An historical account of the plague

Plagues of the 1400s

1407 – In the summer time, the air was so corrupted, and so great a plague ensued, that the same had not been seen for many years; in London it soon destroyed 30,000 persons, and the mortality was so great in country villages among farmers and husbandmen, that many entire families died of it, and the houses were left desolate.

1427 – Craike, the historian, informs us, there was a great plague at Dantzic.

1478 – Towards the latter end of September, there was a great pestilence, not only in London, but in several parts of the kingdom. It lasted about fourteen months, in which space of time, there died a prodigious number of people in London and other places. Baker says, that a year or two before this, there was so great a pestilence, that it swept away more people in four months than the wars had done in fifteen years, c

1485 – In about the beginning of August, the disease called the sweating sickness began, and continued till the end of October. Sennertus says, that this distemper was very common in England for forty years successively; physicians and historians, who lived in or near those times affirm, that it had intervals, for in the space of sixty-six years it made only four returns, viz. in 1506, 1517, 1528, and 1551, seldom raging above six months, and some times terminating in three, and was always preceded by a very wet season. Its malignity was so great, that when it invaded any place it seized upon five or six hundred persons at a time, . and of these scarcely one in a hundred escaped.

Sennertus gives us a compendious description of this disease, which is agreeable to what other authors have said about it. Those who were taken ill had neither carbuncles nor spots, but lost their strength all of a sudden, and fainted away; they had great anxiety of mind a pain in the head, a quick, swift, unequal pulse, and a very great palpitation of the heart; they fell into a constant and copious sweat, which did not terminate before the disease, that lasted twenty-four hours; and those who did not encourage the sweating, nor made use of cordials, and who impatient of heat, exposed themselves to the cold air, died suddenly within twenty-four hours. But after the nature of the disease was known, so that the patients promoted the sweating, and fortified themselves with cordials, the mortality was not so great.

As to the cure, Polydore Virgil, treats of it with great accuracy ; for after long observation, and many experiments of what was hurtful or helpful to this distemper, they at length hit upon a re medy, which might be easily made use of every one, as follows: if any one fell into a sweat, in the day-time, they immediately went to bed with their clothes on; if they were taken in the night, they kept themselves still and quiet, till the expiration of twenty-four hours; means beingtaken to keep up the regular continuance of the sweat.

There is something very remarkable recorded about this distemper, which is, that it pursued the English into foreign countries, and invaded none but them.

Schenckius relates a very singular story of one that would uot submit to the usual method of cure, and in order to avoid it, ran away and hid himself in an oven, from whence the bread had been lately drawn; the heat of which throwing him into a plentiful sweat, he at length crept out with the usual signs of recovery.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7