A history of epidemic pestilences from the earliest ages, 1495 years before the birth of our Saviour to 1848 : with researches into their nature, causes, and prophylaxis / by Edward Bascome.

Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of epidemic pestilences from the earliest ages, 1495 years before the birth of our Saviour to 1848 : with researches into their nature, causes, and prophylaxis / by Edward Bascome. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    near Darlington, in the bishopric of Durham, the earth raised itself up like a lofty tower, and thus remained for several hours, when on a sudden it sunk down again with a horrid noise, and formed a deep pit, which continues until this day: it is supposed that the wells that are now called Hell-kettles were formed by this convulsion of nature, a.d. 1183 and following years, a severe pestilence scourged England, and the plague raged at Rome. a.d. 1185, an earthquake over- threw the church at Lincoln; at the same time other places in the neighbourhood suffered from the shock. Castile, and principally the city of Leon, suffered from a most cruel plague which spared neither sex nor grade, visiting palaces as well as the hovels of the poor. Many of the bishops were carried off. A.D. 1190. The old chronicler Geoffrey de Vinsauf de- scribes a terrible famine and pestilence that happened in 1190, in the army of the Crusaders at the siege of Acre, owing to the villany of the Marquis of Montferrat, the governor of Tyre, who not only refused to supply the soldiers with food, but would not either allow of the townsfolk to send them provisions. So great was the famine and the scarcity, that a. moderate measure of wheat which a man could carry under his arm was sold for 100 aurei, a chicken for tw^elve sols, and an egg for six deniers. The men were reduced to feed on their horses, which they were compelled to kill, not even the entrails being rejected. Men of high rank and the sons of great men fed upon grass even; and herbs such as they once despised and believed not fit for human use, the greatness of the famine made now most sweet to the starving. The public ovens were constantly occupied by men fighting for the bread, and noblemen, suffering from the pangs of hunger, became thieves and stole the loaves from the bakers' shops. To add to their misery, heavy rains fell, and pesti- lence broke out amongst them, so that a thousand deaths happened daily. De Vinsauf says, The unusual showers, by their constant and continuous fall, had such an injurious effect upon the soldiers, that, with the excess of the afflic-