The Black Death in the fourteenth century / from the German of I.F.C. Hecker ; tr. by B.G. Babington.

  • Hecker, J. F. C. (Justus Friedrich Carl), 1795-1850.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Black Death in the fourteenth century / from the German of I.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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    grave. In Hou-kouang and Ho-nan, a drought prevailed for five months; and innumerable swarms of locusts destroyed the vegetation; while famine and pestilence, as usual, followed in their * train. Con- nected 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 * V. HofF. Geschichte der nattirlichen Verander- ungen der ErdoberfTache, T. II. p. 264. Gotha, 1824. This eruption was not succeeded by any other in the same century, either of Etna or of Vesuvius.