Chapter XII (4)

[95] “_Λοιμογραφία_, or an experimental relation of what hath happened remarkqueable in the last Plague in the city of London, &c. by W. Boghurst, apothecary in St. Giles’ in ye Feilds: London, 1666: MS. Sloane, 349.” Our attention was directed to this book as being likely to contain some curious details of the plague of 1665, but with the exception of this prefatory matter it is too exclusively medical to suit our purpose.

[96] “Oecumenical (_ὀικουμενικὸς_, from _ὀικουμένη_), relating to the whole habitable world.”—_Johnson._

[97] Of Persia.

[98] A pile of wood, which, when they laid the corpse on it they fired, and afterwards buried the bones.

[99] Apollo, to whom the heathens attributed the immission of all epidemic or ordinary diseases.

[100] Thucyd. ii. 47, 54. Hobbes’s Translation has been used throughout the volume; it has been compared with the original, and corrected where necessary.

[101] It was in name a state democratical, but in fact a government of the principal man.—Thucyd. ii. 65.

[102] See the analysis of the Knights in chap. iv.

[103] See Thucyd. iii. 87. The Athenian army at the commencement of the war consisted of 13,000 heavy armed soldiers of the former class, and 1200 horsemen, including the horse archers, who were not citizens. Such being the mortality of the upper classes, we may safely suppose that a quarter of the whole population perished.—Thucyd. ii. 13.

[104] See Mitchell’s Preliminary Discourse, p. 74, 84, and the Platonic Dialogues there quoted. See also the Clouds, especially the concluding part, and the dialogue between the Logos Dikaios and Logos Adikos.

[105] Evagrius adds to this a greater marvel; that the citizens of infected places, who were absent from home, sickened and died, even where no other trace of the plague appeared.

[106] _φάσματα δαιμόνων_

[107] This curious passage may be illustrated from a pamphlet entitled ‘Medela Pestilentiæ, wherein is contained several Theological Queries concerning the Plague,’ &c., by Richard Kephale. “Some I have talked with, who have ingenuously confest they, at their first infection, have felt themselves manifestly stricken, being sensible of a blow suddenly given them, some on the head and neck, others on the back and side, &c.; sometimes so violently that they have been as it were knockt down to the ground, remaining so for a time senseless; whereof some have died instantly, others in a short time after.”—p. 49. This statement, however, is not entitled to implicit credit; for it is the writer’s object to prove the plague a direct infliction from God, without the intervention of secondary causes. “There are two sorts of plague, the one simple, the other putrid. The simple plague is the very influence of the striking angel executing the vengeance of God on the bodies of men. This kind of plague ariseth from no distemperature of blood, putrefaction of humours, or influence of stars, but falleth merely from the stroke of God’s punishing angel.” (Such were the plagues of old, as you may read in Exod. xii. and Numb. xi. 16, 25; also 2 Sam. xxiv. and 2 Kings xix.)—_Ibid._

[108] This passage is remarkable as being probably the earliest assertion extant, of any disease known by the name of _plague_ being uncommunicable by contact. Of all the following accounts of similar pestilences, the dread of contagion will be found to form one of the most striking features.

[109] More probably from that burning heat which Thucydides tells us produced the same effect at Athens.

[110] _ὃυτως αἱτία τις ἦν ὀυδεμία ἐν ταυτῇ τῇ ν̓ σῳ ἐς ἀνθρώπου λογισμὸν φέρουσα_.

[111] The fig–trees: it included the modern suburbs of Pera and Galata.

[112] For some notice of these singular and virulent factions, see chap. xiv.

[113] Procopius de Bello Persico, lib. ii, cap. 22, 23.

[114] The geography of this passage is not quite clear. Mare Maggiore appears to be the Mediterranean, which still retains that name: see the Vocab. della Crusca. In French, Mer Majeure is the Black Sea, according to Cotgrave and the Encyclopédie. If we adopt this interpretation, the author states that the plague spread from Asia to the Black Sea and the Mare Tirreno, probably the Tyrrhene or Adriatic Sea, and then returns to trace its progress in the Mediterranean. On the whole, the former interpretation seems the more probable, though it involves some repetition. The first gives a general statement of the course which the disease took from Asia to the coasts of the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas, and then proceeds to particularise. It seems to have spread from India through Persia to Syria, Arabia, and Asia Minor (called in the text Turkey towards Egypt), and from China, or the upper part of India, through the north of Asia to Russia and Greece. The Levant trade introduced it into Sicily, Italy, and the west of Africa, whence it seems to have spread backwards towards Egypt. From Italy it crossed the mountains, and spread northward, even to Denmark, &c., which indeed may have received the infection either from their northern or southern neighbours.

[115] A small town in the province of Languedoc, in the department of Gard. It was formerly a seaport, and Louis IX. of France twice embarked from it for the Holy Land, in 1248, 1269. By the gradual accretion of land at the mouth of the Rhone it is now three leagues from the sea, in a sandy plain, with unwholesome air, from the quantity of stagnant water about it.

[116] In France this pestilence is said to have lasted about eight months in each place which it attacked.—Sismondi, Hist. des Français.

[117] Matteo Villani, lib. i. cap. 1.

[118] Continuatio Nangii, ap: Sismondi.

[119] Sismondi, Histoire des Français.

[120] Ripamonte, De Peste Mediolani, p. 17. From this interesting work the whole of the following account of the plague of Milan is taken.

[121] The ‘Promessi Sposi’ of Manzoni contains a most vivid and interesting picture of this portion of the history of Milan.

[122] Ripamonte, book i. If the reader can consult the original, he will see that the description is not overcharged. The Monatti, he continued, practised all sorts of insult towards living and dead, and dragged bodies along as rudely as a butcher drives his calves to the shambles.

[123] Origine e Giornale successi della Gran Peste. Milan, 1648.

[124] Ripamonte does not tell us whether any body went up into the belfry to ascertain this.

[125] Alchemist, act ii. scene 3.

[126] Loimologia: a consolatory advice and some brief observations concerning the present art. By George Thomson, Dr. of Physick, 1665.

[127] Loimologia, or an Historical Account of the Plague in London. By Nath. Hodges, M.D.

[128] Defoe, pp. 24, 25.

[129] This is a remarkable instance of that air of minute attention to fidelity which gives such a remarkable air of reality even to those works of Defoe which are altogether fictitious. Though aware that the history of the plague is not to be taken as the record of his own adventures during it, it is hardly possible not to believe that he had been a hearer of the denunciation, which he is so careful not to report inaccurately.

[130] Defoe, pp. 28–32.

[131] Pp. 78, 85.

[132] Pp. 110, 112.

[133] Pp. 105, 108.

[134] Pp. 131, 135.