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.

    40/376 (page 12)
    stroyed the vegetation ; while famine and pestilence, as usual, followed in their train. Connected accounts of the condition of Europe before this great catastrophe, are not to be expected from the writers of the fourteenth century. It is remarkable, however, that simultaneously with*a drought and renewed floods in China, in 1336, many uncommon atmospheric phenomena, and in the winter frequent thunder storms, were observed in the north of France; and so early as the eventful year of 1333, an eruption of Etna took place.' According to the Chinese annals, about 4,000,000 of people perished by famine in the neighbourhood of Kiang in 1337 : and deluges, swarms of locusts, and an earth- quake which lasted six days, caused incredible devastation. In the same year, the first swarms of locusts appeared in Fran- conia, which were succeeded in the following year by myriads of these insects. In 1338, Kingsai was visited by an earthquake of ten days' duration; at the same time France suffered from a failure in the harvest; and thenceforth, till the year 1342, there was in China a constant succession of inundations, earthquakes, and famines. In the same year great floods occurred in the vicinity of the Rhine and in France, which could not be attributed to rain alone; for everywhere, even on the tops of mountains, springs were seen to burst forth, and dry tracts were laid under water in an inexplicable manner. In the following year, the mountain Hong-tchang, in China, fell in, and caused a destruct- ive deluge; and in Pien-tcheou and Leang-tcheou, after three months' rain, there followed unheard-of inundations, which de- stroyed seven cities. In Egypt and Syria, violent earthquakes took place; and in China they became, from this time, more and more frequent; for they recurred, in 1344, in Ven-tcheou, where the sea overflowed in consequence ; in 1345, in Ki-tcheou, and in both the following years in Canton, with subterraneous thunder. Meanwhile, floods and famine devastated various dis- tricts, until 1347, when the fury of the elements subsided in China.2 The signs of terrestrial commotions commenced in Europe in the year 1348, after the intervening districts of country in Asia had probably been visited in the same manner. On the island of Cyprus, the plague from the East had already ^ V. Hoff. Geschiclite der natiirliclien Veranderuiigen der Erdoberflache, T. II. p. 264. Gotha, 1824. This eruption was not succeeded by any other in the same century, either of Etna or of Vesuvius. 2 Degitignes, loc. cit. p. 226, from Chinese sources.