchief dipped in it to my nostrils perpetually. These vermin
increase and multiply thus: they generate in October, and with their tails
make a hole in the ground, and having laid three hundred eggs in it, and
covered them with their feet, die; for they never live above six months
and a half. And though the rains should come, they would not destroy the
eggs; nor does the frost, never so sharp, hurt them. But they continue to
the spring, which is about mid-April; when the sun warming the earth, they
are hatched, and leap about, being six weeks old before they can fly; when
stronger, and able to fly, they go wherever the wind carries them. If it
should happen that a north-east wind prevails, it carries them all into
the black sea; but if the wind blows from any other quarter, they go into
some other country to do mischief. I have been told by persons who
understand the languages well, that the words _Boze Guion_, which mean the
scourge of God, are written in Chaldee characters upon their wings."
Norden mentions that there were supposed to be hieroglyphic marks upon the
heads of these insects. Such was the pestilential scourge of the Ukraine;
although I do not apprehend that its inhabitants ever worshipped
_Parnopius_ or _Cornopion_, or decorated their filthy heads with golden
grasshoppers. Other regions were occasionally visited by these insects.
Ludolphus, in speaking of Ethiopia, says, "But much more pernicious than
these (the numerous serpents) are the locusts, which do not frequent the
desert and sandy places, like the serpents, but the places best manured,
and orchards laden with fruit. They appear in prodigious multitudes, like
a cloud which obscures the sun; nor plants, nor trees, nor shrubs appear
untouched, and wherever they feed, what is left appears as it were parched
with fire. A general mortality ensues; and regions lie waste for years."
Francis Alvarez thus speaks of the same calamity in the country of Prester
John. "In this country, and in all the dominions of Prete Janni, there is
a very great and horrible plague: this arises from an innumerable number
of locusts, which eat and consume all the corn and the trees. And the
number of these creatures is so great as to be incredible, and with their
numbers they cover the earth, and fill the air in such wise, that it is a
hard matter to see the sun. And if the damage they do were general through
all the provinces, the people would perish with famine. But one year they
destroy one province, sometimes two or three of the provinces; and
wherever they go the country remaineth more ruined and destroyed than if
it had been set on fire." The author adds, that he exorcised them upon
their invading a district in which he resided, when they all made off; but
in the mean time, he adds, "there arose a great storm and thunder towards
the sea, which came right against them. It lasted three hours, with an
exceeding great shower and tempest. It was a dreadful thing to behold the
dead locusts, (whom, by the way he had exorcised,) which we measured to be
above two fathoms high upon the banks of the rivers."
Barbot, in describing Upper Guinea, tells us that "famines are some years
occasioned by the dreadful swarms of grasshoppers or locusts, which come
from the eastward, and spread all over the country in such prodigious
multitudes, that they darken the air, passing over our heads like a mighty
cloud."
Orosius states that in the consulship of Marcus Plautius Hypsaeus and
Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, A.R. 628, Africa was desolated by a swarm of these
insects, which for a while were supported in the air, but were ultimately
cast into the sea. "After this," he adds, "the surf threw up upon that
long extended coast such numerous heaps of their dead and corrupted
bodies, that there ensued from putrefaction a most unsupportable and
poisonous stench. This soon brought on a pestilence, which affected every
species of animals, so that all birds, and sheep, and cattle, also the
wild beasts of the field died, and their carcases being soon rendered
putrid by the foulness of the air, added greatly to the general
corruption. In respect to men, it is impossible, without horror, to
describe the shocking devastation. In Numidia, where at the time Micipsa
was king, eighty thousand persons perished. Upon that part of the
sea-coast which bordered upon the regions of Carthage and Utica, the
number of those carried off by this pestilence is said to have been two
hundred thousand."
Now when man in all his proud ignorance dares to assume the power of
canvassing the acts of the Almighty, and to attribute to his inscrutable
will human motives, which generally arise from mortal frailty, he might as
well endeavour to account for similar casualties which visited other
nations than the Egyptians, and seek for the causes of the scourges of
Carthage, Ethiopia, and Tartary. It is grievous to see the intellectual
faculties of man perverted in such idle, one might venture to say, in such
impious researches. It is strange that the learned Bryant did not
associate the death of the first-born with ideas of primogeniture!
The ninth plague of darkness he attributes to the prevalence of the
worship of the sun, under the title of Osiris, Ammon, Orus, Isis, and the
like. _Because_ the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, Persians, Phoenicians,
Syrians, Rhodians, and various other nations, considered themselves
Heliadae, or descendants of the sun. "What, then, can be more reasonable,"
continues our antiquary, "than for a people who thus abused their
faculties, who raised to themselves a god of Day, their Osiris, and
instead of that intellectual light, the wisdom of the Almighty,
substituted a created and inanimate element as a just object of
worship,--what could be more apposite than for people of this cast to be
doomed to a judicial and temporary darkness?" Unfortunately, in the very
next paragraph we are told that the Egyptians showed an equal reverence to
night and darkness: obscurity, therefore, was only replacing one false god
by another. They paid a religious regard to the _mugall_, a kind of mole,
on account of its supposed blindness; and night was conceived more sacred
than day, from its greater antiquity, since, according to the Phoenician
theology, the wind _Copias_ and his wife _Baan_ were esteemed the same as
night, and were the authors of the first beings. In the poems of Orpheus,
Night is considered as the creative principle; and in the Orphic hymns we
find Night invoked as "the parent of gods and men, and the origin of all
things."
This attempt to show an analogy between the crimes and sins of the
Egyptians and the punishment they received, is too curious to be
overlooked. The mania of seeking for the cause of every thing, reminds one
of a singular character in Trinity College, Dublin, formerly well known,
who invariably gave a reason for every direction he thought proper to
issue; and he was once heard to address a servant in the following words:
"Pat, put a cover upon that mutton. It is not for the purpose of keeping
it hot, _because_ it is cold, but it is _because_ I do not wish the flies
to get at it, _because_ fly-blown meat is both unpleasant to the taste and
injurious to the health."
It appears probable that the plague originated in Egypt. From time
immemorial to the present day the lower provinces have been subject to
this cruel scourge. Wars, intestine commotions, and misrule have too
frequently prevented the local authorities from paying proper attention to
measures of public salubrity. Herodotus tells us, that when he was at
Memphis, Egypt was just liberated from a long-protracted war, during
which political economy had been neglected, canals had been abandoned and
choked up, and the frontiers of the land were infested with banditti,
while the interior was desolated by pestilential disorders. My much
esteemed friend Baron Larrey, in his valuable work upon Egypt, has given a
topographical description of the country; and the influence that the
seasons exercise upon it, must be evident. He informs us that after the
spring equinox, and especially towards the beginning of June, the
southerly winds are prevalent for about fifty days. Their scorching
influence is experienced for upwards of four hours, while they waft with
fatal rapidity putrid emanations exhaled by animal and vegetable bodies
decomposed in the lakes formed by the receding waters of the Nile. From
various observations it has been concluded that the plague is both an
endemic and contagious disease in Lower Egypt, but simply contagious in
Upper Egypt, Syria, the other Turkish provinces, and Europe. No account of
the plague in Abyssinia, Sennaar, or the interior of Africa, is given by
any traveller.
The most fatal European plagues were probably those that desolated London
in 1664, and Marseilles in 1720. The accounts of these fearful visitations
are as curious as they are appalling. In London it broke out in the
beginning of December, when two foreigners (Frenchmen it was reported)
died of this disorder in Long-Acre, near Drury Lane. The cold weather and
frost that followed, seemed to check its progress, until the month of
April, when it appeared with intensity in the parishes of St. Andrew,
Holborn, and St. Clement Danes. In May, the parish of St. Giles buried a
great number. Wood Street, Fenchurch Street, and Crooked Lane, were soon
visited, until terror was so general, that crowds of inhabitants
panic-struck, on foot, on horse, in coaches, waggons, and carts, were
thronging Broad Street and Whitechapel, fleeing from the calamity. To such
an extent was migration carried, that not a horse could be bought or
hired. Many fugitives, fearful of stopping at inns, carried tents to lie
in the fields, and people moved in the centre of the streets, in dread of
coming into contact with others sallying forth from their houses. During
this state of universal panic, it may be easily imagined that hypocrisy
and roguery were busily employed in increasing the evil, at the expense of
the credulous. Pretended wizards and cunning people affirmed that a comet
had appeared several months previous to the increase of the malady, as a
similar meteor had visited London before the great fire; only the fire
comet was bright and sparkling, and the plague comet was dull, and of a
languid colour. Lilly's Almanac and Gadbury's Astrological Predictions
were in general demand; while pamphlets, entitled "Come out of her, my
people, lest you be partakers of her plagues," "Fair Warning," and
"Britain's Remembrancer," were eagerly circulated, as they denounced the
utter ruin of the city. One of these prophets ran about the streets,
without the encumbrance of any garment, roaring out, "Yet forty days, and
London shall be destroyed;" while another, equally divested of raiment,
bellowed out, "Oh! the great and the dreadful God!" Some asserted that
they had seen a hand with a flaming sword coming out of the clouds, while
others beheld hearses and coffins floating in the air.
The following is a quaint narrative of these absurdities: "One time before
the plague was begun, I think it was in March, seeing a crowd of people in
the street, I joined with them to satisfy my curiosity, and I found them
all staring up in the air to see what a woman told them appeared plain to
her, which was an angel clothed in white, with a fiery sword in his hand,
waving it and brandishing it over his head. She described every part of
the figure to the life, showed them the motions and the form; and the poor
people came into it readily. 'Yes, I see it all plainly,' says one;
'there's the sword as plain as can be.' Another saw his very face, and
cried out, 'What a glorious creature he was!' One saw one thing, and one
another. I looked as earnestly as the rest, and said I could see nothing
but a cloud. However, the woman turned from me; called me a profane fellow
and a scoffer; told me that it was a time of God's anger, and dreadful
judgments were approaching, and that despisers such as I should _wonder
and perish_. Another encounter I had in the open day also, in going
through a narrow passage from Petty-France into Bishopsgate churchyard. In
this narrow passage stands a man looking through between the palisadoes
into the burying-place, and he was pointing now to one place, then to
another, and affirming that he saw a ghost walking upon such a
grave-stone; he described the shape, the posture, and the movement of it
so exactly, crying on a sudden, 'There it is--now it comes this way--now
'tis turned back!' till at length he persuaded the people into so firm a
belief of it, that they fancied they saw it; and thus he came every day,
making a strange hubbub, till Bishopsgate clock struck eleven, and then
the ghost would start and disappear on a sudden."
Such sanctimonious tricks are historical. Don Bernal Dias del Castello
tells us, in his account of the Mexican conquest, that St. Jago appeared
in the van of the army, mounted on a white horse, and leading the troops
on to victory. He frankly owns that he did not see this blessed vision;
nay, that a cavalier, by name Francisco de Morla, mounted on a chestnut
steed, was fighting in the very place where the patron of Spain was said
to have appeared; but, instead of drawing the natural conclusion, that the
whole business was got up as an illusion, he devoutly exclaims, "Sinner
that I was, what am I that I should have been permitted to behold the
blessed apostle!"
These impostures remind us of the story of the wag who, fixing his eyes
upon the lion over Northumberland House, exclaimed, "By heaven! it
wags--it wags!" and contrived by these means to collect an immense mob in
the street, many of whom swore that they did absolutely see the lion
wagging his tail.
Crowds of pretended fortune-tellers, and astrologers and cunning men, were
soon in good business, and their trade became so generally practised, that
they had signs denoting their profession over their doors, with
inscriptions announcing, "Here lives a fortune-teller,"--"Here you may
have your nativity cast;" and the head of Friar Bacon, Mother Shipton, or
Merlin, were their usual signs: and if any unfortunate man of grave
appearance, and wearing a black cloak, went abroad, he was immediately
assailed by the mob as a necromancer, and supplicated to reveal futurity.
At such a period, it may be easily imagined that quacks were not satisfied
with mere gleanings; and _infallible pills_, _never-failing
preservatives_, _sovereign cordials_, and _incomparable drinks_, against
the plague, were announced in every possible manner; and _universal
remedies_, _the only true plague-water_, and _the royal antidote_, became
themes of universal discourse. An eminent _High_ Dutch physician, newly
come over from Holland, where he resided during all the time of the
plague,--an Italian gentlewoman, having a choice secret to prevent
infection, and that did wonders in a plague that destroyed twenty thousand
people a-day, were announced by bills at every corner.
One ingenious mountebank realized a fortune by announcing _that he gave
advice to the poor for nothing_: crowds flocked to consult him; but he
took half-a-crown for his remedy, on the plea that, although his advice
was given gratis, he was obliged to sell his physic. While these
speculations were going on, all "plays, bear-baiting, games, singing of
ballads, and buckler-play," were prohibited; all feasting, "particularly
by the companies of this city," was punished; watchmen guarded the doors
of the pestiferated, to prevent their egress, and a red cross was painted
on their houses. The inhabitants, thus shut up to suffer the pangs of
starvation in addition to those of pestilence, made the best of their way
out of their prison by every possible stratagem and bribery. While fervent
prayers and loud ejaculations for mercy were heard amongst distracted
families, the most offensive blasphemy and ribaldry prevailed amongst the
gravediggers, dead-cart drivers, and their wanton companions. If any one
ventured to rebuke them, he was asked, with a volley of oaths, "what
business he had to be alive, when so many better fellows were shovelled in
their graves?" to which was added a salutary recommendation to go home and
pray, until the dead-cart called for him. The watchmen got their share of
ill-usage and abuse.
All the guards had been marched out of town, with the exception of small
detachments at Whitehall and the Tower. Robbery of every description was
of course in full vigour, and every vice indulged in with impunity, while
despair drove many to madness and suicide,--several individuals rushing
naked out of their houses, and running to the river to drown themselves if
not stopped by the watch. People fell dead while making purchases of
provisions in the market; where, instead of receiving the meat from the
butcher's hands, each buyer unhooked his purchase, and paid for it by
throwing the value in a vessel filled with vinegar. Mothers destroyed
their children, and nurses smothered their patients, while the bedclothes
were stolen from the couch of the dead.
Among the curious anecdotes of the time, the following is worth insertion:
"A neighbour of mine, having some money owing to him from a shopkeeper in
Whitecross-street, sent his apprentice, a youth of eighteen years of age,
to get the money; he came to the door, and finding it shut, knocked pretty
hard until he heard somebody coming down stairs. At length the man of the
house came to the door; he had on his breeches or drawers, a yellow
flannel waistcoat, no stockings, and a pair of slipt shoes, a white cap on
his head, and death in his face. When he opened the door, he said, 'What
do you disturb me thus for?'--'I come from such a one, my master,' replied
the boy, 'to ask for the money you owe him.'--'Very well, my child,'
returns the living ghost; 'call as you go by at Cripple-gate church, and
bid them toll the bell.' So saying, he went up stairs again, and died the
same hour."
The story of the piper is founded on fact. This poor fellow having made
merry in a public-house in Coleman-street, fell fast asleep under a stall
near London Wall, Cripplegate; the under-sexton of St. Stephen's, one John
Hayward, was going his rounds with his dead-cart, when he espied the
piper, and, conceiving him to be a dead man, tumbled him on his heap of
corpses, till, arrived at the burying-pit at Mount Hill, as they were
about shooting the cart, the musician awoke, and, to the utter terror of
the sexton and his comrades, began to set up his pipes.
The following relation of a case of grief is rather remarkable. "A man was
so much affected by the death of all his relations, and overcome with the
pressure upon his spirits, that by degrees his head sunk into his body so
between his shoulders, that the crown of his head was very little seen
above the bones of his shoulders, and, by degrees losing both voice and
sense, his face looking forward, lay against his collar-bone, and could
not be kept up any otherwise unless held up by the hands of other people;
and the poor man never came to himself again, but languished near a year
in this condition, and died." This was _depression_ with a vengeance!
Some of these unfortunate victims of the pestilential disease seem to have
had poetical inspirations, for one of two men who had fled to the country
was found dead with the following inscription cut out with his knife on a
wooden gate near him:
OmIsErY
WE. BoTH ShaLL. DyE
WoE. WoE:
and our historian, who fortunately escaped the calamity, terminates his
work with the following lines:
A dreadful plague in London was
In the year sixty-five,
Which swept an hundred thousand souls
Away; yet I alive.
Astrologers were of opinion that the plague of London arose from a
conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Sagittarius on the tenth of October,
or from a conjunction of Saturn and Mars in the same sign on the twelfth
of November.[15]
Great as the mortality was during this affliction, the history of various
other pestilences in foreign countries presents as melancholy a result. In
Moscow, the plague introduced by the Turkish army carried off 22,000
inhabitants in a single month, and sometimes 12,000 in twenty-four hours.
In Morocco, the mortality amounted to 1000 daily; in Old and New Fez, to
1500; in Terodant to 800. The total loss sustained in these cities and in
the Mogadore was estimated at 124,500 souls.
The black pestilence of the fourteenth century also caused the most
terrific ravages in England. It has been supposed to have borne some
resemblance to the cholera, but that is not the case; it derived its name
from the dark livid colour of the spots and boils that broke out upon the
patient's body. Like the cholera, the fatal disease appeared to have
followed a regular route in its destructive progress; but it did not, like
the cholera, advance westward, although like that fearful visitation it
appears to have originated in Asia.
The black pestilence descended along the Caucasus to the shores of the
Mediterranean, and instead of entering Europe through Russia, first spread
over the south, and after devastating the rest of Europe penetrated into
that country. It followed the caravan, which came from China across
Central Asia, until it reached the shores of the Black Sea; thence it was
conveyed by ships to Constantinople, the centre of commercial intercourse
between Asia, Europe, and Africa. In 1347 it reached Sicily and some of
the maritime cities of Italy and Marseilles. During the following year it
spread over the northern part of Italy, France, Germany, and England. The
northern kingdom of Europe was invaded by it in 1349, and finally Russia
in 1351,--four years after it had appeared in Constantinople.
The following estimate of deaths was considered far below the actual
number of victims:
Florence lost 60,000 inhabitants
Venice " 10,000 "
Marseilles " in one month 56,000 "
Paris " " 50,000 "
Avignon " " 60,000 "
Strasburg " " 16,000 "
Basle " " 14,000 "
Erfurth " " 16,000 "
London " " 100,000 "
Norwich " " 50,000 "
Hecker states that this pestilence was preceded by great commotion in the
interior of the globe. About 1333, several earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions did considerable injury in upper Asia, while in the same year,
Greece, Italy, France, and Germany suffered under similar disasters. The
harvests were swept away by inundations, and clouds of locusts destroyed
all that the floods had spared, while dense masses of offensive insects
strewed the land.
As in the recent invasion of cholera, the populace attributed this scourge
to poison and to the Jews, and these hapless beings were persecuted and
destroyed wherever they could be found. In Mayence, after vainly
attempting to defend themselves, they shut themselves up in their
quarters, where 1200 of them were burnt to death. The only asylum found by
them was Lithuania where Casimir afforded them protection; and it is
perhaps owing to this circumstance that so many Jewish families are still
to be found in Poland.
A curious monumental record of the plague is to be seen at Eyam, an
insignificant village in Derbyshire, to the eastward of Tideswell. It is
an ancient stone cross of curious form and workmanship, erroneously stated
to have been erected to commemorate the extinction of the pestilence which
was supposed to have been brought there in a bag of woollen clothes, sent
from London to a tailor of the place. The hamlet was soon infected, and
its panic-struck inhabitants fled in every direction, scattering death in
their flight, until driven back within their boundaries. During the
prevalence of this scourge, tradition makes honourable mention of the
rector of the parish, William Mompesson. Determined not to abandon his
flock in the hour of need, he never quitted the devoted spot. In vain he
entreated his wife to remove from the pestilential sphere of action--she
would not leave him. Eyam was now cut off from all communication with the
neighbourhood. The worthy clergyman addressed the Earl of Devonshire, then
residing at Chatsworth, acquainting him with his resolution, and
requesting that regular supplies of provisions might be duly placed in
certain points of the adjacent hills. If this request was attended to, he
pledged himself that none of his parishioners should transgress a given
boundary. Troughs and wells, which are still there, were dug to secure
water supplied by a stream, which to this day bears the hallowed name of
_Mompesson brook_. The following account of this benevolent pastor's
conduct in this emergency is not without interest:
"Aware that any assemblage of people breathing the same air under a
confined roof, and coming into immediate contact with each other, must be
highly dangerous, he closed the door of the church, availing himself of a
nobler substitute "not made with hands,"--a rock that projected from the
side of a steep hill, near the village, in a deep and narrow dingle. This
rock is excavated through in different directions, the arches being from
12 to 19 feet high. In the middle of this romantic dell, from one of these
natural porticoes, three times a week did he read prayers, and twice on
Sundays did he address to his death-stricken congregation, the words of
eternal life. By his own immediate directions, they arranged themselves on
the declivity near the bottom, at the distance of a yard asunder. This
spot is deservedly still held sacred, and known by the name of _Cucklet
church_."
The following letter from this worthy clergyman, dated 20th November,
1666, energetically describes the calamity:
"The condition of this place has been so sad, that I persuaded myself it
did exceed all history and example. I may truly say that our place has
become a Golgotha--the place of a skull; and had there not been a small
remnant of us left, we had been as Sodom, and been made like unto
Gomorrha; my ears never heard, my eyes never beheld such ghastly
spectacles. Now, blessed be God, all our fears are over, for none have
died of the infection since the 11th of October, and all the pesthouses
have been long empty. I meant, God willing, to spend most of this week in
seeing all woollen clothes fumed and purified, as well for the
satisfaction as the safety of the country.
"Here has been such burning of goods, that the like I think was never
known. I have scarcely left myself apparel to shelter my body from the
cold, and have wasted more than needed, merely for example. As for my
part, I cannot say that I had ever been in better health than during the
time of this dreadful visitation, neither can I say that I have had any
symptoms of the disease."
During a considerable time the benevolent man and his wife had escaped the
malady, but at last his excellent wife was smitten, and died in his arms
at the age of 27--far from her children, who had been sent away at the
commencement of the invasion.
In 1813, Malta was visited with this fatal malady; when the scenes of the
plague that desolated the island in the sixteenth century were renewed,
notwithstanding all the sanitary precautions adopted by various
governments since that period.
Count Ciantar in his "_Malta illustrata_," gives an interesting account of
the introduction of the plague at four different periods in that island.
The first was in 1592; when, in the month of May, four galleys belonging
to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, entered the port to procure pilots for the
service. By permission of the Grand Master, Cardinal Verclula, a pilot was
obtained, and the vessels steered towards the Egyptian coast. In the
vicinity of Alexandria, they captured a galley bound to Constantinople,
having on board 150 Turks. On hearing that the plague was raging at
Alexandria, they returned to Malta with their prize, which was discovered
to be infected, and for the first time the plague was brought into the
country.
The second plague broke out in 1623, and originated in the house of Paulus
Emilius Ramadus, guardian of the port. But the whole of the infected
persons having been immediately sent to the Lazaretto, the progress of the
disease was checked, and it only carried off forty-five persons.
The third plague took place in 1633, and broke out at the Marina gate,
where vessels from the Levant usually anchored. The proprietor of a house
in that quarter, having had some communication with one of these ships,
contracted the disease, and infected his sister, who resided in the
country at Casal Zeitun, and shortly after the whole family was attacked,
their speedy removal to the Lazaretto, however arrested the disease.
The fourth appearance of this malady in Malta, was far more destructive
than it had been in the preceding years, even in 1675, and it continued
its ravages for seven months. This circumstance has been attributed to a
difference of opinion that prevailed among the members of the
commissioners appointed to take the necessary steps for checking the
progress of the disease. It appears that doubts were entertained as to the
nature of the malady, hence the requisite precautions were not enforced;
and instead of separating the diseased from the healthy part of the
community, with the utmost rigour, prayers were put up, vows and offerings
were made, and processions paraded the streets, nor it was not until the
Grand Master had sent to France for medical aid, that the scourge was
mitigated. On their arrival the first steps adopted by these physicians
was to confine the inhabitants to their homes, and to remove the sick to
the Lazaret. The ravages of the disease must have been very great, since
out of a population of about 60,000, there died in Valetta 4000, in Burgo
1800, Senglen 2000, Burmola 1200, and in the villages upwards of 200.
The last plague was supposed to have been brought in by a vessel from
Alexandria, that entered the port on the 28th of March, 1813. It appeared
that two of the crew had been seized during the voyage with symptoms of
plague, then prevailing in Alexandria, which place the vessel had left
with a foul bill of health. On the same day another vessel, the Nancy
arrived from the same port, having also on board two men labouring under
the disease, and she was followed by a Spanish polacca, the Bella Maria,
from the same quarter. It was on the 16th of April that the disease first
appeared in the island, in the case of a shoemaker in the Strada St.
Paolo. The increase of the disorder was gradual, and from Valetta it
spread to Citta Vecchia Bircharcara.
My late friend, staff-surgeon Tully, thus describes the situation of the
Island at this period: "The warm season was now rapidly advancing, the
thermometer having risen several degrees at the latter end of May, and
unfortunately, through the superstitious prejudices of the natives,
considerable dependence was placed upon the anxiously-looked-for
alteration in the state of the atmosphere, and every day was consequently
expected to diminish the danger. This belief was too generally inculcated
not to be productive of much mischief, as most persons felt assured that,
if they could avoid danger until the summer heat set in, the evil would
cease, and that the greatly-dreaded disease would then die a natural
death. The consequence of this unfortunate belief was fatal--the freedom
of intercourse produced by this blind confidence, led to a very general
contamination, and men every where exposed to the baneful influence of the
plague, became the active agents of the dissemination throughout the whole
island."
While the plague was thus raging at Malta, it made its appearance amongst
the inhabitants of the Morea, having, it is supposed, been introduced from
Romelia, by a man of the name of Kalangi, who was taken ill on his
arrival, and died in two days. The following day his wife and daughter
were attacked by the malady, which rapidly extended to Tornovo, and all
the neighbouring towns. During the years 1813 and 1814, the banks of the
Lepanto and the shores of Albania were nearly depopulated.
In 1815 the fatal scourge broke out in the island of Corfu, in the village
of Marathia. None of the medical men who attended the sick during this
period, attributed the invasion of the disease to contagion.
The doubt that had arisen in the minds of several experienced
practitioners in regard to the non-contagious nature of the plague, is a
matter of vital interest, since it not only concerns the health of
nations, but in a commercial point of view it becomes a question of
political economy of the utmost importance, as the severity of the
quarantine laws, which must materially effect the prosperity of trade,
would become useless if it could be proved that no contagion is to be
apprehended from a free intercourse. It is somewhat curious that Dr. Mead
long ago expressed his decided opinion that whenever the doctrine of
non-contagion should be revived in England, (and it will be so, he adds,
even a hundred years hence,) it will always excite alarm amongst those
nations who are more prudent than ourselves, and less eager to entertain
every kind of wild and visionary speculation.
The contagionists affirm that the destructive ravages of the plague of
Marseilles in 1720, when 60,000 inhabitants were carried off, arose from
neglect in enforcing a rigid separation of the diseased from the healthy
part of the community. The mortality in the plague of Messina, in 1743,
during which 43,000 people fell victims to the disorder, is also referred
to similar causes. They also maintain that the London plague of 1593,
which destroyed 11,503 persons, was ascertained to have been introduced
from Alkmaer; that the pestilence of London in 1603, which carried off
36,269 inhabitants, was brought from Ostend, and further that in 1636, the
scourge which destroyed 13,480 victims in our metropolis, had been
imported from Leyden. In 1665, when its still more fatal ravages swept
away 68,596 citizens, it had also been traced to our foreign intercourse.
Dr. Merlens who has accurately described the plague that raged at Moscow
in 1771, asserts that it was introduced by a communication with the
Turkish army. Notwithstanding which, by keeping the patients strictly
guarded, the city was maintained free from infection, while the disease
raged around in every quarter.
Mr. Jackson gives a similar account of the plague at Morocco; and he adds,
that daily observations convinced him that the epidemic was not caught by
approach, unless that approach was accompanied by an inhaling of the
breath, or by tending upon the infected person. With such a discrepance of
opinion, we cannot be surprised at this anxiety to impugn the doctrine of
those practitioners who maintain, that contagion is not to be dreaded, and
that severe sanitary precautions are therefore vexatious and oppressive.
If the progress of the disease, say the non-contagionists, depends upon
personal contact with infected persons or goods, its ravages would never
cease in those countries where no precautionary measures are taken to
prevent communication between the infected and the healthy; that in Turkey
for instance, where these precautions are not resorted to, there would be
no cessation of the malady until it had swept away the whole of the
population.
To these arguments, plausible as they may appear in theory, it has been
replied, that the plague to a certain extent has never ceased to exist in
the Ottoman empire, but breaks out occasionally after temporary
intermissions. As to the permanence of the diseases it is well known that
like all other epidemic or endemic diseases, the plague may also be
subject to atmospheric influence and be arrested in its progress without
human aid. Sir James M'Grigor illustrates this fact in his "Sketches of
the Expedition of the Indian Troops to Egypt." When the disease first
broke out in the army, the cases sent from the regiments were from the
commencement attended with typhoid symptoms; while those from the Bengal
volunteer battalion, and the other corps encamped near the marshes of El
Hamed, were of an intermittent and remittent type. The cases that occurred
in the cold and rainy months of December and January, were of an
inflammatory character, after which, as the weather became warmer, the
disease at Cairo, Ghiza, Boula, and the isthmus of Suez assumed the form
of a mild continual fever. The plague of London in 1665, was in like
manner distinguished by a peculiar constitution of the atmosphere.
It has also been doubted whether the plague be contagious in every
instance of its appearance. Various persons have inoculated themselves
with its virus with impunity, though several were ultimately victims of
the bold experiment. In Egypt Dr. White inoculated himself ten times, but
died of the disease after the eleventh trial.[16]
The atmosphere of contagion it appears is limited, and strict attention to
keep up a line of separation generally proves effectual in arresting or
checking its progress. Contact appears necessary to extend the malady, and
a direct absorption through the skin forms the ordinary means of
transmission. When the cutaneous pores are closed by oil, or any other
substance of the kind, an exemption from the fatal scourge has been
frequently observed. Mr. Baldwin states, that among upwards of a million
of inhabitants carried off by the plague in Upper and Lower Egypt during
the space of four years, not a single oil-man, or dealer in oil, had
suffered. Mr. Jackson made the same observation in the plague of Tunis.
Dr. Assalini, an intelligent medical officer of the French army in Egypt,
does not attribute this exemption to the stoppage of the pores, but as the
result of profuse perspiration which the inunction of oil produces. The
_zeit jagghy_ or olive oil, is considered a specific by most of the
Asiatics; and my late friend Mr. Tully observed that all the attendants
upon patients suffering from the plague, who carefully smeared their
persons and their clothes with this substance, were exempt from the
infection. The same observation was corroborated by Sir Brooke Faulkener,
during the plague of Malta.
Various have been the remedial means proposed in this terrific malady, and
preservatives against it have been recorded in the following distich:
Haec tria labificum tollunt adverbia pestem;
Mox, longe, tarde,--cede, recede, redi.
The celebrated plague-water was composed of master-wort, angelica, peony,
and butter-bur, viper-grass, Virginia snake-root, rue, rosemary, balm,
carduus, water-germander, marygold, dragon-blood, goats'-rue, and mint,
infused in spirits of wine.
It appears manifest from all the evidence adduced by the contending
theorists, that we may come to the following corollaries: