The epidemics of the Middle Ages / from the German of J.F.C. Hecker ; tr. by B.G. Babington.

  • Hecker, J. F. C. (Justus Friedrich Carl), 1795-1850.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The epidemics of the Middle Ages / from the German of J.F.C. Hecker ; tr. by B.G. Babington. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    most feelings are roused—the thought of self-preservation masters his spirit—self-denial is put to severe proof, and wherever dark- ness and barbarism prevail, there the affrighted mortal flies to the idols of his superstition, and all laws, human and divine, are criminally violated. In conformity with a general law of nature, such a state of ex- citement brings about a change, beneficial or detrimental, accord- ing to circumstances, so that nations either attain a higher degree of moral worth, or sink deeper in ignorance and vice. All this, however, takes place upon a much grander scale than through the ordinary vicissitudes of war and peace, or the rise and fall of em- pires, because the powers of nature themselves produce plagues, and subjugate the human will, which, in the contentions of nations, alone predominates. CHAPTER II. THE DISEASE. The most memorable example of what has been advanced, is afibrded by a great pestilence of the fourteenth century, which desolated Asia, Europe, and Africa, and of which the people yet preserve the remembrance in gloomy traditions. It was an ori- ental plague, marked by inflammatory boils and tumours of the glands, such as break out in no other febrile disease. On account of these inflammatory boils, and from the black spots, indicatory of a putrid decomposition, which appeared upon the skin, it was called in Germany and in the northern kingdoms of Europe, the Black Death, and in Ital}^, la Mortalega Grande, the Great Mortality} Few testimonies are presented to us respecting its symptoms and its course, yet these are sufficient to throw light upon the form of the malady, and they are worthy of credence, from their co- incidence with the signs of the same disease in modern times. ' La Mortalega Grande. Matth. de Griffonibus. Muratori. Script, rer. Italicar. T. XVIII. p. 167. D. They were called by others y4«(7e<jMa/^«rt. Andr. Gratiol. Dis- corso di Peste. Venet. 1576. 4to. Swedish: Diger-doden. Loccenii 'E.hiow Suecan. L. IIL p. 104.—Danish : den sorte Dod. Pontan. Ecr. Danicar. Histor. L. VIIT. p. 476.—Amstelod. 1631, fol. Icelandic: Svaiiir Dmidi. Saabye, Tagebuch in Griinland. Introduction XVIII. Mansa, de Epidemiis maxime meraorabilibiis, qiire in Dania gras- satae sunt, &c. Part I. p. 12. Havnioe, 1831, 8.—In Westphalia the name of de groete Doet was prevalent. Meibom.