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. 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 fourteenth 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 nineteenth 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 fourteenth
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 envelop 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
camomile 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 six 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 in is general
prejudicial. Going out at night, and even until three o'clock in the
morning, is dangerous, on account of 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."
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 fourteenth 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 fourteenth 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 shown 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 fourteenth 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. 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 everything 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 had 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. 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 fourteenth century. 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, was general among the people; 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.
Arrangements for the protection of the healthy against contagious
diseases, the necessity of which is shown from these notions, were
regarded by the ancients as useful; and by man, 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 second 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. This mildness of
the ancients, in whose manner of thinking inhumanity was so often and so
undisguisedly conspicuous, might excite surprise if it were anything 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 modern; but this was shown 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. That the governments in the fourteenth 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, 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, agree 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 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries omits an opportunity of
representing them as among the general prognostics of great plagues; nor
can we, for our part, 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 alchemy, 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 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, 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. 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 on 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; 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. 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.
Still more distinct notions on the causes of the plague were stated to
his contemporaries in the fourteenth century by Galeazzo di Santa Sofia,
a learned man, a native of Padua, who likewise treated plague-patients at
Vienna, 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 everything 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 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but
he has also promulgated an opinion which must, even now, serve as a
foundation for our scarcely commenced investigations into cosmical
influences. Pestilence and epidemy consist not in alterations of the
four primary qualities, but in a corruption of the air, powerful, though
quite immaterial, and not cognoscible by the senses--(corruptio aeris non
substantialis, sed qualitativa) in a disproportion of the imponderables
in the atmosphere, as it would be expressed by the moderns. The causes
of the pestilence and epidemy are, first of all, astral influences,
especially on occasions 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 at the present day.
In the exposition of his therapeutical views of the plague, a clearness
of intellect is again shown 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_ (_venae sectio eradicativa_).
2nd, Strengthening of the heart and prevention of putrescence. 3rd,
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, a contemporary
relative of Galeazzo, on the prevention and treatment of plague, can have
caused much harm, although perhaps, even in the fourteenth 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 shows that the published
views of the most celebrated physicians of the fourteenth 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 apologise for
many surgeons and physicians of his time who neglected their duty. He
asserted boldly and with truth, "_that all epidemic diseases might become
contagious_, _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 shown 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. 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. He
recommended burning the boils with a red-hot iron only in the plague
without fever, which occurred in single cases; and was always ready to
correct those over-hasty surgeons who, with fire and violent remedies,
did irremediable injury to their patients. 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. 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 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
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 2ndly, 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 fourteenth 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 January, 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 anybody. 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."
These orders, in correspondence with the spirit of the fourteenth
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 barricade of
three houses in which the plague had broken out, maintained itself free
from the "Great Mortality" for a considerable time; 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
forbade the admission of people from infected places into his territories
on pain of death. 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 that the fourteenth; for when it broke out in Italy, in the
year 1399, and still demanded new victims, it was for the sixteenth 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.
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 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 civilised society, have prevented it
from remaining domesticated, which it most probably was in the more
ancient times.
In the fifteenth century, during which it broke out seventeen times in
different places in Europe, 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 perilous profits of the merchant.
Until towards the end of the fifteenth 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 forbade 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.
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
everything 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.
Bills of health were probably first introduced in the year 1527, during a
fatal plague 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. Bills of health, however, were not general until the year
1665.
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 foetus, not to mention that the alchemists 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
the modern times.
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 civilisation 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 civilisation, 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.
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
characterised, 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 time.
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. 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 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. 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.
Where the disease was completely developed, the attack commenced with
epileptic convulsions. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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, and about the same time at Metz, the
streets of which place are said to have been filled with eleven hundred
dancers. 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. 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 meantime, 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
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. 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 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 important 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. 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). 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 connections, 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
solemnise 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." 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 connection 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 solemnised 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.
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. 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, 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. In these fragments of the dominion of
mysticism and superstition, historical connection 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 Main 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. 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.
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.
Another occurrence was related to have taken place on the Moselle 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. 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. 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
civilisation 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.
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. 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, 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,
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_,
_aestimativa_), 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. 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
characterised 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. 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 connection
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 persons, 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. 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. 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, 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. 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 infrequent
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. 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 referable 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 ecstasy, 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.
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. 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. It is to be regretted that no trace
of this music has reached out 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--THE 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. 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--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.
We leave it for the present without further notice, and turn to a malady
most extraordinary in all its phenomena, having a close connection 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 gives the earliest account of this strange
disorder. Nobody had the least doubt that it was caused by the bite of
the tarantula, 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, 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." 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 [Greek
text], it is the less extraordinary that the unlearned country people of
Apulia should confound the much-dreaded ground-spider with the fabulous
star-lizard, 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, 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.
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
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 stupefied, 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.