The epidemics of the middle ages / From the German of J.F.C. Hecker ; translated by B.G. Babington.

  • Hecker, J. F. C. (Justus Friedrich Carl), 1795-1850.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The epidemics of the middle ages / From the German of J.F.C. Hecker ; translated by B.G. Babington. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    done in Cairo, and Paris. Yet, still many were secretly buried ; for at all times, the people are attached to the consecrated ce- meteries of their dead, and will not renounce the customary mode of interment. Tn many places, it was rumoured that plague patients were buried alive % as may sometimes happen through senseless alarm and indecent haste ; and thus the horror of the distressed people was everywhere increased. In Erfurt, after the church- yards were filled, 12,000 corpses were thrown into eleven great pits ; and the like might, more or less exactly, be stated with respect to all the larger cities b. Funeral ceremonies, the last consolation of the survivors, were everywhere impracticable. In all Germany, according to a probable calculation, there seem to have died only 1,244,434 c inhabitants; this country, however, was more spared than others : Italy, on the contrary, was most severely visited. It is said to have lost half its in- habitants d; and this account is rendered credible from the im- mense losses of individual cities and provinces : for in Sardinia and Corsica, according to the account of the distinguished Florentine, John Villani, who was himself carried off by the Black Plaguee, scarcely a third part of the population remained alive ; and it is related of the Venetians, that they engaged ships at a high rate to retreat to the islands ; so that after the plague had carried off three-fourths of her inhabitants, that proud city was left forlorn and desolate f. In Padua, after the cessation of the plague, two-thirds of the inhabitants were want- ing ; and in Florence it was prohibited to publish the numbers of the dead, and to toll the bells at their funerals, in order that the living might not abandon themselves to despair s. We have more exact accounts of England ; most of the great cities suffered incredible losses ; above all, Yarmouth, in which 7052 died: Bristol, Oxford, Norwich, Leicester, York a Auger, de Biterris in Muratori. Vol. III. P. II. p. 556. The same is said of Paderborn, by Gobelin Person, in Henr. Meibom. Rer. Germanic. Script. T. I. p. 286. Helmstadt, 1688. fol. b Spangenberg. loc. cit. chap. 287. fol. 337. b. c Barnes, 435. d Trithem. Annal. Hirsaug. loc. cit. e Loc. cit. L. XII. c. 99. p. 977. f Chronic. Claustro-Neoburg. in Pez. Vol. I. p. 490. Comp. Barnes, p. 435. Raynald Histor. ecclesiastic, loc. cit. According to this account, a runaway Vene- tian is said to have brought the plague to Padua. g Giov. Villani, L. XII. c. 83. p. 964.