Chapter IX: Asiatic Cholera (7)

[375] The district registrars had hardly organised their work in the first two or three years of registration. Some gave much more complete returns than others. There was a reluctance to register births, and the marriages were not all registered. But the totals of deaths came out very nearly as the actuaries had expected.

[376] The Third Report of the Registrar-General gives the mortality in all parts of England from typhus in 1839 (as well as from scarlatina) in an elaborate table of the registration districts and sub-districts.

[377] W. Budd, M.D., _Lancet_, 27 Dec. 1856, and 2 July, 1859. Dr Budd, who had been studying in Paris and seeing much typhoid fever, but little or no typhus, in the service of Louis at La Pitié hospital, took the whole of these cases for enteric or typhoid, and insisted, in his later life, on the ground of his North Tawton experiences in 1839, that typhoid fever spread by contagion. He published numerous papers on this theme (_Lancet_, 27 Dec. 1856, another series in the same journal from 2 July to Nov. 1859, _Brit. Med. Journ._ Nov.-Dec. 1861, and, finally, a volume of reprints with additions, _Typhoid Fever, its Nature, Mode of Spreading and Prevention_, London, 1873). But he published no clinical cases nor post-mortem notes, to make good his 1839 diagnosis, on which the whole matter turned, contenting himself with an assurance that he knew typhoid well from studying it under Louis (who, at that time, believed that the typhus of armies, gaols, &c. and of the British writers, was the same as the fever which he, and others after him, named typhoid). He also made the following six statements, as if he were making affidavit: (1) that the great majority of the cases had early diarrhoea, (2) that three had profuse intestinal haemorrhage, (3) that more or less of tympanitis was almost universal in the epidemic, (4) that in nearly every case he found the rose-coloured lenticular spots, (5) that one case, which was the only one examined post-mortem, had the characteristic ulceration of the intestine, and (6) that one fatal case had the symptoms of perforation of the gut. This summary manner, asking in effect to be taken on trust, is not usually accepted from innovators, none of the great discoverers having resorted to it. Hitherto, however, no one has thought proper to question Budd’s diagnosis of the epidemic fever in his North Tawton practice, nor even to remark upon his strange error of treating the epidemic of 1838-39 all over Britain as purely one of typhoid (_Lancet_, 27 Dec. 1856). But everyone knew that typhoid fever did not spread in the way that he described (doubtless correctly for the above cases). After the publication of his book in 1873 an attempt was made by an influential layman in the _Times_ (9 Nov. 1874) to popularize Budd’s fallacies or paradoxes on the contagiousness of typhoid. “How,” it was asked, after a summary of the North Tawton epidemic in 1839, “could a disease whose characters are so severely demonstrable, have ever been imagined to be non-contagious? How could such a doctrine be followed, as it has been, to the destruction of human life?”

[378] “For three years past trade had been getting worse and worse, and the price of provisions higher and higher. This disparity between the amount of the earnings of the working classes and the price of their food occasioned, in more cases than could well be imagined, disease and death. Whole families went through a gradual starvation. They only wanted a Dante to record their sufferings. And yet even his words would fall short of the awful truth; they could only present an outline of the tremendous facts of the destitution that surrounded thousands upon thousands in the terrible years 1839, 1840, and 1841. Even philanthropists who had studied the subject were forced to own themselves perplexed in their endeavour to ascertain the real causes of the misery; the whole matter was of so complicated a nature that it became next to impossible to understand it thoroughly.... The most deplorable and enduring evil that arose out of the period of commercial depression to which I refer, was this feeling of alienation between the different classes of society. It is so impossible to describe, or even faintly to picture, the state of distress which prevailed in the town [Manchester] at that time, that I will not attempt it; and yet I think again that surely, in a Christian land, it was not known even so feebly as words could tell it, or the more happy and fortunate would have thronged with their sympathy and their aid. In many instances the sufferers wept first, and then they cursed. Their vindictive feelings exhibited themselves in rabid politics. And when I hear, as I have heard, of the sufferings and privations of the poor, of provision shops, where ha’porths of tea, sugar, butter, and even flour, were sold to accommodate the indigent--of parents sitting in their clothes by the fireside during the whole night for seven weeks together, in order that their only bed and bedding might be reserved for the use of their large family--of others sleeping upon the cold hearthstone for weeks in succession, without adequate means of providing themselves with food or fuel--and this in the depth of winter--of others being compelled to fast for days together, uncheered by any hope of better fortune, living, moreover, or rather starving, in a crowded garret, or damp cellar, and gradually sinking under the pressure of want and despair into a premature grave; and when this has been confirmed by the evidence of their careworn looks, their excited feelings, and their desolate homes--can I wonder that many of them, in such times of misery and destitution, spoke and acted with ferocious precipitation?” Mrs Gaskell, _Mary Barton_.

[379] John Goodsir, “On a Diseased Condition of the Intestinal Glands,” _Lond. and Edin. Monthly Journ. of Med. Science_, April, 1842. He does not enter on the question “as to whether the subject of the present paper constitutes a distinct species of disease, or be merely a form of the ordinary continued fever”; but he appears to recognize that a certain district may have a form of fever special to it, as Reid had probably told him.

[380] John Reid, M.D., “Analysis and Details of Forty-seven Inspections after Death,” _Edin. Med. and Surg. Journ._, Oct. 1839, p. 456.

[381] Reid, u. s., from Home’s records.

[382] Murchison, _Continued Fevers_, 2nd ed. 1873, p. 444.

[383] Lombard, in _Dublin Journal of Med. Sc._ X. (1836), p. 17. He bore witness, also, to the rarity of the bowel-lesion in the Glasgow fevers. This was confirmed by Dr Perry, of that city, _Ibid._ X. 381. See also Julius Staberoh, M.D., “Researches on the Occurrence of Typhus in the Manufacturing Cities of Great Britain,” _Ibid._ XIII. 426.

[384] _Trans. Prov. Med. Assoc._ II. (1834), p. 176.

[385] _Continued Fevers_, 2nd ed. 1873, p. 443.

[386] Christison, “On the Changes which have taken place in the Constitution of Fevers and Inflammations in Edinburgh during the last forty years.” Paper read at Med. Chir. Soc. Edin. 4 March, 1857. _Edin. Med. Journ._ Jan. 1858, p. 577.

[387] _Continued Fevers_, under the head of “Typhus,” p. 47.

[388] See especially John Rose Cormack, M.D., _Natural History, Pathology and Treatment of the Epidemic Fever at present prevailing in Edinburgh and other towns_. Lond. 1843; and the papers by Wardell, _Lond. Med. Gaz._ N. S. II-V.

[389] Dr Betty, of Lowtherstown, Fermanagh, _Dubl. Quart. Journ. Med. Sc._ VII. 125.

[390] Murchison says that the enteric fever of the end of 1846 was prevalent at many places in England where the epidemic of typhus never made its appearance, and that in Edinburgh (according to an unpublished essay by Waters) most of the enteric cases not only occurred prior to the outbreak of the epidemic of Irish fever, but came from localities in the neighbouring country and from the best houses of the New Town--not from the crowded courts of the Old Town, to which the later epidemic of typhus and relapsing fever was restricted. Murchison, u. s. p. 49. The following papers relate to the autumnal typhoid of 1846 in England: Sibson, “Fever at Nottingham and neighbourhood in Summer and Autumn of 1846,” _Med. Gaz._ XXXIX.; Taylor, “Fever at Old and New Lenton in 1846,” _Med. Times_, XV. 159 and _Med. Gaz._ XXXVIII. 127; Turner, “Fever at Minchinhampton in Autumn 1846,” _Med. Gaz._ XLII. 157; Brenchley, “Fever in Berkshire in 1846,” _Med. Gaz._ XXXVIII. 1082; Bree, “Epidemic Fever at Great Finborough in Autumn of 1846,” _Prov. Med. and Surg. Journ._ 1847, p. 676.

[391] In the _Report of the Registrar-General for the year 1847_.

[392] This was the occasion which furnished Father Newman with a famous argument for the _bona fides_ of his co-religionists: “The Irish fever cut off between Liverpool and Leeds thirty priests and more young men in the flower of their days, old men who seemed entitled to some quiet time after their long toil. There was a bishop cut off in the North; but what had a man of his ecclesiastical rank to do with the drudgery and danger of sick calls, except that Christian faith and charity constrained him?” John Henry Newman, D.D., _History of My Religious Opinions_, London, 1865, p. 272.

[393] Leigh, in _Report Reg.-Gen. for 1847_, X. p. xx.

[394] H. M. Hughes, “On the Continued Fever at present existing in the southern districts of the metropolis,” _Lond. Med. Gaz._ Nov. 1847; Laycock, “Unusual prevalence of Fever at York,” _Lond. Med. Gaz._ Nov. 1847; Bottomley, “Notes on the Famine Fever at Croydon in 1847,” _Prov. Med. and Surg. Journ._ 1847; Ormerod, _Clinical Observations on Continued Fever at Bartholomew’s Hospital_, Lond. 1848; Art. in _Brit. and For. Med. Chir. Rev. 1848_, I. 285; Duncan, _Journ. Pub. Health_, I. 200 (Liverpool); Paxton, _Prov. Med. Journ._ 1847, pp. 533, 596 (Rugby).

[395] The following papers relate to the epidemic in Scotland in 1847: Orr, “Historical and Statistical Sketch of the progress of Epidemic Fever in Glasgow during 1847,” _Edin. Med. and Surg. Journ._ LXIX.; Stark, “On the Mortality of Edinburgh and Leith for 1847,” _Ibid._ and LXXI.; R. Paterson, “Account of the Epidemic Fever of 1847-8” in Edinburgh, _Ibid._ LXX.; W. Robertson, “Notes on the Epidemic Fever of 1847-8,” _Month. Journ. of Med. Sc._ IX. 368; J. C. Steele, “View of the Sickness and Mortality in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary during 1847,” _Edin. Med. and Surg. Journ._ LXX.; J. C. Steele, “Statistics of the Glasgow Infirmary for 1848,” _Ibid._ LXXII. 241; J. Paterson, “Statistics of the Barony Parish Fever Hospital of Glasgow in 1847-8,” _Ibid._ LXX. 357.

[396] Buchanan, _Report Med. Officer Privy Council for 1864_, and _Trans. Epid. Soc._ 1865, II. 17; Hamilton, _Lancet_, II. 1867, p. 608 (Liverpool); Martyn, _Brit. Med. Journ._ July, 1863; Davies, _Med. Times and Gaz._ II. 1867, p. 427 (Bristol); Thompson, _St George’s Hosp. Reports_, I. (1866), p. 47 (London); Allbutt, _ibid._ p. 61 (Leeds).

[397] Buchanan, _Report Med. Off. Privy Council for 1865_, p. 210.

[398] James Stark, M.D., “Remarks on the Epidemic Fever of Scotland during 1863-64-65” etc., _Trans. Epidem. Soc._ N. S. II. 312. See also Russell, _Glasg. Med. Journ._ July, 1864, and R. Beveridge (for Aberdeen), _Lancet_, I. 1868, p. 630.

[399] Weber, _Lancet_, I. 1869, pp. 221, 255; Murchison, _ibid._ II. 1869, pp. 503, 647; Gee (Liverpool), _Brit. Med. Journ._ II. 1870, p. 246; Robinson (Leeds), _Lancet_, I. 1871, p. 644; Muirhead (Edinburgh), _Edin. Med. Journ._ July, 1870, p. 1; Rabagliati (Bradford), _ibid._ Dec. 1873; Tennant (Glasgow), _Glasgow Med. Journ._ May, 1871, p. 354; Armstrong (Newcastle), _Lancet_, I. 1873, p. 48.

[400] Muirhead (l. c.) says: “In no single instance which came under my observation could starvation be said to be the immediate cause of the disease. Not one of those individuals could be said to be emaciated.... On strict and repeated inquiry, not one of them would confess to having been in destitute circumstances.” During the winter of 1870-71 I attended from the Edinburgh New Dispensary several relapsing-fever patients at their homes, and can clearly remember having been surprised at the condition of decency and comfort in which I found them. The appearance of comfort was certainly due in part to the district visitors, who were numerous and active during the epidemic.

[401] Spear, “Typhus Fever in various parts of England, 1886-87.” _Rep. Med. Off. Loc. Gov. Bd._ N. S. XVI. p. 169.

[402] 2303 of these fever deaths in 1864 occurred in the eight principal towns of Scotland, classified as follows: typhus, 1450, relapsing fever, 371, gastric, enteric, or typhoid, 382.

[403] G. B. Longstaff, M.D., _Trans. Epid. Soc._ 1884-5, p. 72, reprinted in his _Studies in Statistics_, Lond. 1891, p. 402. The seasonal curve for the typhoid admissions to the London Fever Hospital over a longer period is nearly the same, as well as that of the registered deaths by typhoid in all London, 1869-84.

[404] The following large registration districts besides those in the Table, had enteric-fever death rates of ·5 and upwards per 1000 persons living, in the ten years 1871-80; in nearly all of them there has been a marked decline in the ten years 1881-90:--Durham, Hartlepool, Easington, Houghton-le-Spring, Darlington, Gateshead (county Durham); Morpeth (Northumberland); Aysgarth, Todmorden, Dewsbury, Pontefract, Barnsley, Rotherham (Yorkshire); Dudley, Leigh, Ormskirk (Lancashire); Crickhowell (Wales); Worksop, Radford (Nottingham); Shrewsbury; Peterborough; Portsea Island (Hants). Of the London districts, Hackney had the highest enteric fever, 0·46 per 1000 in a general death-rate of 20·78. The high rate of a decennium is not unfrequently brought up by one great explosion. In many of the Lancashire, Yorkshire and Midland towns, with rates about ·4 per 1000 persons, the rate has been somewhat steady from year to year. In the decennium 1871-80, many special outbreaks, some of them in villages, were reported on by the inspectors of the Medical Department, and traced for the most part to water-supplies tainted by the percolation of excrement.

[405] The Registration District of Middlesborough was carved out of Stockton and Guisborough in 1875.

[406] Registration District containing a population of 72,707 on a mean between the census of 1871 and that of 1881. In 1891 the population was 146,812.

[407] F. W. Barry, M.D., in _Rep. Med. Off. Loc. Gov. Board for 1882_, p. 72. The contention of the inspector was that the water-supply had been tainted by enteric-fever evacuations from a case which began on 22 May in a cottage some half-mile distant from the reservoir but in communication with it through ditches and brooks. The area of the water-supply did not correspond with the area of the fever.

[408] The report for the Medical Department by F. W. Barry, M.D. (_Enteric Fever in the Tees Valley_, 1890-91, Parl. papers, Nov. 1893), is an elaborate argument to prove that the flooded state of the Tees was indeed the relevant antecedent, not as indexing the rise of the ground-water in the respective towns, but as dislodging and sweeping down the slops, sewage and dry refuse of the market town of Barnard Castle, in upper Teesdale, whereby the water taken in from the Tees two miles above Darlington to the tanks, filters and reservoirs of the Darlington Corporation, and of the Stockton and Middlesborough Water Board, was tainted in some unusual degree--a hypothesis the more remarkable that the refuse, such as it was, had been suspended or dissolved in an unusual volume of water, that little refuse could have collected between the first floods and the second, and that no cases of enteric fever were known in the upper valley of the Tees. This judicial deliverance has not been accepted by the authorities of Darlington, Stockton and Middlesborough, nor by the Royal Commission on Water Supply, before whom it was laid.

[409] Besides the epidemic at Worthing in 1893, which is still _sub judice_, the best known instance of typhoid following a certain water-supply is the explosion at Redhill and Caterham in Jan.-Feb. 1879, _Rep. Med. Off. Loc. Gov. Board, for 1879_, Parl. papers, 1880, p. 78. The first instance alleged of the distribution by milk was the Islington explosion in July-August 1870 (Ballard, _Med. Times and Gaz._ 1870, II. 611). It was soon followed by the Marylebone explosion in the summer of 1873 (_Rep. Med. Off. L. G. B._, N. S. II. 193); but such instances have become less common, while instances of scarlatina and diphtheria following a milk-supply have become more common.

[410] _Second Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe_, May, 1795.

[411] Berkeley’s _Querist_, Q. 362.

[412] Radulphus de Diceto, _Imag. Histor._ Eng. Hist. Soc. ed. I. 350.

[413] “Topogr. Hiberniae” in _Opera_, Rolls ed. V. 67. This and the preceding reference had escaped the notice of Dr John O’Brien, in the historical introduction to his _Observations on the Acute and Chronic Dysentery of Ireland_. Dublin, 1822.

[414] _Polychronicon_, Rolls ed. I. 332-3.

[415] “Many of the English-Irish have by little and little been infected with the Irish filthinesse, and that in the very cities, excepting Dublin and some of the better sort in Waterford, where the English continually lodging in their houses, they more retain the English diet.” And again: “In like sort the degenerated citizens are somewhat infected with the Irish filthinesse, as well in lowsie beds, foule sheetes, and all linnen, as in many other particulars.... Touching the meere or wild Irish, it may truely be said of them, which was of old spoken of the Germans, namely, that they wander slovenly and naked, and lodge in the same house (if it may be called a house) with their beasts.” Fynes Moryson, _Itinerary_, Pt. IV. p. 180.

[416] _Ireland’s Natural History, &c._ Written by Gerard Boate, late Doctor of Physick to the State in Ireland. And now published by Samuel Hartlib, Esquire. Lond. 1652. The author died at Dublin, shortly after his arrival there, on 9/19 January 1650/49. His information would seem to have come in part from his brother Arnold Boate, resident in Ireland.

[417] Hardiman, _History of Galway_, p. 126 _seq._ The plague from July 1649 to Lady Day 1650 is said to have swept away 3700 of the inhabitants, including 210 of the most respectable burgesses and freemen, with their families. The capitulation on 5 April, 1652, was followed by famine throughout the country, and by a revival of plague for two years, “during which upwards of one-third of the population of the province was swept away.”

[418] _Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches_, II. 55, 77.

[419] Edmund Borlase, _History of the Reduction of Ireland to the Crown of England_. 1675, p. 172.

[420] Boyle’s _Works_, fol. Lond. 1744, V. 92.

[421] The war-pestilence at Londonderry in 1689 is the third recorded epidemic of the kind there, not including what may have happened in the capture of the town by the Catholics in O’Neill’s rebellion, when Derry was destroyed, to be rebuilt in 1613 by the London Companies with a new charter under the name of Londonderry. The first historical occasion of sickness was in 1566. The troops of Elizabeth were landed on Loch Foyle in October and built their huts on the site of the old monastery. In the course of the winter the greater part of a force of 1100 men perished by dysentery and the infection which it breeds (see former volume, p. 372). On 12 Dec. 1642, a year after the outbreak of the Rebellion of Confederate Catholics, a petition of the agents of the distressed city of Londonderry to the Commons represented that there were 6059 persons in the city, whereof 5123 were women and children, or sick, aged or impotent; only 2000 were inhabitants of the city, the rest having fled there for safety. Spotted fever had broken out. (_Hist. MSS. Comis._ V. “MSS. of the House of Lords.”)

[422] With the exception of the last quoted piece of information, the most minute particulars of the siege of Londonderry are in an essay by an army chaplain, John Mackenzie, _A Narrative of the Siege of Londonderry_, London, 1690, which was written to correct and augment _A True Account of the Siege of Londonderry_ by the Rev. Mr George Walker, rector of Donoghmoore in the county of Tyrone, and late Governor of Derry. London, 1689.

[423] See former volume, pp. 634-43.

[424] Minute particulars of it are given in _An Impartial History of the Wars in Ireland_ [1689-1692]. By George Story, Chaplain to Sir Thomas Gower’s Regiment. London, 1693. Part I.

[425] Gangrene of the extremities was one of the symptoms of the “plague of Athens” as described by Thucydides. There is no need to invoke ergotism for an explanation of it, as some have done.

[426] At that time there was little systematic knowledge of military hygiene. Nearly two generations after, the experiences of Pringle, Donald Monro and Brocklesby in the campaigns of 1743-48 and 1758-63 in Germany and the Netherlands, yielded many valuable hints, some of which Virchow made use of in compiling his “Rules of Health for the Army in the Field,” in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. See his _Gesammelte Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiete der öffentlichen Medicin und Seuchenlehre_.

[427] Bde. Berlin, 1879, II. 193.

[428] Joseph Rogers, M.D. _Essay on Epidemic Diseases._ Dublin, 1734.

[429] In further illustration of the power of morbid effluvia, he says: “We see how small a portion of a putrid animal juice, taken into the blood by inoculation, like a most active _leaven_ sets all in a ferment; and in a very short time brings the whole juices of a sound body into an equal state of corruption with itself,”--instancing war-typhus, plague from cadaveric corruption (according to Paré), the Oxford gaol fever, and “a later instance at Taunton not more than five or six years ago.”

[430] Dr Rogan of Strabane, in his _Condition of the Middle and Lower Classes in the North of Ireland_, 1819, was of a different opinion (p. 90): “No police regulations exist in Strabane to prevent the slaughtering of cattle in any part of the town. The butchers, therefore, most of whom live in the narrow streets near the shambles, have their slaughter-houses immediately behind their dwellings. The garbage is thrown into a large pit, which is generally cleaned but once in the year, at the season when the manure is required for planting potatoes, and at this time an offensive smell pervades the whole town, and is perceptible for a considerable distance around. The families exposed constantly to the effluvia arising from these heaps of putrid offal might have been expected to suffer severely from fever; but on the contrary, they were found to be much less liable to it than others in the same rank of life. This was no doubt owing to their living chiefly on animal food, and thus escaping the debility induced by deficient nourishment, which certainly had the chief share in creating a predisposition to the disease.”

[431] Bp. Nicholson to Archbp. of Canterbury, cited by Lecky (II. 216) from _Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 6116_.

[432] Cited by O’Rourke, _History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847_. Dublin, 1875, from pamphlet in the Halliday Collection of the Royal Irish Academy.

[433] See Boulter’s _Letters to the English Ministers_.

[434] Wakefield’s _Ireland_, II. 6, cited by Barker and Cheyne.

[435] John Rutty, M.D. _Chronological History of the Weather and Seasons and prevailing Diseases in Dublin during Forty Years._ London, 1770.

[436] Maurice O’Connell, M.D. _Morborum acutorum et chronicorum Observationes._ Dublin, 1746.

[437] Boulter’s _Letters_. Oxford, 1769, I. 226.

[438] Lecky, II. 217.

[439] Berkeley’s _Works_. Ed. Fraser, Oxford, 1871, III. 369.

[440] Lord John Russell used these historical parallels from England and Scotland in his great speech in the House of Commons, during the debate on Ireland, 25th January, 1847.

[441] Fraser, “Life and Letters of Berkeley,” in _Works_, IV. 262.

[442] Berkeley to Prior, Feb. 8 and 15, 1740/1.

[443] He published the receipt in a Dublin journal.

[444] Berkeley to Thomas Prior, in “Life and Letters,” u. s., p. 265. Some attempts at relief-works had been made the year before, two of which are still to be seen in the obelisks on Killiney Hill near Dublin and on a hill near Maynooth (“Lady Conolly’s Folly.” O’Rourke, u. s.).

[445] Rutty, p. 93.

[446] (Dublin, 1741).

[447] Cited by O’Rourke. Short, a contemporary, also says that the fever in Galway was like a plague.

[448] Dutton, _Statistical Survey of the County of Galway_. Dublin, 1824, p. 313: “1741. A fever raged this year that occasioned the judges to hold the assizes in Tuam. Numbers of the merchants of Galway died this year, and multitudes of poor people, caused partly by fever and by the scarcity, as wheat was 28_s._ per cwt.”

[449] The author of _The Groans of Ireland_ (Dublin, 1741) says: “On my return to this country I found it the most miserable scene of distress that I ever read of in history: want and misery in every face; the rich unable to relieve the poor; the road spread with dead and dying bodies; mankind of the colour of the docks and nettles which they fed on; two or three, sometimes more, on a car going to the grave for want of bearers to carry them, and many buried only in the fields and ditches where they perished.” Skelton, a Protestant clergyman, says: “Whole parishes in some places were almost desolate; the dead have been eaten in the fields by dogs, for want of people to bury them.” Skelton’s _Works_, Vol. V. Cited by Lecky.

[450] Report by Dr Phipps to Baron Wainwright, 10 March, 1741. Cited by F. C. Webb, _Trans. Epidem. Soc._ 1857, p. 67.

[451] Smith’s _Kerry_, p. 77. He adds that many were excused the hearth-tax on account of their poverty, by certificate of the magistrates; so that the decrease in 1744 may mean a greater proportion excused the tax, as well as a depopulation.

[452] How near the verge of want the people were is brought out by an experience in Galway county in 1745: a great fall of snow smothered vast numbers of cattle and sheep, which caused a great many farmers to surrender their lands. Wheat rose from six to eighteen shillings the hundredweight, while, after the distress, the best land in Connaught could be rented for five shillings an acre. Dutton’s _Galway_, p. 313.

[453] For Kinsale, Cork and Bandon, see Marjoribanks, _Med. Press and Circ._ 1867, II., 8.

[454] James Sims, M.D. _Observations on Epidemic Disorders, with Remarks on Nervous and Malignant Fevers._ London, 1773, p. 10. The preface is dated from London, whither Sims had removed from Tyrone. He rose to eminence in the London profession.

[455] _A Letter to a Member of the Irish Parliament relative to the present State of Ireland._ By Philo-Irene. London, 20 May, 1755. The turning of hundreds of acres into one dairy-farm had caused the depopulation which Goldsmith described in the _Deserted Village_: “By this unhappy policy several villages have been deserted at different times by the inhabitants, and numbers of them set a-begging,” p. 6.

[456] Sims, u. s. pp. 164-5.

[457] F. Barker and J. Cheyne, _Account of the Fever lately epidemical in Ireland_, 2 vols. London, 1821. This work relates mainly to the epidemic of 1817-19, but there is a short retrospect, the valuable part of which is for the years 1797-1802.

[458] The history of the Limerick and Belfast fever-hospitals is carried back to a few years before the founding of the Waterford hospital; but the latter was the first that was formally organised as a fever-hospital.

[459] “The fever in 1800 and 1801 very generally terminated on the fifth or seventh day by perspiration; the disease was then very liable to recur. The poor were the chief sufferers by it; and it was much more fatal amongst the middling and upper classes in proportion to the number attacked.” Barker and Cheyne, _op. cit._ p. 20.

[460] Smith’s _Kerry_. Dublin, 1756, p. 77.

[461] Smith’s _Kerry_, p. 88.

[462] _A Tour in Ireland ... in 1776-78._ London, 1780.

[463] The forty-shillings freeholder of Ireland was a life-renter whose farm was worth forty shillings annual rent more than the rent reserved in his lease.

[464] Malthus, _Essay on the Principle of Population_. Bk. II. chap. 10, Bk. III. chap. 8, and Bk. IV. chap. 11.

[465] Francis Rogan, M.D., _Observations on the Condition of the Middle and Lower Classes in the North of Ireland, as it tends to promote the diffusion of Contagious Fever; with the History and Treatment of the late Epidemic Disorders_. London, 1819.

[466] William Carleton, the _vates sacer_ of the Irish peasantry, was born, in 1798, in one of those Tyrone thatched cottages, in the parish of Clogher. His father had changed his holding three times before William, the youngest child, was fourteen years old; the last of the four was a farm of sixteen or eighteen acres in the north of Clogher parish, and “nearer the mountains.” Carleton says that he “lived among the people as one of themselves” until he was twenty-two, which would have been until the year 1820; so that he probably saw the famine and fever of 1817-18 among that very Tyrone peasantry whom Dr Rogan brings before us from the medical side. The scenes of famine and fever in the ‘Black Prophet’ are those “which he himself witnessed in 1817, 1822, and other subsequent years,” having been recalled by him in the form of a tale which was published in 1846, at the beginning of the Great Famine of that and the following year. His early recollections of famine and fever come into other tales, such as the ‘Clarionet,’ the ‘Poor Scholar’ and ‘Tubber Derg,’ in which last is related the almost inevitable reduction to poverty and at length to beggary of a most upright and industrious farmer owing to the fall of prices, without fall of rents, after the Peace of 1815. Carleton’s work has always the quality of fidelity, and he may be credited when he says that the scenes of famine and fever are not exaggerated.

[467] Rogan, u. s. p. 95: “A farmer within my knowledge, who holds fifteen acres of arable land, with nearly an equal quantity of cut-out bog, for which he pays £28 per annum, has erected six cabins for labourers. They are built with mud, instead of lime, and are thatched, so that they cannot each have cost more than three or four pounds. For some time he received from three of his tenants six guineas per annum, and from the others two guineas each, the latter only holding a cottage and a small garden [the former three having also grazing for a milch cow, half a rood of land for flax, and half an acre for oats, with privileges of cutting turf and planting as many potatoes as they could each provide manure for]; but they have been all so reduced in circumstances by the late scarcity as to be now unable to keep a cow, and for the two last years have rented their cabins and potato gardens alone. All the straw raised on the farm would scarcely suffice to keep the houses water-fast if applied solely to this purpose.” One of the first things that the Marquis of Abercorn did in the epidemic of 1817 was to call upon the subletting farmers on his manors to repair the roofs of their cottiers’ cabins.

[468] Carleton, in one of his tales, has given a vivid picture of the lurid or gloomy appearance of the country in the late autumn of 1816, as if it foreboded the distress of the following spring.

[469] Probably their cattle had been impounded for rent and tithe. The author of the pamphlet _Lachrymae Hiberniae_ (Dublin, 1822), a resident on the western coast, says (p. 8), with reference to the seizures for rent and tithe: “Oh what scenes of misery were exhibited in Ireland in this way during the years 1817, ’18 and ’19; by that time the people were left without cattle; after this their potatoes and corn were seized and sold, and in some cases their household furniture, even to their blankets.” The hardness of landlords in general is alleged by Dr Rogan, with an exception in favour of the Marquis of Abercorn in his own district.

[470] There was dysentery also in the autumn of 1818. Cheyne, _Dubl. Hosp. Rep._ III. 1.

[471] Rogan, p. 31.

[472] The following is an instance, from Boyle, in Roscommon: “In the middle of June, 1817, or a little earlier, a soup-shop was established here by subscription, where soup was daily given out to one thousand persons, who, naturally anxious to procure it in time, crowded together during its distribution, though every pains was taken to keep order amongst them. From the 16th to the 23rd of that month the weather became suddenly and unusually hot, and the disease about that period spread rapidly among those persons, the greater number of whom attributed the origin of their complaint to attendance at the soup-shop; among that crowd, many of whom I have seen faint from absolute want during exposure to the sun, there were persons from houses where the disease existed.” Report by Dr Verdon of Boyle, 26 June, 1818, in Barker and Cheyne, I. 325.

[473] Dr King of Tralee (Barker and Cheyne, I. p. 177) wrote as follows: “It is a custom in this country for very poor persons, living in the country parts, and possessing a miserable hovel with a small garden, after they have sowed their potatoes, to shut up their hut and carrying their families with them, to roam about the country, trusting to the known hospitality of the towns and villages for shelter and subsistence till the time for digging the potatoes shall have arrived.”

[474] Barker and Cheyne, I. 60.

[475] In Carleton’s tale of ‘The Poor Scholar,’ it is related how the hay-mowers stopped in their work to erect a hut for the fever-stricken youth, and a much larger hut not far from the first for the numerous persons who ministered to his wants under a kind of quarantine arrangement. The stealing of milk from rich men’s cows for the sick youth is the subject of a dialogue between the Roman Catholic bishop and the leader of the kindly party of mowers, in which the latter shows a skill in casuistry creditable to his religious instructors.

[476] William Harty, M.D., _Historic Sketch of the Contagious Fever Epidemic in Ireland during 1817-19_. Dublin, 1820. This work contains information collected by a circular of queries addressed to practitioners in the several provinces. It was undertaken by Dr Harty at the instance of Sir John Newport, M.P. for Waterford. The work by Barker and Cheyne on the same epidemic took longer to prepare, having been published in 1821. See also Cheyne, _Dubl. Hosp. Rep._ II. 1-147.

[477] Barker and Cheyne, p. 65. A similar incident comes into Carleton’s tale of ‘The Clarionet’: “At length, out of compassion, the few neighbours who feared not to attend a feverish death-bed, acting on the popular belief that children under a certain age are not liable to catch a fever, placed the boy in her arms.” This popular belief was well founded.

[478] Accounts from various places in Barker and Cheyne, and in Harty. Rogan (u. s. p. 45) says: “The cases of typhus gravior were infinitely more numerous among the rich and well-fed than among the poor; and with them also the head was most frequently the seat of diseased action.”

[479] _Report on the Present State of the Distressed District in the South of Ireland: with an Enquiry into the Causes of the Distresses of the Peasantry and Farmers._ Dublin, 1822.

[480] _Lachrymae Hiberniae, or the Grievances of the Peasantry of Ireland, especially in the Western Counties._ By a Resident Native. Dublin, 1822 (September). The author, a resident of the west coast, was concerned in the distribution of relief, and positively asserts the saving of thousands “from his own personal knowledge.”

[481] Robert James Graves, M.D., “Report on the Fever lately prevalent in Galway and the West of Ireland.” _Trans. K. and Q. Col. Phys._ IV. (1824), p. 408.

[482] John O’Brien, M.D., “On the Epidemic Dysentery which prevailed in Dublin in the year 1825.” _Trans. K. and Q. Col. Phys._ V. (1828) p. 221; Burke, _Ed. Med. Surg. Journ._ July, 1826, p. 56; Speer, _Med. Phys. Journ._ N. S. VI. 199.

[483] John O’Brien, “Med. Rep. of the H. of Recovery, Cork Street, Dublin, for the year ending 4 Jan. 1827.” _Trans. K. and Q. Col. Phys._ V. 512.

[484] Graves, _Clinical Medicine_, 1843. Lect. XVIII.

[485] O’Brien, u. s.

[486] “Remarks on the Epidemic Dysentery of the Autumn of 1826 in the South of Ireland.” By Alexander McCarthy, M.D. _Edin. Med. and Surg. Journ._ April, 1827, p. 289.

[487] “It is a melancholy picture of society to witness the increase of wealth and luxury on one side, and the greatest want and wretchedness on the other; to meet famine and exhaustion in the great body of the people, in a country that produces as much food as would afford a full supply for once and a half its present population; to see the granaries full of corn and flour, and the great body of the people scarcely existing on a half supply of bad potatoes. Such is the miserable situation of the Irish, a race of people distinguished for their intellect, and above all for their resignation and patience under afflictions the most trying.”

[488] _Dub. Quart. Journ. Med. Sc._ XI. 385.

[489] W. J. Geary, M.D., “Report of the St John’s Fever and Lock Hospitals.” _Dub. Quart. Journ. Med. Sc._ XI. 378: XII. 94.

[490] Various descriptions of these exist, of which that by Carleton in the tale ‘Barney Branagan,’ is probably not overdone.

[491] The Report of the Roscrea Fever Hospital for 1827 says: “In March, when the dung is being removed from the back yards for the purpose of planting the potatoes, the number of patients becomes double in the Fever Hospital.” _Dublin Medical Press_, Jan. 1846, p. 235.

[492] Babington, “Epidemic Typhous Fever in Donoughmore.” _Dub. Quart. Journ._ X. 404.

[493] G. A. Kennedy, “Report of Cork St. Fever Hosp. 1837-38.” _Ibid._ XIII. 311. Graves, _Ibid._ XIV. 363.

[494] Lynch, _Ibid._ N. S. VII. 388, gives some particulars of it also at Loughrea, Galway, in 1840.

[495] _System of Clinical Medicine._ Dublin, 1843, p. 57. The “change of type,” with special reference to treatment, is discussed more fully in Lecture XXXIV. pp. 492-500. See also _Dub. Quart. Journ. Med. Sc._ XIV. 502, where a letter on the changed character of fever at Sligo is cited.

[496] _The Census of Ireland_, 1841, Parl. Papers, 1843. “Report on the Table of Deaths,” by W. R. Wilde. The deaths in the family, with their causes, &c., in each of the previous ten years were entered on the census paper by the head of the family, or by the parish priest for him. These returns were, of course, far from exhaustive or correct.

[497] Graves, _Clinical Medicine_, 1843, p. 46. Remarking on the much greater frequency of fever in Ireland than in England, he says (p. 47): “Nothing can be more remarkable than the facility with which a simple cold (which in England would be perfectly devoid of danger), runs into maculated fever in Ireland, and that, too, under circumstances quite free from even the suspicion of contagion--in truth, except when fever is epidemic, catching cold is its most usual cause.”

[498] The principal work on the general circumstances of the Irish famine of 1846-47 is _The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847, with notices of Earlier Irish Famines_. By Rev. John O’Rourke, P.P., M.R.I.A. Dublin, 1875.

[499] Joseph Lalor, M.D., _Dub. Quart. Journ. Med. Sc._ N. S. III. 38.

[500] Cited by O’Rourke, p. 152.

[501] _The Census of Ireland_, 1851. Part V. Table of deaths, vol. I. Dublin, 1856, p. 235.

The following are a few instances of depopulation between 1841 and 1851.

Union of Loughrea, Co. Galway.
1841 65,636
1851 38,698

Union of Clonakilty, Co. Cork.
1841 52,185
1851 31,473

Union of Kanturk, Co. Cork.
1841 61,238
1851 41,801

Parish of Kanturk.
1841 4,096
1851 6,754

Union of Portumna, Co. Galway.
1841 30,714
1851 19,747

Union of Skibbereen, Co. Cork.
1841 57,439
1851 37,283

Parish of Skibbereen.
1841 9,557
1851 8,931

Union of Skull, Co. Cork.
1841 26,620
1851 16,866

Parish of Skull.
1841 2,895
1851 3,226

[502] _Essay on the Principle of Population._ Bk. IV. chap. XI. Thorold Rogers has in many passages emphasized the advantages of the English practice from medieval times of living on the dearest kind of corn; but he seems to have overlooked the priority of Malthus throughout the whole of the eleventh chapter of his fourth book. In _Six Centuries of Work and Wages_ (p. 62), Rogers says: “Hence a high standard of subsistence is a more important factor in the theory of population than any of those checks which Malthus has enumerated.”

[503] Cited in Thomas Doubleday’s _Political Life of Sir Robert Peel_. London, 1856, II. 398 _note_.

[504] It is a doctrine of economics that the higher standard of living checks population. Thus Marshall says of England: “The growth of population was checked by that rise in the standard of comfort which took effect in the general adoption of wheat as the staple food of Englishmen during the first half of the 18th century.” _Economics_, p. 230.

[505] Vol. VII. (1849) pp. 64-126, 340-404, and Vol. VIII. pp. 1-86, 270-339 of the _Dublin Quart. Journ. of Medical Science_, N. S. contain numerous reports collected by the editors from all parts of Ireland, and published either in abstract or in full. These are the chief medical sources. Some particulars are given also in the _Dublin Med. Press_, 1846 to 1849 in several papers on dysentery.

[506] John Popham, M.D., _Dub. Quart. Journ. Med. Sc._ N. S. VIII. 279.

[507] Cited by Dr Jones Lamprey, _Dub. Quart. Journ._ VII. 101.

[508] Lamprey, _Dub. Quart. Journ._ VII. 101.

[509] O’Rourke.

[510] Ormsbey, _Dub. Quart. Journ._ VII. 382.

[511] Pemberton, _ibid._ VII. 369.

[512] Lalor, u. s.

[513] This epidemic called forth two pamphlets on the relation of famine to fever, one by Dominic Corrigan, M.D., _On Famine and Fever as Cause and Effect in Ireland_ (“no famine, no fever”), and a reply to it by H. Kennedy, M.D., _On the Connexion of Famine and Fever_.

[514] Pains resembling those of rheumatism were common in the fever of 1817-18 at Limerick. Barker and Cheyne, I. 432.

[515] Lamprey, u. s.

[516] Dr Kelly of Mullingar compared the smell of relapsing fever to that of burning musty straw. _Dub. Quart. Journ. Med._, Aug. 1863, p. 341.

[517] Cusack and Stokes, _ibid._ IV. 134.

[518] Barker and Cheyne, Harty, and Rogan have been cited to this effect for earlier epidemics. Graves (_Clin. Med._ pp. 59-60) says: “In the epidemics of 1816, 1817, 1818 and 1819, it was found by accurate computation that the rate of mortality was much higher among the rich than among the poor. This was a startling fact, and a thousand different explanations of it were given at the time.” He cites Fletcher (_Pathology_, p. 27) an Edinburgh observer, as follows: “The rich are less frequently affected with epidemic fevers than the poor, but more frequently die of them. Good fare keeps off diseases, but increases their mortality when they take place.”

[519] _Dub. Quart. Journ. Med. Sc._ N. S. VII. 388.

[520] _Census of Ireland_, 1851.

[521] _The Census of Ireland of 1851._ Part V. Table of Deaths. 2 vols. Dublin, 1856. Upwards of two hundred pages are occupied with a chronological “Table of Cosmical Phenomena, Epizootics, Epiphitics, Famines and Pestilences in Ireland” from the earliest times. This retrospect, which is very replete but tedious and uncritical, is followed by a summary report of twenty pages on “The Last General Potato Failure, and the Great Famine and Pestilence of 1845-50,” and by a long series of tabulated extracts from contemporary writings on all matters relating to the famine.

[522] Of this total, 18,430 deaths were from dysentery and 7,264 from diarrhoea.

[523] The increase in 1849 was doubtless owing to choleraic diarrhoea during the epidemic of Asiatic cholera, the deaths from dysentery being one-half of the total.

[524] R. Mayne, M.D., “Observations on the late Epidemic Dysentery in Dublin.” _Dub. Quart. Journ. Med. Sc._ VII. 294. See also papers in _Dubl. Med. Press_, 1849.

[525] 17th and 26th Reports of the Regr.-Genl. Ireland.

[526] Review of Murchison in _Dub. Quart. Journ. Med. Sc._, Aug. and Nov. 1863, pp. 169 and 339: “We are able, from extensive opportunities of observing the epidemic [of 1846-48] in Dublin, to verify the statement of Dr H. Kennedy as to the infrequency of enteric fever.”

[527] _Dub. Quart. Journ. Med. Sc._ Nov. 1865, p. 285.

[528] See p. 273, _supra_.

[529] O’Connor, u. s. p. 286, “Typhoid has scarcely appeared in this locality, which cannot boast of the excellence of its sewerage.”

[530] “On Atmospheric Conditions influencing the Prevalence of Typhus Fever.” _Dub. Quart. Journ. Med. Sc._, May, 1866, p. 309.

[531] H. Kennedy, M.D., “Further Observations on Typhus and Typhoid Fevers as seen in Dublin.” _Ibid._, Aug. 1862, p. 50.

[532] Nearly one-half of all the enteric fever deaths in Ulster and Leinster come respectively from Belfast and Dublin:

Year Belfast Dublin

1889 236 231
1890 190 168
1891 156 185

[533] Higden’s _Polychronicon_. Rolls Series, I. 332.

[534] _Dyall of Agues._ London, [1564].

[535] _Essay on Epidemic Diseases._ Dublin, 1734.

[536] _Dissert. Epistol._ § 93. Greenhill’s ed. p. 378.

[537] One regrets to find the above mistake in the learned pages of Murchison (p. 8). The following by Dr Robert Williams (_Morbid Poisons_, II. 423) is absolutely erroneous: “In Sydenham’s time, intermittent fever and dysentery were constantly endemic in London; and the mortality from the former cause alone averaged, in a comparatively small population, from one to two thousand persons annually.” What Sydenham says is that dysentery was endemic in Ireland (on the authority of Boate, no doubt), that it was epidemic in London in the end of 1669 and in the three years following, and that for the space of ten years it had appeared quite sparingly (_quae per decennium jam parcius comparuerat_). As to intermittents, he says they were absent from London for thirteen years, from 1664 to 1677, except in sporadic or imported cases. In the London bills the deaths from “agues” are sometimes distinguished from “fevers,” and are then seen to be only some dozen or twenty in two thousand.

[538] It is used in the Latin title of an Edinburgh graduation thesis, “De Catarrho epidemio, vel Influenza, prout in India occidentali sese ostendit,” by J. Huggar, which is assigned in Häser’s bibliography to the year 1703. Having been unable to find the thesis, I have not verified the date.

[539] _Annales Monastici_ (St Albans), Rolls Series, No. 191, under the year 1427; _Hist. MSS. Commiss._ IX. pt. 1, p. 127, records of Canterbury Abbey.--An epidemic in Ireland a century before, in 1328, has been given by Sir W. R. Wilde, and by Dr Grimshaw following him, under the name of “murre,” as if that had been its name at the time. The explanation seems to be that the contemporary Irish name _slaedan_ was rendered by Macgeoghegan, in his translation of the Annals of Clonmacnoise, by the 15th century English term “murre.” The “mure” of 1427 was a universal influenza; but the word was afterwards used for a common cold, along with poss, as in Gardiner’s _Triall of Tabacco_, 1610, fol. 12 and 15: “stuffings in the head, murres and pose, coughs”; and “the poze, murre, horsenesse, cough” etc.

[540] _Cal. Cecil. MSS._ I. under the dates.

[541] Munk, _Roll of the College of Physicians_, I. 32.

[542] Cited in Southey’s _Commonplace Book_, from Fuller’s _Pisgah Sight_, p. 54.

[543] Southey, _Commonplace Book_, from Strype’s _Memorials of Cranmer_, p. 284.

[544] Thoresby, _Ducatus Leodiensis_, ed. Whitaker, App. p. 152.

[545] Baines, _Lancashire_, II. 679: 39 deaths from 17 to 24 August, 1551, set down to “plague,” i.e. sweat.

[546] Lest it may be supposed that there has been adequate discussion of the differences between epidemic agues and influenzas, I quote from Hirsch’s _Handbuch der historisch-geographischen Pathologie_ the passage in which these epidemics or pandemics of “malarial fever” are referred to: “These epidemics of malaria, which extend not unfrequently over large tracts of country, and sometimes even over whole divisions of the globe, forming true pandemics, correspond always in time with a considerable increase in the amount of sickness at the endemic malarious foci, whether near or distant; they either die out after lasting a few months, or they continue--and this applies particularly to the great pandemic outbreaks--for several years, with regular fluctuations depending on seasonal influences. On the very verge of the period to which the history of malarial epidemics can be traced back, we meet with a pandemic of that sort, in the years 1557 and 1558, which is said to have overrun all Europe (Palmarius, _De morbis contagiosis_. Paris, 1578, p. 322).... It is not until the years 1678-82 that we again meet with definite facts relating to an epidemic extending over a great part of Europe....” (Eng. Transl. I. 229.)

[547] _Queen Elizabeth and her Times._ Ed. Wright, 2 vols. Lond. 1838, I. 113. Sir W. Cecil writing from Westminster to Sir T. Smith on 29th December [1563] says: “The cold here hath so assayled us that the Queen’s majestie hath been much troubled, and is yet not free from the same that I had in November, which they call a pooss, and now this Christmas, to keep her Majestie company, I have been newly so possessed with it as I could not see, but with somewhat ado I wryte this. We have had perpetuall frosts here sence the 16th of this month. Men doo now ordinarily pass over the Thamiss, which I thynk they did not since the 8th yere of the reign of King Henry the VIII.” _Ibid._ I. 157. For “poss,” see note p. 305.

[548] _Ephemer. Meteorol. anni 1561_ [for the latitude of Brabant]. Antwerp, 1561: “Tusses numero infinitae atque tanta contagionis vi praestabunt ut pauci immunes reliquant, praecipuè circa mensis finem.” The almanacks of those times must have been constructed on the same principle as the weather forecasts of our own time--namely, that of using the experience of one year for the next, just as the weather of one day is an indication for the next. In 1575 Dr Richard Foster (who became president of the College of Physicians in 1601) issued an almanack in which he foretold “sweating fevers” for the month of July (_Ephemer. meteorol. ad ann. 1575._ Lond. 1575). Cogan says that Francis Keene, an astronomer, also prophesied the return of the sweating sickness in 1575, “wherein he erred not much, as there were many strange fevers and nervous sickness.”

[549] Johan Boekel, Συνοψις _novi morbi quem plerique medicorum catarrhum febrilem, vel febrem catarrhosam vocant, qui non solum Germaniam, sed paene universam Europam graviss. adflixit_. Helmstadtii, 1580.

[550] Hoker’s “Irish historie ... to the present year 1587,” p. 165a in Holinshed’s _Chronicles_.

[551] This very moderate increase of the deaths in London in 1580 may be compared with the probably fabulous figures which Webster (I. 163) gives for continental cities the same year: Rome, 4000 deaths, Lübeck, 8000 deaths, Hamburg, 3000 deaths. I have given the weekly deaths and baptisms in London for five years, 1578-82, in my former volume, p. 341.

[552] There is a curious reference to “the sweat” in Shakespeare’s _Measure for Measure_, Act I. scene 2, where the bawd, in an aside, says: “Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk.” It is known that Shakespeare adapted and condensed his play from Whetstone’s _Promus and Cassandra_, printed in 1578, who took it from an Italian romance. But Whetstone’s dialogue, which is pointless and verbose beside Shakespeare’s, gives an entirely different speech to the bawd at the same place in the action, making no reference to “the sweat.” The date of _Measure for Measure_ is not certain; but it seems to belong to the earlier period of Shakespeare’s work, when he was adapting old plays most freely. Whatever its date, the war, the sweat, the gallows and poverty are evidently topical allusions pointed enough for the audience to have taken up.

[553] The year 1610 is mentioned by Short as a season of universal catarrhal fever abroad; but that epidemic is not in the modern chronologies of influenza.

[554] Chamberlain to Carleton in _Court and Times of James I._ I.

[555] Same to same 4 Nov. 1612. _Ibid._ I. p. 201.

[556] _Court and Times of James I._ I. p. 206.

[557] _Ibid._ p. 208.

[558] _Court and Times of James I._ p. 197.

[559] _Ibid._ p. 237.

[560] _Ibid._ Letter of 25 Nov. 1613.

[561] _Cal. Coke MSS._ I. 83.

[563] Graunt, _Obs. upon the Bills of Mortality_, 1662.