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t h e Mi d d l e Ag es

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Title: The Epidemics of the Middle Ages

Author: J. F. C. Hecker
John Caius

Translator: B. G. Babington

Release date: September 19, 2020 [eBook #63232]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
EPIDEMICS OF THE MIDDLE AGES ***

THE

EPIDEMICS

OF

T H E M I D D L E A G E S.
FROM THE GERMAN OF

J. F. C. HECKER, M.D.
PROFESSOR AT FREDERICK WILLIAM’S UNIVERSITY AT BERLIN,
AND MEMBER OF VARIOUS LEARNED SOCIETIES IN
ALBANY, BERLIN, BONN, COPENHAGEN, DIJON, DRESDEN, ERLANGEN, HANAU,
HEIDELBERG, LEIPZIG, LONDON, LYONS, MARSEILLES, METZ, NAPLES, NEW YORK,
OFFENBURG, PHILADELPHIA, STOCKHOLM, TOULOUSE, WARSAW AND ZURICH.

TRANSLATED BY

B. G. BABINGTON, M.D. F.R.S.,
ETC.

LONDON
MDCCCXLIV

LONDON:

GE OR GE WOOD FAL L AN D S ON ,
ANGEL COURT, SKINNER STREET

GENERAL PREFACE.

The Council of the Sydenham Society having deemed Hecker’s three
treatises on different Epidemics occurring in the Middle Ages worthy of
being collected into a volume, and laid before its members in an English
dress, I have felt much pleasure in presenting them with the copyright of the
Black Death; in negociating for them, the purchase of that of the Dancing
Mania, whereof I could resign only my share of a joint interest; and, in
preparing for the press these productions, together with a translation, now
for the first time made public, of the Sweating Sickness. This last work,
from its greater length, and from the immediate relation of its chief subject
to our own country, may be considered the most interesting and important
of the series.
Professor Hecker is generally acknowledged to be the most learned
medical historian, and one of the most able medical writers in Germany. His
numerous works suffice to show not only with what zeal he has laboured,
but also how highly his labours have been appreciated by his countrymen;
and when I state that, with one trifling exception, they have all been
translated into other languages, I furnish a fair proof of the estimation in
which they are held in foreign countries; and, so far at least as regards the
originals, a full justification of the Council of the Sydenham Society in their
choice on the present occasion.
The “Schwarze Tod,” or “Black Death,” was published in 1832; and I
was prompted to undertake its translation, from a belief that it would prove
interesting at a moment when another fearful epidemic, the Cholera, with
which it admitted of comparison in several particulars, was fresh in the
memory of men. The “Tanzwuth,” or “Dancing Mania,” came out shortly
afterwards; and, as it appeared to me that, though relating to a less terrific
visitation, it possessed an equal share of interest, and, holding a kind of
middle place between a physical and a moral pestilence, furnished subject
of contemplation for the general as well as the professional reader, I

determined on adding it also to our common stock of medical literature.
When the “Englische Schweiss,” or “Sweating Sickness,” which contained
much collateral matter little known in England, and which completed the
history of the principal epidemics of the middle ages, appeared in 1834, I
proceeded to finish my task; but failing in the accomplishment of certain
arrangements connected with its publication, I laid aside my translation for
the time under a hope, which has at length been fulfilled, that at some future
more auspicious moment, it might yet see the light.
It must not be supposed that the author, in thus taking up the history of
three of the most important epidemics of the middle ages, although he has
illustrated them by less detailed notices of several others, considers that he
has exhausted his subject; on the contrary, it is his belief, that, in order to
come at the secret springs of these general morbific influences, a most
minute as well as a most extended survey of them, such as can be made
only by the united efforts of many, is required. He would seem to aim at
collecting together such a number of facts from the medical history of all
countries and of all ages, as may at length enable us to deal with epidemics
in the same way as Louis has dealt with individual diseases; and thus by a
numerical arrangement of data, together with a just consideration of their
relative value, to arrive at the discovery of general laws. The present work,
therefore, is but one stone of an edifice, for the construction of which he
invites medical men in all parts of the world to furnish materials[1].
Whether the information which could be collected even by the most
diligent and extensive research would prove sufficiently copious and
accurate to enable us to pursue this method with complete success, may be
a matter of doubt; but it is at least probable, that many valuable facts, now
buried in oblivion, would thus be brought to light; and the incidental results,
as often occurs in the pursuit of science, might prove as serviceable as those
which were the direct object of discovery. Of what immense importance, for
instance, in the fourteenth century, would a general knowledge have been of
the simple but universal circumstance, that in all severe epidemics, from the
time of Thucydides[2] to the present day, a false suspicion has been
entertained by the vulgar, that the springs or provisions have been poisoned,
or the air infected by some supposed enemies to the common weal. How
many thousands of innocent lives would thus have been spared, which were
barbarously sacrificed under this absurd notion?

Whether Hecker’s call for aid in his undertaking has, in any instance,
been answered by the physicians of Germany, I know not; but he will be as
much pleased to learn, as I am to inform him, that it was the perusal of the
“Black Death” which suggested to Dr. Simpson of Edinburgh the idea of
collecting materials for a history of the Leprosy, as it existed in Great
Britain during the middle ages; and that this author’s very learned and
interesting antiquarian researches on that subject, as published in the
Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, have been the valuable, and, I
trust, will not prove the solitary result.
As the three treatises, now comprised for the first time under the title of
“The Epidemics of the Middle Ages,” came out at different periods, I have
thought it best to prefix to each the original preface of the author; and to the
two which have already been published in English, that of the translator
also; while Hecker’s Address to the Physicians of Germany, although
written before the publication of the “Englische Schweiss,” forms an
appropriate substitute for an author’s general preface to the whole volume.
At the end of the “Black Death,” I had originally given, as No. III. of the
Appendix, some copious extracts from Caius’ “Boke or Counseill against
the Disease commonly called the Sweate or Sweatyng Sicknesse;” but this
little treatise is so characteristic of the times in which it was written, so
curious, so short, and so very scarce[3], that I have thought it worth while,
with the permission of the council of our Society, to reprint it entire, and to
add it in its more appropriate place, as an Appendix to the Sweating
Sickness.

ADDRESS
TO THE

PHYSICIANS OF GERMANY.
By J. F. C. HECKER.

It has long been my earnest desire to address my honoured colleagues,
especially those with whom I feel myself connected by congeniality of
sentiment, in order to impress on them a subject in which science is deeply
interested, and which, according to the direct evidence of Nature herself, is
one of the most exalted and important that can be submitted to the
researches of the learned. I allude to the investigation of Epidemic Diseases,
on a scale commensurate with the extent of our exertions in other
departments, and worthy of the age in which we live. It is, with justice,
required of medical men, since their sole business is with life, that they
should regard it in a right point of view. They are expected to have a
perception of life, as it exists individually and collectively: in the former, to
bear in mind the general system of creation; in the latter, to demonstrate the
connexion and signification of the individual phenomena,—to discern the
one by the aid of the other, and thus to penetrate, with becoming reverence,
into the sanctuary of cosmical and microcosmical science. This expectation
is not extravagant, and the truth of the principles which the medical
explorer of nature deduces from it, is so obvious, that it seems scarcely
possible that any doubts should be entertained on the subject.
Yet we may ask, Has medical science as it exists in our days, with all the
splendour which surrounds it, with all the perfection of which it boasts,

satisfied this demand? This question we are obliged to answer in the
negative.
Let us consider only the doctrine of diseases, which has been cultivated
since the commencement of scientific study. It has grown up amid the
illumination of knowledge and the gloom of ignorance; it has been nurtured
by the storms of centuries; its monuments of ancient and modern times
cannot be numbered, and it speaks clearly to the initiated, in the languages
of all civilized nations. Yet, hitherto, it has given an account only of
individual diseases, so far as the human mind can discern their nature. In
this it has succeeded admirably, and its success becomes every year greater
and more extensive.
But if we extend our inquiries to the diseases of nations, and of the whole
human race, science is mute; as if it were not her province to take
cognizance of them, and shows us only an immeasurable and unexplored
country, which many suppose to be merely a barren desert, because no one
to whose voice they are wont to listen, gives any information respecting it.
Small is the number of those who have traversed it; often have they arrested
their steps, filled with admiration at striking phenomena; have beheld
inexhaustible mines waiting only for the hand of the labourer, and, from
contemplating the development of collective organic life, which science
nowhere else displays to them on so magnificent a scale, have experienced
all the sacred joy of the naturalist to whom a higher source of knowledge
has been opened. Yet could they not make themselves heard in the noisy
tumult of the markets, and still less answer the innumerable questions
directed to them by many, as from one mouth, not indeed to inquire after
the truth, but to obtain a confirmation of an anciently received opinion,
which originated in the fifth century before our era.
Hence it is, that the doctrine of epidemics, surrounded by the other
flourishing branches of medicine, remains alone unfruitful—we might
almost say stunted in its growth. For, to the weighty opinions of
Hippocrates, to the doctrines of Fracastoro which contain the experience of
the much-tried Middle Ages, and lastly to the observations of Sydenham,
only trifling and isolated facts have been added. Beyond these facts there
exist, even up to the present times, only assumptions, which might, long
since, have been reduced to their original nothingness, had that serious
spirit of inquiry prevailed which comprehends space and penetrates ages.

No epidemic ever prevailed during which the need of more accurate
information was not felt, and during which the wish of the learned was not
loudly expressed, to become acquainted with the secret springs of such
stupendous engines of destruction. Was the disease of a new character?—
the spirit of inquiry was roused among physicians; nor were the most
eminent of them ever deficient either in courage or in zeal for investigation.
When the glandular plague first made its appearance as an universal
epidemic, whilst the more pusillanimous, haunted by visionary fears, shut
themselves up in their closets, some physicians at Constantinople,
astonished at the phenomenon, opened the boils of the deceased. The like
has occurred both in ancient and modern times, not without favourable
results for science; nay, more matured views excited an eager desire to
become acquainted with similar or still greater visitations among the
ancients; but as later ages have always been fond of referring to Grecian
antiquity, the learned of those times, from a partial and meagre predilection,
were contented with the descriptions of Thucydides, even where nature had
revealed, in infinite diversity, the workings of her powers.
These researches, if indeed they deserved that name, were never
scientific or comprehensive. They never seized but upon a part, and no
sooner had the mortality ceased, than the scarcely awakened zeal relapsed
into its former indifference to the interesting phenomena of nature, in the
same way as abstemiousness, which had ever been practised during
epidemics, only as a constrained virtue, gave place, as soon as the danger
was over, to unbridled indulgence. This inconstancy might almost bring to
our mind the pious Byzantines who, on the shock of an earthquake, in 529,
which appeared as the prognostic of the great epidemic, prostrated
themselves before their altars by thousands, and sought to excel each other
in Christian self-denial and benevolence; but no sooner did they feel the
ground firm beneath their feet, than they again abandoned themselves,
without remorse, to all the vices of the metropolis. May I be pardoned for
this comparison of scientific zeal with other human excitements? Alas! even
this is a virtue which few practise for its own sake, and which, with the
multitude, stands quite as much in need as any other, of the incentives of
fear and reward.
But we are constrained to acknowledge that among our medical
predecessors, these incentives were scarcely ever sufficiently powerful to

induce them to leave us circumstantial and scientific accounts of
contemporary epidemics, which, nevertheless, have, even in historical
times, afflicted, in almost numberless visitations, the whole human race.
Still less did it occur to them to take a more exalted stand, whence they
could comprehend at one view, these stupendous phenomena of organic
collective life, wherein the whole spirit of humanity powerfully and
wonderfully moves, and thus regard them as one whole, in which higher
laws of nature, uniting together the utmost diversity of individual parts,
might be anticipated or perceived.
Here a wide, and almost unfathomable chasm occurs in the science of
medicine, which, in this age of mature judgment and multifarious learning,
cannot, as formerly, be overlooked. History alone can fill it up; she alone
can give to the doctrine of diseases that importance without which its
application is limited to occurrences of the moment; whereas the
development of the phenomena of life, during extensive periods, is no less a
problem of research for the philosopher, who makes the boundless science
of nature his study, than the revolutions of the planet on which we move. In
this region of inquiry the very stones have a language, and the inscriptions
are yet legible which, before the creation of man, were engraved by organic
life, in wondrous forms on eternal tablets. Exalted ideas of the monuments
of primæval antiquity are here excited, and the forms of the antemundane
ways and creations of nature are conjured up from the inmost bosom of the
earth, in order to throw their bright beaming light upon the surface of the
present.
Medicine extends not so far. The remains of animals make us indeed
acquainted, even now, with diseases to which the brute creation was subject
long ere the waters overflowed, and the mountains sunk; but the
investigation which is our more immediate object, scarcely reaches to the
beginning of human culture. Records of remote and of proximate eras, lie
before us in rich abundance. They speak of the deviations and destructions
of human life, of exterminated and newly-formed nations; they lay before
us stupendous facts, which we are called upon to recognise and expound in
order to solve this exalted problem. If physicians cannot boast of having
unrolled these records with the avidity of true explorers of Nature, they may
find some excuse in the nature of the inquiry—for the characters are dead,
and the spirits of which they are the magic symbols, manifest themselves

only to him who knows how to adjure them. Epidemics leave no corporeal
traces; whence their history is perhaps more intellectual than the science of
the Geologist, who, on his side, possesses the advantage of treating on
subjects which strike the senses, and are therefore more attractive,—such as
the impressions of plants no longer extant, and the skeletons of lost races of
animals. This, however, does not entirely exculpate us from the charge of
neglecting our science, in a quarter where the most important facts are to be
unveiled. It is high time to make up for what has been left unaccomplished,
if we would not remain idle and mean-spirited in the rear of other
naturalists.
I was animated by these and similar reflections, and excited too by
passing events, when I undertook to write the history of the “Black Death.”
With some anxiety, I sent this book into the world, for it was scarcely to be
expected that it would be everywhere received with indulgence, since it
belonged to an hitherto unknown department of historical research, the
utility of which might not be obvious in our practical times. Yet I soon
received encouragement, not only from learned friends, but also from other
men of distinguished merit, on whose judgment I placed great reliance; and
thus I was led to hope that it was not in vain, and without some advantage
to science, that I had unveiled the dismal picture of a long departed age.
This work I have followed up by a treatise on a nervous disorder, which,
for the first time, appeared in the same century, as an epidemic, with
symptoms that can be accounted for only by the spirit of the Middle Ages—
symptoms which, in the manner of the diffusion of the disease among
thousands of people, and of its propagation for more than two centuries,
exercised a demoniacal influence over the human race, yet in close, though
uncongenial alliance, with kindlier feelings. I have prepared materials for
various other subjects, so far as the resources at my disposal extend, and I
may hope, if circumstances prove favourable, to complete by degrees, the
history of a more extensive series of Epidemics on the same plan as the
“Black Death,” and the “Dancing Mania.”
Amid the accumulated materials which past ages afford, the powers and
the life of one individual, even with the aid of previous study, are
insufficient to complete a comprehensive history of Epidemics. The zealous
activity of many must be exerted if we would speedily possess a work
which is so much wanted in order that we may not encounter new

epidemics with culpable ignorance of analogous phenomena. How often has
it appeared on the breaking out of epidemics, as if the experience of so
many centuries had been accumulated in vain. Men gazed at the phenomena
with astonishment, and even before they had a just perception of their
nature, pronounced their opinions, which, as they were divided into strongly
opposed parties, they defended with all the ardour of zealots, wholly
unconscious of the majesty of all-governing nature. In the descriptive
branches of natural history, a person would infallibly expose himself to the
severest censure, who should attempt to describe some hitherto unknown
natural production, whether animal or vegetable, if he were ignorant of the
allied genera and species, and perhaps neither a botanist nor zoologist; yet
an analogous ignorance of epidemics, in those who nevertheless discussed
their nature, but too frequently occurred, and men were insensible to the
justest reproof. Thus it has ever been, and for this reason we cannot apply to
ourselves in this department, the significant words of Bacon, that we are the
ancients, and our forefathers the moderns, for we are equally remote, with
them, from a scientific and comprehensive knowledge of epidemics. This
might, and ought to be otherwise, in an age which, in other respects, may,
with justice, boast of a rich diversity of knowledge, and of a rapid progress
in the natural sciences.
If in the form of an address to the physicians of Germany, I express the
wish to see such a melancholy state of things remedied, the nature of the
subject requires that, with the exception of the still prevailing Cholera,
remarkable universal epidemics should be selected for investigation. They
form the grand epochs, according to which those epidemics which are less
extensive, but not, on that account, less worthy of observation, naturally
range themselves. Far be it from me to recommend any fixed series, or even
the plan and method to be pursued in treating the subject. It would, perhaps,
be, on the whole, most advantageous, if my honoured Colleagues, who
attend to this request, were to commence with those epidemics for which
they possess complete materials, and that entirely according to their own
plan, without adopting any model for imitation, for in this manner simple
historical truth will be best elicited. Should it, however, be found
impracticable to furnish historical descriptions of entire epidemics, a task
often attended with difficulties, interesting fragments of all kinds, for which
there are rich treasures in MSS. and scarce works in various places, would

be no less welcome and useful towards the great object of preparing a
collective history of epidemics.
Up to the present moment, it might almost seem that the most essential
preliminaries are wanting for the accomplishment of such an undertaking.
The study of medical history is everywhere at a low ebb;—in France and
England scarcely a trace remains, to the most serious detriment of the whole
domain of medicine; in Germany too, there are but few who suspect what
inexhaustible stores of instructive truth are lying dormant within their
power; they may, perhaps, class them among theoretical doctrines, and
commend the laborious investigation of them without being willing to
recognise their spirit. None of the Universities of Germany, whose business
it ought to be to provide, in this respect, for the prosperity of the inheritance
committed to their charge, can boast a Professor’s chair for the History of
Medicine; nay, in many, it is so entirely unknown, that it is not even
regarded as an object of secondary importance, so that it is to be
apprehended that the fame of German erudition, may, at least in medicine,
gradually vanish, and our medical knowledge become, as practical indeed,
but at the same time as assuming, as mechanical, and as defective, as that of
France and England. Even those noble institutions, the Academies, in which
the spirit of the eighteenth century still lingers, and whose more peculiar
province it is to explore the rich pages of science, have not entered upon the
history of Epidemics, and by their silence have encouraged the unfounded
and injurious supposition, that this field is desolate and unfruitful.
All these obstacles are indeed great, but to determined and persevering
exertion they are not insuperable; and, though we cannot conceal them from
ourselves, we should not allow them to daunt our spirit. There is, in
Germany, a sufficiency of intellectual power to overcome them; let this
power be combined, and exert itself in active co-operation. Sooner or later a
new road must be opened for Medical Science. Should the time not yet have
arrived, I have at least endeavoured to discharge my duty, by attempting to
point out its future direction.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

General Preface v
Hecker’s Address ix

THE BLACK DEATH.
Translator’s Preface xxiii
Preface xxvii

CHAPTER I.
General Observations 1

CHAPTER II.
The Disease 2

CHAPTER III.
Causes—Spread 11

CHAPTER IV.
Mortality 21

CHAPTER V.
Moral Effects 32

CHAPTER VI.
Physicians 50
Appendix:—

I. The Ancient Song of the Flagellants 68
II. Examination of the Jews accused of poisoning the Wells 74

THE DANCING MANIA.
Translator’s Preface 81
Preface 85

CHAPTER I.
DANCING MANIA IN GERMANY AND THE NETHERLANDS.

Sect. 1.—St. John’s Dance 87
2.—St. Vitus’s Dance 91
3.—Causes 94
4.—More ancient Dancing Plagues 97
5.—Physicians 100
6.—Decline and Termination of the Dancing Plague 103

CHAPTER II.
DANCING MANIA IN ITALY.

Sect. 1.—Tarantism 107
2.—Most Ancient Traces.—Causes 110
3.—Increase 116
4.—Idiosyncracies.—Music 119
5.—Hysteria 126
6.—Decrease 129

CHAPTER III.
DANCING MANIA IN ABYSSINIA.

Sect. 1.—Tigretier 133

CHAPTER IV.

Sympathy 139
Appendix:—
I. Extract from “Vita Gregorii XI.,” &c. 153
II. From “Chronicon Magnum,” &.c 154
III. From “die Limburger Chronik,” &c. 155
IV. From “die Chronica van Coellen,” &c. 156
V. From “an Account of Convulsive Diseases in Scotland,”
&c. 157
VI. Music for the Dance of the Tarantati, &c. 167

THE SWEATING SICKNESS.
Preface 177

CHAPTER I.
FIRST VISITATION. 1485.

Sect. 1.—Eruption 181
2.—The Physicians 185
3.—Causes 187
4.—Other Epidemics 188
5.—Richmond’s Army 190
6.—Nature of the Sweating Sickness.—Preliminary
Investigation 191

CHAPTER II.
SECOND VISITATION. 1506.

Sect. 1.—Mercenary Troops 193
2.—New Circumstances 196
3.—Sweating Sickness 197
4.—Accompanying Phenomena 198
5.—Petechial Fever in Italy. 1505 199

6.—Other Diseases 203
7.—Blood Spots 205

CHAPTER III.
THIRD VISITATION. 1517.

Sect. 1.—Poverty 208
2.—Sweating Sickness 209
3.—Causes 211
4.—Habits of the English 212
5.—Contagion 215
6.—Influenzas 218
7.—Epidemics of 1517 223

CHAPTER IV.
FOURTH VISITATION. 1528, 1529.

Sect. 1.—Destruction of the French Army before Naples, 1528 228
2.—Trousse-Galant in France, 1528, and the following years 235
3.—Sweating Sickness in England, 1528 238
4.—Natural Occurrences.—Prognostics 240
5.—Sweating Sickness in Germany, 1529 246
6.——————————the Netherlands 254
7.——————————Denmark, Sweden, and Norway 255
8.—Terror 257
9.—Moral Consequences 261
10.—The Physicians 264
11.—Pamphlets 270
12.—Form of the Disease 278

CHAPTER V.
FIFTH VISITATION. 1551.

Sect. 1.—Eruption 290
2.—Extension and Duration 291
3.—Causes.—Natural Phenomena 295
4.—Diseases 297
5.—John Kaye 301

CHAPTER VI.
SWEATING SICKNESSES.

Sect. 1.—The Cardiac Disease of the Ancients. (Morbus
Cardiacus.) 306
2.—The Picardy Sweat. (Suette des Picards—Suette
Miliaire.) 315
3.—The Roettingen Sweating Sickness 324
Chronological Survey 330
Catalogue of Works referred to 339

Appendix.—A Boke, or Counseill against the Disease commonly
called the Sweate, or Sweatyng Sicknesse. By Jhon Caius 353

T HE B L A C K D E AT H.

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

In reading Dr. Hecker’s account of the Black Death which destroyed so
large a portion of the human race in the fourteenth century, I was struck, not
only with the peculiarity of the Author’s views, but also with the interesting
nature of the facts which he has collected. Some of these have never before
been made generally known, while others have passed out of mind, being
effaced from our memories by subsequent events of a similar kind, which,
though really of less magnitude and importance, have, in the perspective of
time, appeared greater, because they have occurred nearer to our own days.
Dreadful as was the pestilence here described, and in few countries more
so than in England, our modern historians only slightly allude to its
visitation:—Hume deems a single paragraph sufficient to devote to its
notice, and Henry and Rapin are equally brief.
It may not then be unacceptable to the medical, or even to the general
reader, to receive an authentic and somewhat detailed account of one of the
greatest natural calamities that ever afflicted the human race.
My chief motive, however, for translating this small work, and at this
particular period, has been a desire that, in the study of the causes which
have produced and propagated general pestilences, and of the moral effects
by which they have been followed, the most enlarged views should be
taken. The contagionist and the anti-contagionist may each find ample
support for his belief in particular cases; but in the construction of a theory
sufficiently comprehensive to explain throughout, the origin and
dissemination of universal disease, we shall not only perceive the
insufficiency of either doctrine, taken singly, but after admitting the
combined influence of both, shall even then find our views too narrow, and
be compelled, in our endeavours to explain the facts, to acknowledge the
existence of unknown powers, wholly unconnected either with
communication by contact or atmospheric contamination.

I by no means wish it to be understood, that I have adopted the author’s
views respecting astral and telluric influences, the former of which, at least,
I had supposed to have been, with alchemy and magic, long since consigned
to oblivion; much less am I prepared to accede to his notion, or rather an
ancient notion derived from the East and revived by him, of an organic life
in the system of the universe. We are constantly furnished with proofs, that
that which affects life is not itself alive; and whether we look to the earth
for exhalations, to the air for electrical phenomena, to the heavenly bodies
for an influence over our planet, or to all these causes combined, for the
formation of some unknown principle noxious to animal existence, still, if
we found our reasoning on ascertained facts, we can perceive nothing
throughout this vast field for physical research which is not evidently
governed by the laws of inert matter—nothing which resembles the regular
succession of birth, growth, decay, death, and regeneration, observable in
organized beings. To assume, therefore, causes of whose existence we have
no proof, in order to account for effects which, after all, they do not explain,
is making no real advance in knowledge, and can scarcely be considered
otherwise than an indirect method of confessing our ignorance.
Still, however, I regard the author’s opinions, illustrated as they are by a
series of interesting facts diligently collected from authentic sources, as, at
least, worthy of examination before we reject them, and valuable, as
furnishing extensive data on which to build new theories.
I have another, perhaps I may be allowed to say a better, motive for
laying before my countrymen this narrative of the sufferings of past ages,—
that by comparing them with those of our own time, we may be made the
more sensible how lightly the chastening hand of Providence has fallen on
the present generation, and how much reason, therefore, we have to feel
grateful for the mercy shown us.
The publication has, with this view, been purposely somewhat delayed, in
order that it might appear at a moment when it is to be presumed that men’s
thoughts will be especially directed to the approaching hour of public
thanksgiving, and when a knowledge of that which they have escaped, as
well as of that which they have suffered, may tend to heighten their
devotional feelings on that solemn occasion.

When we learn that, in the fourteenth century, one quarter, at least, of the
population of the old world was swept away in the short space of four years,
and that some countries, England among the rest, lost more than double that
proportion of their inhabitants in the course of a few months, we may well
congratulate ourselves that our visitation has not been like theirs, and shall
not justly merit ridicule, if we offer our humble thanks to the “Creator and
Preserver of all mankind” for our deliverance.
Nor would it disgrace our feelings, if, in expiation of the abuse and
obloquy not long since so lavishly bestowed by the public on the medical
profession, we should entertain some slight sense of gratitude towards those
members of the community, who were engaged, at the risk of their lives and
the sacrifice of their personal interests, in endeavouring to arrest the
progress of the evil, and to mitigate the sufferings of their fellow men.
I have added, at the close of the Appendix, some extracts from a scarce
little work in black letter, called “A Boke or Counseill against the Disease
commonly called the Sweate or Sweatyng Sicknesse,” published by Caius
in 1552. This was written three years before his Latin treatise on the same
subject, and is so quaint, and, at the same time, so illustrative of the
opinions of his day, and even of those of the fourteenth century, on the
causes of universal diseases, that the passages which I have quoted will not
fail to afford some amusement as well as instruction. If I have been tempted
to reprint more of this curious production than was necessary to my primary
object, it has been from a belief that it would be generally acceptable to the
reader to gather some particulars regarding the mode of living in the
sixteenth century, and to observe the author’s animadversions on the
degeneracy and credulity of the age in which he lived. His advice on the
choice of a medical attendant cannot be too strongly recommended, at least
by a physician; and his warning against quackery, particularly the quackery
of painters, who “scorne (quære score?) you behind your backs with their
medicines, so filthy that I am ashamed to name them,” seems quite
prophetic.
In conclusion, I beg to acknowledge the obligation which I owe to my
friend Mr. H. E. Lloyd, whose intimate acquaintance with the German
language and literature will, I hope, be received as a sufficient pledge that
no very important errors remain in a translation which he has kindly
revised.

London, 1833.

P R E FA C E .

We here find an important page of the history of the world laid open to our
view. It treats of a convulsion of the human race, unequalled in violence and
extent. It speaks of incredible disasters, of despair and unbridled
demoniacal passions. It shews us the abyss of general licentiousness, in
consequence of an universal pestilence, which extended from China to
Iceland and Greenland.
The inducement to unveil this image of an age, long since gone by, is
evident. A new pestilence has attained almost an equal extent, and though
less formidable, has partly produced, partly indicated, similar phenomena.
Its causes and its diffusion over Asia and Europe, call on us to take a
comprehensive view of it, because it leads to an insight into the organism of
the world, in which the sum of organic life is subject to the great powers of
Nature. Now, human knowledge is not yet sufficiently advanced, to
discover the connexion between the processes which occur above, and those
which occur below, the surface of the earth, or even fully to explore those
laws of nature, an acquaintance with which would be required; far less to
apply them to great phenomena, in which one spring sets a thousand others
in motion.
On this side, therefore, such a point of view is not to be found, if we
would not lose ourselves in the wilderness of conjectures, of which the
world is already too full: but it may be found in the ample and productive
field of historical research.
History—that mirror of human life in all its bearings, offers, even for
general pestilences, an inexhaustible, though scarcely explored, mine of
facts; here too it asserts its dignity, as the philosophy of reality delighting in
truth.
It is conformable to its spirit to conceive general pestilences as events
affecting the whole world—to explain their phenomena by the comparison

of what is similar. Thus the facts speak for themselves, because they appear
to have proceeded from those higher laws which govern the progression of
the existence of mankind. A cosmical origin and convulsive excitement,
productive of the most important consequences among the nations subject
to them, are the most striking features to which history points in all general
pestilences. These, however, assume very different forms, as well in their
attacks on the general organism, as in their diffusion; and in this respect a
development from form to form, in the course of centuries, is manifest, so
that the history of the world is divided into grand periods in which
positively defined pestilences prevailed. As far as our chronicles extend,
more or less certain information can be obtained respecting them.
But this part of medical history, which has such a manifold and powerful
influence over the history of the world, is yet in its infancy. For the honour
of that science which should everywhere guide the actions of mankind, we
are induced to express a wish, that it may find room to flourish amidst the
rank vegetation with which the field of German medical science is
unhappily encumbered.

THE BLACK DEATH.

CHAPTER I.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.
That Omnipotence which has called the world with all its living creatures
into one animated being, especially reveals himself in the desolation of
great pestilences. The powers of creation come into violent collision; the
sultry dryness of the atmosphere; the subterraneous thunders; the mist of
overflowing waters, are the harbingers of destruction. Nature is not satisfied
with the ordinary alternations of life and death, and the destroying angel
waves over man and beast his flaming sword.
These revolutions are performed in vast cycles, which the spirit of man,
limited, as it is, to a narrow circle of perception, is unable to explore. They
are, however, greater terrestrial events than any of those which proceed
from the discord, the distress, or the passions of nations. By annihilations
they awaken new life; and when the tumult above and below the earth is
past, nature is renovated, and the mind awakens from torpor and depression
to the consciousness of an intellectual existence.
Were it in any degree within the power of human research to draw up, in
a vivid and connected form, an historical sketch of such mighty events,
after the manner of the historians of wars and battles, and the migrations of
nations, we might then arrive at clear views with respect to the mental
development of the human race, and the ways of Providence would be more
plainly discernible. It would then be demonstrable, that the mind of nations
is deeply affected by the destructive conflict of the powers of nature, and
that great disasters lead to striking changes in general civilization. For all
that exists in man, whether good or evil, is rendered conspicuous by the
presence of great danger. His inmost feelings are roused—the thought of
self-preservation masters his spirit—self-denial is put to severe proof, and

wherever darkness and barbarism prevail, there the affrighted mortal flies to
the idols of his superstition, and all laws, human and divine, are criminally
violated.
In conformity with a general law of nature, such a state of excitement
brings about a change, beneficial or detrimental, according to
circumstances, so that nations either attain a higher degree of moral worth,
or sink deeper in ignorance and vice. All this, however, takes place upon a
much grander scale than through the ordinary vicissitudes of war and peace,
or the rise and fall of empires, because the powers of nature themselves
produce plagues, and subjugate the human will, which, in the contentions of
nations, alone predominates.

CHAPTER II.
THE DISEASE.
The most memorable example of what has been advanced, is afforded by a
great pestilence of the fourteenth century, which desolated Asia, Europe,
and Africa, and of which the people yet preserve the remembrance in
gloomy traditions. It was an oriental plague, marked by inflammatory boils
and tumours of the glands, such as break out in no other febrile disease. On
account of these inflammatory boils, and from the black spots, indicatory of
a putrid decomposition, which appeared upon the skin, it was called in
Germany and in the northern kingdoms of Europe, the Black Death, and in
Italy, la Mortalega Grande, the Great Mortality[4].
Few testimonies are presented to us respecting its symptoms and its
course, yet these are sufficient to throw light upon the form of the malady,
and they are worthy of credence, from their coincidence with the signs of
the same disease in modern times.
The imperial writer, Kantakusenos[5], whose own son, Andronikus, died
of this plague in Constantinople, notices great imposthumes[6] of the thighs
and arms of those affected, which, when opened, afforded relief by the
discharge of an offensive matter. Buboes, which are the infallible signs of
the oriental plague, are thus plainly indicated, for he makes separate
mention of smaller boils on the arms and in the face, as also in other parts
of the body, and clearly distinguishes these from the blisters[7], which are no
less produced by plague in all its forms. In many cases, black spots[8] broke
out all over the body, either single, or united and confluent.
These symptoms were not all found in every case. In many, one alone
was sufficient to cause death, while some patients recovered, contrary to
expectation, though afflicted with all. Symptoms of cephalic affection were
frequent; many patients became stupified and fell into a deep sleep, losing
also their speech from palsy of the tongue; others remained sleepless and
without rest. The fauces and tongue were black, and as if suffused with
blood; no beverage would assuage their burning thirst, so that their
sufferings continued without alleviation until terminated by death, which

many in their despair accelerated with their own hands. Contagion was
evident, for attendants caught the disease of their relations and friends, and
many houses in the capital were bereft even of their last inhabitant. Thus far
the ordinary circumstances only of the oriental plague occurred. Still deeper
sufferings, however, were connected with this pestilence, such as have not
been felt at other times; the organs of respiration were seized with a putrid
inflammation; a violent pain in the chest attacked the patient; blood was
expectorated, and the breath diffused a pestiferous odour.
In the West, the following were the predominating symptoms on the
eruption of this disease[9]. An ardent fever, accompanied by an evacuation
of blood, proved fatal in the first three days. It appears that buboes and
inflammatory boils did not at first come out at all, but that the disease, in
the form of carbuncular (anthraxartigen) affection of the lungs, effected the
destruction of life before the other symptoms were developed.
Thus did the plague rage in Avignon for six or eight weeks, and the
pestilential breath of the sick, who expectorated blood, caused a terrible
contagion far and near; for even the vicinity of those who had fallen ill of
plague was certain death[10]; so that parents abandoned their infected
children, and all the ties of kindred were dissolved. After this period,
buboes in the axilla and in the groin, and inflammatory boils all over the
body, made their appearance; but it was not until seven months afterwards
that some patients recovered with matured buboes, as in the ordinary milder
form of plague.
Such is the report of the courageous Guy de Chauliac, who vindicated the
honour of medicine, by bidding defiance to danger; boldly and constantly
assisting the affected, and disdaining the excuse of his colleagues, who held
the Arabian notion, that medical aid was unavailing, and that the contagion
justified flight. He saw the plague twice in Avignon, first in the year 1348,
from January to August, and then twelve years later, in the autumn, when it
returned from Germany, and for nine months spread general distress and
terror. The first time it raged chiefly among the poor, but in the year 1360,
more among the higher classes. It now also destroyed a great many
children, whom it had formerly spared, and but few women.
The like was seen in Egypt[11]. Here also inflammation of the lungs was
predominant, and destroyed quickly and infallibly, with burning heat and

expectoration of blood. Here too the breath of the sick spread a deadly
contagion, and human aid was as vain as it was destructive to those who
approached the infected.
Boccacio, who was an eye-witness of its incredible fatality in Florence,
the seat of the revival of science, gives a more lively description of the
attack of the disease than his non-medical contemporaries[12].
It commenced here, not as in the East, with bleeding at the nose, a sure
sign of inevitable death; but there took place at the beginning, both in men
and women, tumours in the groin and in the axilla, varying in circumference
up to the size of an apple or an egg, and called by the people, pest-boils
(gavoccioli). Then there appeared similar tumours indiscriminately over all
parts of the body, and black or blue spots came out on the arms or thighs, or
on other parts, either single and large, or small and thickly studded. These
spots proved equally fatal with the pest-boils, which had been from the first
regarded as a sure sign of death[13]. No power of medicine brought relief—
almost all died within the first three days, some sooner, some later, after the
appearance of these signs, and for the most part entirely without fever[14] or
other symptoms. The plague spread itself with the greater fury, as it
communicated from the sick to the healthy, like fire among dry and oily
fuel, and even contact with the clothes and other articles which had been
used by the infected, seemed to induce the disease. As it advanced, not only
men, but animals fell sick and shortly expired, if they had touched things
belonging to the diseased or dead. Thus Boccacio himself saw two hogs on
the rags of a person who had died of plague, after staggering about for a
short time, fall down dead, as if they had taken poison. In other places
multitudes of dogs, cats, fowls and other animals, fell victims to the
contagion[15]; and it is to be presumed that other epizootes among animals
likewise took place, although the ignorant writers of the fourteenth century
are silent on this point.
In Germany there was a repetition in every respect of the same
phenomena. The infallible signs of the oriental bubo-plague with its
inevitable contagion were found there as everywhere else; but the mortality
was not nearly so great as in the other parts of Europe[16]. The accounts do
not all make mention of the spitting of blood, the diagnostic symptom of
this fatal pestilence; we are not, however, thence to conclude that there was

any considerable mitigation or modification of the disease, for we must not
only take into account the defectiveness of the chronicles, but that isolated
testimonies are often contradicted by many others. Thus, the chronicles of
Strasburg, which only take notice of boils and glandular swellings in the
axillæ and groins[17], are opposed by another account, according to which
the mortal spitting of blood was met with in Germany[18]; but this again is
rendered suspicious, as the narrator postpones the death of those who were
thus affected, to the sixth, and (even the) eighth day, whereas, no other
author sanctions so long a course of the disease; and even in Strasburg,
where a mitigation of the plague may, with most probability, be assumed,
since in the year 1349, only 16,000 people were carried off, the generality
expired by the third or fourth day[19]. In Austria, and especially in Vienna,
the plague was fully as malignant as anywhere, so that the patients who had
red spots and black boils, as well as those afflicted with tumid glands, died
about the third day[20]; and lastly, very frequent sudden deaths occurred on
the coasts of the North Sea and in Westphalia, without any further
development of the malady[21].
To France, this plague came in a northern direction from Avignon, and
was there more destructive than in Germany, so that in many places not
more than two in twenty of the inhabitants survived. Many were struck, as
if by lightning, and died on the spot, and this more frequently among the
young and strong than the old; patients with enlarged glands in the axillæ
and groins scarcely survived two or three days: and no sooner did these
fatal signs appear, than they bid adieu to the world, and sought consolation
only in the absolution which Pope Clement VI. promised them in the hour
of death[22].
In England the malady appeared, as at Avignon, with spitting of blood,
and with the same fatality, so that the sick who were afflicted either with
this symptom or with vomiting of blood, died in some cases immediately, in
others within twelve hours, or at the latest, in two days[23]. The
inflammatory boils and buboes in the groins and axillæ were recognised at
once as prognosticating a fatal issue, and those were past all hope of
recovery in whom they arose in numbers all over the body. It was not till
towards the close of the plague that they ventured to open, by incision,
these hard and dry boils, when matter flowed from them in small quantity,

and thus, by compelling nature to a critical suppuration, many patients were
saved. Every spot which the sick had touched, their breath, their clothes,
spread the contagion; and, as in all other places, the attendants and friends
who were either blind to their danger or heroically despised it, fell a
sacrifice to their sympathy. Even the eyes of the patient were considered as
sources of contagion[24], which had the power of acting at a distance,
whether on account of their unwonted lustre or the distortion which they
always suffer in plague, or whether in conformity with an ancient notion,
according to which the sight was considered as the bearer of a demoniacal
enchantment. Flight from infected cities seldom availed the fearful, for the
germ of the disease adhered to them, and they fell sick, remote from
assistance, in the solitude of their country houses.
Thus did the plague spread over England with unexampled rapidity, after
it had first broken out in the county of Dorset, whence it advanced through
the counties of Devon and Somerset, to Bristol, and thence reached
Gloucester, Oxford and London. Probably few places escaped, perhaps not
any; for the annals of contemporaries report that throughout the land only a
tenth part of the inhabitants remained alive[25].
From England the contagion was carried by a ship to Bergen, the capital
of Norway, where the plague then broke out in its most frightful form, with
vomiting of blood; and throughout the whole country, spared not more than
a third of the inhabitants. The sailors found no refuge in their ships; and
vessels were often seen driving about on the ocean and drifting on shore,
whose crews had perished to the last man[26].
In Poland the infected were attacked with spitting of blood, and died in a
few days in such vast numbers, that, as it has been affirmed, scarcely a
fourth of the inhabitants were left[27].
Finally, in Russia the plague appeared two years later than in Southern
Europe; yet here again, with the same symptoms as elsewhere. Russian
contemporaries have recorded that it began with rigor, heat, and darting
pain in the shoulders and back; that it was accompanied by spitting of
blood, and terminated fatally in two, or at most, three days. It is not till the
year 1360, that we find buboes mentioned as occurring in the neck, in the
axillæ and in the groins, which are stated to have broken out when the
spitting of blood had continued some time. According to the experience of

Western Europe, however, it cannot be assumed that these symptoms did
not appear at an earlier period[28].
Thus much, from authentic sources, on the nature of the Black Death.
The descriptions which have been communicated contain, with a few
unimportant exceptions, all the symptoms of the oriental plague which have
been observed in more modern times. No doubt can obtain on this point.
The facts are placed clearly before our eyes. We must, however, bear in
mind that this violent disease does not always appear in the same form, and
that while the essence of the poison which it produces, and which is
separated so abundantly from the body of the patient, remains unchanged, it
is proteiform in its varieties, from the almost imperceptible vesicle,
unaccompanied by fever, which exists for some time before it extends its
poison inwardly, and then excites fever and buboes, to the fatal form in
which carbuncular inflammations fall upon the most important viscera.
Such was the form which the plague assumed in the 14th century, for the
accompanying chest affection which appeared in all the countries whereof
we have received any account, cannot, on a comparison with similar and
familiar symptoms, be considered as any other than the inflammation of the
lungs of modern medicine[29], a disease which at present only appears
sporadically, and, owing to a putrid decomposition of the fluids, is probably
combined with hemorrhages from the vessels of the lungs. Now, as every
carbuncle, whether it be cutaneous or internal, generates in abundance the
matter of contagion which has given rise to it, so, therefore, must the breath
of the affected have been poisonous in this plague, and on this account its
power of contagion wonderfully increased; wherefore the opinion appears
incontrovertible, that owing to the accumulated numbers of the diseased,
not only individual chambers and houses, but whole cities were infected,
which, moreover, in the middle ages, were, with few exceptions, narrowly
built, kept in a filthy state, and surrounded with stagnant ditches[30]. Flight
was, in consequence, of no avail to the timid; for even though they had
sedulously avoided all communication with the diseased and the suspected,
yet their clothes were saturated with the pestiferous atmosphere, and every
inspiration imparted to them the seeds of the destructive malady, which, in
the greater number of cases, germinated with but too much fertility. Add to
which, the usual propagation of the plague through clothes, beds, and a
thousand other things to which the pestilential poison adheres,—a

propagation, which, from want of caution, must have been infinitely
multiplied; and since articles of this kind, removed from the access of air,
not only retain the matter of contagion for an indefinite period, but also
increase its activity and engender it like a living being, frightful ill
consequences followed for many years after the first fury of the pestilence
was past.
The affection of the stomach, often mentioned in vague terms, and
occasionally as a vomiting of blood, was doubtless only a subordinate
symptom, even if it be admitted that actual hematemesis did occur. For the
difficulty of distinguishing a flow of blood from the stomach, from a
pulmonic expectoration of that fluid, is, to non-medical men, even in
common cases, not inconsiderable. How much greater then must it have
been in so terrible a disease, where assistants could not venture to approach
the sick without exposing themselves to certain death? Only two medical
descriptions of the malady have reached us, the one by the brave Guy de
Chauliac, the other by Raymond Chalin de Vinario, a very experienced
scholar, who was well versed in the learning of his time. The former takes
notice only of fatal coughing of blood; the latter, besides this, notices
epistaxis, hematuria and fluxes of blood from the bowels, as symptoms of
such decided and speedy mortality, that those patients in whom they were
observed, usually died on the same or the following day[31].
That a vomiting of blood may not, here and there, have taken place,
perhaps have been even prevalent in many places, is, from a consideration
of the nature of the disease, by no means to be denied; for every putrid
decomposition of the fluids begets a tendency to hemorrhages of all kinds.
Here, however, it is a question of historical certainty, which, after these
doubts, is by no means established. Had not so speedy a death followed the
expectoration of blood, we should certainly have received more detailed
intelligence respecting other hemorrhages; but the malady had no time to
extend its effects further over the extremities of the vessels. After its first
fury, however, was spent, the pestilence passed into the usual febrile form
of the oriental plague. Internal carbuncular inflammations no longer took
place, and hemorrhages became phenomena, no more essential in this than
they are in any other febrile disorders. Chalin, who observed not only the
great mortality of 1348, and the plague of 1360, but also that of 1373 and
1382, speaks moreover of affections of the throat, and describes the black

spots of plague patients more satisfactorily than any of his contemporaries.
The former appeared but in few cases, and consisted in carbuncular
inflammation of the gullet, with a difficulty of swallowing, even to
suffocation, to which, in some instances, was added inflammation of the
ceruminous glands of the ears, with tumours, producing great deformity.
Such patients, as well as others, were affected with expectoration of blood;
but they did not usually die before the sixth, and sometimes, even so late as
the fourteenth day[32]. The same occurrence, it is well known, is not
uncommon in other pestilences; as also blisters on the surface of the body,
in different places, in the vicinity of which, tumid glands and inflammatory
boils, surrounded by discoloured and black streaks, arose, and thus
indicated the reception of the poison. These streaked spots were called, by
an apt comparison, the girdle, and this appearance was justly considered
extremely dangerous[33].

CHAPTER III.
CAUSES.—SPREAD.
An inquiry into the causes of the Black Death, will not be without important
results in the study of the plagues which have visited the world, although it
cannot advance beyond generalization without entering upon a field hitherto
uncultivated, and, to this hour, entirely unknown. Mighty revolutions in the
organism of the earth, of which we have credible information, had preceded
it. From China to the Atlantic, the foundations of the earth were shaken,—
throughout Asia and Europe the atmosphere was in commotion, and
endangered, by its baneful influence, both vegetable and animal life.
The series of these great events began in the year 1333, fifteen years
before the plague broke out in Europe: they first appeared in China. Here a
parching drought, accompanied by famine, commenced in the tract of
country watered by the rivers Kiang and Hoai. This was followed by such
violent torrents of rain, in and about Kingsai, at that time the capital of the
empire, that, according to tradition, more than 400,000 people perished in
the floods. Finally the mountain Tsincheou fell in, and vast clefts were
formed in the earth. In the succeeding year (1334), passing over fabulous
traditions, the neighbourhood of Canton was visited by inundations; whilst
in Tche, after an unexampled drought, a plague arose, which is said to have
carried off about 5,000,000 of people. A few months afterwards an
earthquake followed, at and near Kingsai; and subsequent to the falling in
of the mountains of Ki-ming-chan, a lake was formed of more than a
hundred leagues in circumference, where, again, thousands found their
grave. In Hou-kouang and Ho-nan, a drought prevailed for five months; and
innumerable swarms of locusts destroyed the vegetation; while famine and
pestilence, as usual, followed in their train. Connected accounts of the
condition of Europe before this great catastrophe, are not to be expected
from the writers of the fourteenth century. It is remarkable, however, that
simultaneously with a drought and renewed floods in China, in 1336, many
uncommon atmospheric phenomena, and in the winter, frequent thunder
storms, were observed in the north of France; and so early as the eventful
year of 1333, an eruption of Etna took place[34]. According to the Chinese

annals, about 4,000,000 of people perished by famine in the neighbourhood
of Kiang in 1337: and deluges, swarms of locusts, and an earthquake which
lasted six days, caused incredible devastation. In the same year, the first
swarms of locusts appeared in Franconia, which were succeeded in the
following year by myriads of these insects. In 1338, Kingsai was visited by
an earthquake of ten days’ duration; at the same time France suffered from a
failure in the harvest; and thenceforth, till the year 1342, there was in
China, a constant succession of inundations, earthquakes, and famines. In
the same year great floods occurred in the vicinity of the Rhine and in
France, which could not be attributed to rain alone; for, everywhere, even
on the tops of mountains, springs were seen to burst forth, and dry tracts
were laid under water in an inexplicable manner. In the following year, the
mountain Hong-tchang, in China, fell in, and caused a destructive deluge;
and in Pien-tcheou and Leang-tcheou, after three months’ rain, there
followed unheard-of inundations, which destroyed seven cities. In Egypt
and Syria, violent earthquakes took place; and in China they became, from
this time, more and more frequent; for they recurred, in 1344, in Ven-
tcheou, where the sea overflowed in consequence; in 1345, in Ki-tcheou,
and in both the following years in Canton, with subterraneous thunder.
Meanwhile, floods and famine devastated various districts, until 1347,
when the fury of the elements subsided in China[35].
The signs of terrestrial commotions commenced in Europe in the year
1348, after the intervening districts of country in Asia had probably been
visited in the same manner.
On the island of Cyprus, the plague from the East had already broken
out; when an earthquake shook the foundations of the island, and was
accompanied by so frightful a hurricane, that the inhabitants who had slain
their Mahometan slaves, in order that they might not themselves be
subjugated by them, fled in dismay, in all directions. The sea overflowed—
the ships were dashed to pieces on the rocks, and few outlived the terrific
event, whereby this fertile and blooming island was converted into a desert.
Before the earthquake, a pestiferous wind spread so poisonous an odour,
that many, being overpowered by it, fell down suddenly and expired in
dreadful agonies[36].
This phenomenon is one of the rarest that has ever been observed, for
nothing is more constant than the composition of the air; and in no respect

has nature been more careful in the preservation of organic life. Never have
naturalists discovered in the atmosphere foreign elements, which, evident to
the senses, and borne by the winds, spread from land to land, carrying
disease over whole portions of the earth, as is recounted to have taken place
in the year 1348. It is, therefore, the more to be regretted, that in this
extraordinary period, which, owing to the low condition of science, was
very deficient in accurate observers, so little that can be depended on
respecting those uncommon occurrences in the air, should have been
recorded. Yet, German accounts say expressly, that a thick, stinking mist
advanced from the East, and spread itself over Italy[37]; and there could be
no deception in so palpable a phenomenon[38]. The credibility of unadorned
traditions, however little they may satisfy physical research, can scarcely be
called in question when we consider the connexion of events; for just at this
time earthquakes were more general than they had been within the range of
history. In thousands of places chasms were formed, from whence arose
noxious vapours; and as at that time natural occurrences were transformed
into miracles, it was reported, that a fiery meteor, which descended on the
earth far in the East, had destroyed every thing within a circumference of
more than a hundred leagues, infecting the air far and wide[39]. The
consequences of innumerable floods contributed to the same effect; vast
river districts had been converted into swamps; foul vapours arose
everywhere, increased by the odour of putrified locusts, which had never
perhaps darkened the sun in thicker swarms[40], and of countless corpses,
which, even in the well regulated countries of Europe, they knew not how
to remove quickly enough out of the sight of the living. It is probable,
therefore, that the atmosphere contained foreign, and sensibly perceptible,
admixtures to a great extent, which, at least in the lower regions, could not
be decomposed, or rendered ineffective by separation.
Now, if we go back to the symptoms of the disease, the ardent
inflammation of the lungs points out, that the organs of respiration yielded
to the attack of an atmospheric poison—a poison, which, if we admit the
independent origin of the Black Plague at any one place on the globe,
which, under such extraordinary circumstances, it would be difficult to
doubt, attacked the course of the circulation in as hostile a manner as that
which produces inflammation of the spleen, and other animal contagions
that cause swelling and inflammation of the lymphatic glands.

Pursuing the course of these grand revolutions further, we find notice of
an unexampled earthquake, which, on the 25th of January, 1348, shook
Greece, Italy, and the neighbouring countries. Naples, Rome, Pisa, Bologna,
Padua, Venice and many other cities suffered considerably: whole villages
were swallowed up. Castles, houses and churches were overthrown, and
hundreds of people were buried beneath their ruins[41]. In Carinthia, thirty
villages, together with all the churches, were demolished; more than a
thousand corpses were drawn out of the rubbish; the city of Villach was so
completely destroyed, that very few of its inhabitants were saved; and when
the earth ceased to tremble, it was found that mountains had been moved
from their positions, and that many hamlets were left in ruins[42]. It is
recorded that, during this earthquake, the wine in the casks became turbid, a
statement which may be considered as furnishing a proof, that changes
causing a decomposition of the atmosphere had taken place; but if we had
no other information from which the excitement of conflicting powers of
nature during these commotions might be inferred, yet scientific
observations in modern times have shewn, that the relation of the
atmosphere to the earth is changed by volcanic influences. Why then, may
we not, from this fact, draw retrospective inferences respecting those
extraordinary phenomena?
Independently of this, however, we know that during this earthquake, the
duration of which is stated by some to have been a week, and by others a
fortnight, people experienced an unusual stupor and headache, and that
many fainted away[43].
These destructive earthquakes extended as far as the neighbourhood of
Basle[44], and recurred until the year 1360, throughout Germany, France,
Silesia, Poland, England and Denmark, and much further north[45].
Great and extraordinary meteors appeared in many places, and were
regarded with superstitious horror. A pillar of fire, which on the 20th of
December, 1348, remained for an hour at sunrise over the pope’s palace in
Avignon[46]; a fireball, which in August of the same year was seen at sunset
over Paris, and was distinguished from similar phenomena, by its longer
duration[47], not to mention other instances mixed up with wonderful
prophecies and omens, are recorded in the chronicles of that age.

The order of the seasons seemed to be inverted,—rains, floods and
failures in crops were so general, that few places were exempt from them;
and though an historian of this century assures us, that there was an
abundance in the granaries and storehouses[48], all his contemporaries, with
one voice, contradict him. The consequences of failure in the crops were
soon felt, especially in Italy and the surrounding countries, where, in this
year, a rain which continued for four months, had destroyed the seed. In the
larger cities, they were compelled, in the spring of 1347, to have recourse to
a distribution of bread among the poor, particularly at Florence, where they
erected large bake-houses, from which, in April, ninety-four thousand
loaves of bread, each of twelve ounces in weight, were daily dispensed[49].
It is plain, however, that humanity could only partially mitigate the general
distress, not altogether obviate it.
Diseases, the invariable consequence of famine, broke out in the country,
as well as in cities; children died of hunger in their mothers’ arms,—want,
misery and despair, were general throughout Christendom[50].
Such are the events which took place before the eruption of the Black
Plague in Europe. Contemporaries have explained them after their own
manner, and have thus, like their posterity, under similar circumstances,
given a proof, that mortals possess neither senses nor intellectual powers
sufficiently acute to comprehend the phenomena produced by the earth’s
organism, much less scientifically to understand their effects. Superstition,
selfishness in a thousand forms, the presumption of the schools, laid hold of
unconnected facts. They vainly thought to comprehend the whole in the
individual, and perceived not the universal spirit which, in intimate union
with the mighty powers of nature, animates the movements of all existence,
and permits not any phenomenon to originate from isolated causes. To
attempt, five centuries after that age of desolation, to point out the causes of
a cosmical commotion, which has never recurred to an equal extent,—to
indicate scientifically the influences which called forth so terrific a poison
in the bodies of men and animals, exceeds the limits of human
understanding. If we are even now unable, with all the varied resources of
an extended knowledge of nature, to define that condition of the atmosphere
by which pestilences are generated, still less can we pretend to reason
retrospectively from the nineteenth to the fourteenth century; but if we take

a general view of the occurrences, that century will give us copious
information, and, as applicable to all succeeding times, of high importance.
In the progress of connected natural phenomena, from East to West, that
great law of nature is plainly revealed which has so often and evidently
manifested itself in the earth’s organism, as well as in the state of nations
dependent upon it. In the inmost depths of the globe, that impulse was given
in the year 1333, which in uninterrupted succession for six-and-twenty
years shook the surface of the earth, even to the western shores of Europe.
From the very beginning the air partook of the terrestrial concussion,
atmospherical waters overflowed the land, or its plants and animals
perished under the scorching heat. The insect tribe was wonderfully called
into life, as if animated beings were destined to complete the destruction
which astral and telluric powers had begun. Thus did this dreadful work of
nature advance from year to year; it was a progressive infection of the
Zones, which exerted a powerful influence both above and beneath the
surface of the earth; and after having been perceptible in slighter
indications, at the commencement of the terrestrial commotions in China,
convulsed the whole earth.
The nature of the first plague in China is unknown. We have no certain
intelligence of the disease, until it entered the western countries of Asia.
Here it shewed itself as the oriental plague with inflammation of the lungs;
in which form it probably also may have begun in China, that is to say, as a
malady which spreads, more than any other, by contagion—a contagion,
that, in ordinary pestilences, requires immediate contact, and only under
unfavourable circumstances of rare occurrence is communicated by the
mere approach to the sick. The share which this cause had in the spreading
of the plague over the whole earth, was certainly very great: and the opinion
that the Black Death might have been excluded from Western Europe, by
good regulations, similar to those which are now in use, would have all the
support of modern experience, provided it could be proved that this plague
had been actually imported from the East; or that the oriental plague in
general, whenever it appears in Europe, has its origin in Asia or Egypt.
Such a proof, however, can by no means be produced so as to enforce
conviction; for it would involve the impossible assumption, either that there
is no essential difference between the degree of civilization of the European
nations, in the most ancient and in modern times, or that detrimental

circumstances, which have yielded only to the civilization of human society
and the regular cultivation of countries, could not formerly keep up the
glandular plague.
The plague was, however, known in Europe before nations were united
by the bonds of commerce and social intercourse[51]; hence there is ground
for supposing that it sprung up spontaneously, in consequence of the rude
manner of living and the uncultivated state of the earth; influences which
peculiarly favour the origin of severe diseases. Now, we need not go back to
the earlier centuries, for the 14th itself, before it had half expired, was
visited by five or six pestilences[52].
If, therefore, we consider the peculiar property of the plague, that, in
countries which it has once visited, it remains for a long time in a milder
form, and that the epidemic influences of 1342, when it had appeared for
the last time, were particularly favourable to its unperceived continuance,
till 1348, we come to the notion, that in this eventful year also, the germs of
plague existed in Southern Europe, which might be vivified by
atmospherical deteriorations; and that thus, at least in part, the Black Plague
may have originated in Europe itself. The corruption of the atmosphere
came from the East; but the disease itself came not upon the wings of the
wind, but was only excited and increased by the atmosphere where it had
previously existed.
This source of the Black Plague was not, however, the only one; for, far
more powerful than the excitement of the latent elements of the plague by
atmospheric influences, was the effect of the contagion communicated from
one people to another, on the great roads, and in the harbours of the
Mediterranean. From China, the route of the caravans lay to the north of the
Caspian Sea, through Central Asia, to Tauris. Here ships were ready to take
the produce of the East to Constantinople, the capital of commerce, and the
medium of connexion between Asia, Europe and Africa[53]. Other caravans
went from India to Asia Minor, and touched at the cities south of the
Caspian Sea, and lastly from Bagdad, through Arabia to Egypt; also the
maritime communication on the Red Sea, from India to Arabia and Egypt,
was not inconsiderable. In all these directions contagion made its way; and
doubtless, Constantinople and the harbours of Asia Minor, are to be

regarded as the foci of infection; whence it radiated to the most distant
seaports and islands.
To Constantinople, the plague had been brought from the northern coast
of the Black Sea[54], after it had depopulated the countries between those
routes of commerce; and appeared as early as 1347, in Cyprus, Sicily,
Marseilles and some of the seaports of Italy. The remaining islands of the
Mediterranean, particularly Sardinia, Corsica and Majorca, were visited in
succession. Foci of contagion existed also in full activity along the whole
southern coast of Europe; when, in January 1348, the plague appeared in
Avignon[55], and in other cities in the south of France and north of Italy, as
well as in Spain.
The precise days of its eruption in the individual towns, are no longer to
be ascertained; but it was not simultaneous; for in Florence, the disease
appeared in the beginning of April[56]; in Cesena, the 1st of June[57]; and
place after place was attacked throughout the whole year; so that the plague,
after it had passed through the whole of France and Germany, where,
however, it did not make its ravages until the following year, did not break
out till August, in England; where it advanced so gradually, that a period of
three months elapsed before it reached London[58]. The northern kingdoms
were attacked by it in 1349. Sweden, indeed, not until November of that
year: almost two years after its eruption in Avignon[59]. Poland received the
plague in 1349, probably from Germany[60], if not from the northern
countries; but in Russia, it did not make its appearance until 1351, more
than three years after it had broken out in Constantinople. Instead of
advancing in a north-westerly direction from Tauris and from the Caspian
Sea, it had thus made the great circuit of the Black Sea, by way of
Constantinople, Southern and Central Europe, England, the northern
kingdoms and Poland, before it reached the Russian territories; a
phenomenon which has not again occurred with respect to more recent
pestilences originating in Asia.
Whether any difference existed between the indigenous plague, excited
by the influence of the atmosphere, and that which was imported by
contagion, can no longer be ascertained from facts; for the contemporaries,
who in general were not competent to make accurate researches of this
kind, have left no data on the subject. A milder and a more malignant form

certainly existed, and the former was not always derived from the latter, as
is to be supposed from this circumstance—that the spitting of blood, the
infallible diagnostic of the latter, on the first breaking out of the plague, is
not similarly mentioned in all the reports; and it is therefore probable, that
the milder form belonged to the native plague,—the more malignant, to that
introduced by contagion. Contagion was, however, in itself, only one of
many causes which gave rise to the Black Plague.
This disease was a consequence of violent commotions in the earth’s
organism—if any disease of cosmical origin can be so considered. One
spring set a thousand others in motion for the annihilation of living beings,
transient or permanent, of mediate or immediate effect. The most powerful
of all was contagion; for in the most distant countries which had scarcely
yet heard the echo of the first concussion, the people fell a sacrifice to
organic poison,—the untimely offspring of vital energies thrown into
violent commotion.

CHAPTER IV.
MORTALITY.
We have no certain measure by which to estimate the ravages of the Black
Plague, if numerical statements were wanted, as in modern times. Let us go
back for a moment to the 14th century. The people were yet but little
civilized. The church had indeed subdued them; but they all suffered from
the ill consequences of their original rudeness. The dominion of the law was
not yet confirmed. Sovereigns had everywhere to combat powerful enemies
to internal tranquillity and security. The cities were fortresses for their own
defence. Marauders encamped on the roads.—The husbandman was a
feodal slave, without possessions of his own.—Rudeness was general.—
Humanity, as yet unknown to the people.—Witches and heretics were
burned alive.—Gentle rulers were contemned as weak;—wild passions,
severity and cruelty, everywhere predominated.—Human life was little
regarded.—Governments concerned not themselves about the numbers of
their subjects, for whose welfare it was incumbent on them to provide.
Thus, the first requisite for estimating the loss of human life, namely, a
knowledge of the amount of the population, is altogether wanting; and,
moreover, the traditional statements of the amount of this loss, are so vague,
that from this source likewise, there is only room for probable conjecture.
Kairo lost daily, when the plague was raging with its greatest violence,
from 10 to 15,000; being as many as, in modern times, great plagues have
carried off during their whole course. In China, more than thirteen millions
are said to have died; and this is in correspondence with the certainly
exaggerated accounts from the rest of Asia. India was depopulated. Tartary,
the Tartar kingdom of Kaptschak, Mesopotamia, Syria, Armenia, were
covered with dead bodies—the Kurds fled in vain to the mountains. In
Caramania and Cæsarea, none were left alive. On the roads,—in the camps,
—in the caravansaries,—unburied bodies alone were seen; and a few cities
only (Arabian historians name Maara el nooman, Schisur and Harem)
remained, in an unaccountable manner, free. In Aleppo, 500 died daily;
22,000 people, and most of the animals, were carried off in Gaza, within six
weeks. Cyprus lost almost all its inhabitants[61]; and ships without crews

were often seen in the Mediterranean; as afterwards in the North Sea,
driving about, and spreading the plague wherever they went on shore[62]. It
was reported to Pope Clement, at Avignon, that throughout the East,
probably with the exception of China, 23,840,000 people had fallen victims
to the plague[63]. Considering the occurrences of the 14th and 15th
centuries, we might, on first view, suspect the accuracy of this statement.
How (it might be asked) could such great wars have been carried on—such
powerful efforts have been made; how could the Greek empire, only a
hundred years later, have been overthrown, if the people really had been so
utterly destroyed?
This account is nevertheless rendered credible by the ascertained fact,
that the palaces of princes are less accessible to contagious diseases than the
dwellings of the multitude; and that in places of importance, the influx from
those districts which have suffered least, soon repairs even the heaviest
losses. We must remember, also, that we do not gather much from mere
numbers without an intimate knowledge of the state of society. We will,
therefore, confine ourselves to exhibiting some of the more credible
accounts relative to European cities.
In Florence there died of the Black Plague 60,000[64]
In Venice 100,000[65]
In Marseilles, in one month 16,000[66]
In Siena 70,000[67]
In Paris 50,000[68]
In St. Denys 14,000[69]
In Avignon 60,000[70]
In Strasburg 16,000[71]
In Lübeck 9,000[72]
In Basle 14,000
In Erfurt, at least 16,000
In Weimar 5,000[73]
In Limburg 2,500[74]
In London, at least 100,000[75]

In Norwich 51,100[76]
To which may be added—
Franciscan Friars in Germany 124,434[77]
Minorites in Italy 30,000[78]
This short catalogue might, by a laborious and uncertain calculation,
deduced from other sources, be easily further multiplied, but would still fail
to give a true picture of the depopulation which took place. Lübeck, at that
time the Venice of the North, which could no longer contain the multitudes
that flocked to it, was thrown into such consternation on the eruption of the
plague, that the citizens destroyed themselves as if in frenzy.
Merchants whose earnings and possessions were unbounded, coldly and
willingly renounced their earthly goods. They carried their treasures to
monasteries and churches, and laid them at the foot of the altar; but gold
had no charms for the monks, for it brought them death. They shut their
gates; yet, still it was cast to them over the convent walls. People would
brook no impediment to the last pious work to which they were driven by
despair. When the plague ceased, men thought they were still wandering
among the dead, so appalling was the livid aspect of the survivors, in
consequence of the anxiety they had undergone, and the unavoidable
infection of the air[79]. Many other cities probably presented a similar
appearance; and it is ascertained that a great number of small country towns
and villages which have been estimated, and not too highly, at 200,000[80],
were bereft of all their inhabitants.
In many places in France not more than two out of twenty of the
inhabitants were left alive[81], and the capital felt the fury of the plague,
alike in the palace and the cot.
Two queens[82], one bishop[83], and great numbers of other distinguished
persons, fell a sacrifice to it, and more than 500 a day died in the Hôtel-
Dieu, under the faithful care of the sisters of charity, whose disinterested
courage, in this age of horror, displayed the most beautiful traits of human
virtue. For although they lost their lives, evidently from contagion, and their
numbers were several times renewed, there was still no want of fresh
candidates, who, strangers to the unchristian fear of death, piously devoted
themselves to their holy calling.

The churchyards were soon unable to contain the dead[84], and many
houses, left without inhabitants, fell to ruins.
In Avignon, the pope found it necessary to consecrate the Rhone, that
bodies might be thrown into the river without delay, as the churchyards
would no longer hold them[85]; so likewise, in all populous cities,
extraordinary measures were adopted, in order speedily to dispose of the
dead. In Vienna, where for some time 1200 inhabitants died daily[86], the
interment of corpses in the churchyards and within the churches, was
forthwith prohibited; and the dead were then arranged in layers, by
thousands, in six large pits outside the city[87], as had already been done in
Cairo, and Paris. Yet, still many were secretly buried; for at all times, the
people are attached to the consecrated cemeteries of their dead, and will not
renounce the customary mode of interment.
In many places, it was rumoured that plague patients were buried
alive[88], 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 churchyards 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[89]. 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[90] 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 inhabitants[91]; and this account is rendered credible from
the immense 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 Plague[92], 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[93]. In Padua, after the cessation of the plague,
two thirds of the inhabitants were wanting; 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[94].
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 and London where, in one burial
ground alone, there were interred upwards of 50,000 corpses, arranged in
layers, in large pits[95]. It is said, that in the whole country, scarcely a tenth
part remained alive[96]; but this estimate is evidently too high. Smaller
losses were sufficient to cause those convulsions, whose consequences were
felt for some centuries, in a false impulse given to civil life, and whose
indirect influence, unknown to the English, has, perhaps, extended even to
modern times.
Morals were deteriorated everywhere, and the service of God was, in a
great measure, laid aside; for, in many places, the churches were deserted,
being bereft of their priests. The instruction of the people was impeded[97];
covetousness became general; and when tranquillity was restored, the great
increase of lawyers was astonishing, to whom the endless disputes
regarding inheritances, offered a rich harvest. The want of priests too,
throughout the country, operated very detrimentally upon the people, (the
lower classes being most exposed to the ravages of the plague, whilst the
houses of the nobility were, in proportion, much more spared,) and it was
no compensation that whole bands of ignorant laymen, who had lost their
wives during the pestilence, crowded into the monastic orders, that they
might participate in the respectability of the priesthood, and in the rich
heritages which fell in to the church from all quarters. The sittings of
Parliament, of the King’s Bench, and of most of the other courts, were
suspended as long as the malady raged. The laws of peace availed not
during the dominion of death. Pope Clement took advantage of this state of
disorder, to adjust the bloody quarrel between Edward III. and Philip VI.;
yet he only succeeded during the period that the plague commanded peace.
Philip’s death (1350) annulled all treaties; and it is related, that Edward,
with other troops indeed, but with the same leaders and knights, again took
the field. Ireland was much less heavily visited than England. The disease
seems to have scarcely reached the mountainous districts of that kingdom;
and Scotland too would, perhaps, have remained free, had not the Scots
availed themselves of the discomfiture of the English, to make an irruption

into their territory, which terminated in the destruction of their army, by the
plague and by the sword, and the extension of the pestilence, through those
who escaped, over the whole country.
At the commencement, there was in England a superabundance of all the
necessaries of life; but the plague, which seemed then to be the sole disease,
was soon accompanied by a fatal murrain among the cattle. Wandering
about without herdsmen, they fell by thousands; and, as has likewise been
observed in Africa, the birds and beasts of prey are said not to have touched
them. Of what nature this murrain may have been, can no more be
determined, than whether it originated from communication with plague
patients, or from other causes; but thus much is certain, that it did not break
out until after the commencement of the Black Death. In consequence of
this murrain, and the impossibility of removing the corn from the fields,
there was everywhere a great rise in the price of food which to many was
inexplicable, because the harvest had been plentiful; by others it was
attributed to the wicked designs of the labourers and dealers; but it really
had its foundation in the actual deficiency arising from circumstances by
which individual classes at all times endeavour to profit. For a whole year,
until it terminated in August, 1349, the Black Plague prevailed in this
beautiful island, and everywhere poisoned the springs of comfort and
prosperity[98].
In other countries, it generally lasted only half a year, but returned
frequently in individual places; on which account, some, without sufficient
proof, assigned to it a period of seven years[99].
Spain was uninterruptedly ravaged by the Black Plague till after the year
1350, to which the frequent internal feuds and the wars with the Moors not
a little contributed. Alphonso XI., whose passion for war carried him too
far, died of it at the siege of Gibraltar, on the 26th of March, 1350. He was
the only king in Europe who fell a sacrifice to it; but even before this
period, innumerable families had been thrown into affliction[100]. The
mortality seems otherwise to have been smaller in Spain than in Italy, and
about as considerable as in France.
The whole period during which the Black Plague raged with destructive
violence in Europe, was, with the exception of Russia, from the year 1347
to 1350. The plagues, which in the sequel often returned until the year

1383[101], we do not consider as belonging to “the Great Mortality.” They
were rather common pestilences, without inflammation of the lungs, such as
in former times, and in the following centuries, were excited by the matter
of contagion everywhere existing, and which, on every favourable occasion,
gained ground anew, as is usually the case with this frightful disease.
The concourse of large bodies of people was especially dangerous; and
thus, the premature celebration of the Jubilee, to which Clement VI. cited
the faithful to Rome, (1350,) during the great epidemic, caused a new
eruption of the plague, from which it is said, that scarcely one in an hundred
of the pilgrims escaped[102].
Italy was, in consequence, depopulated anew; and those who returned,
spread poison and corruption of morals in all directions[103]. It is, therefore,
the less apparent, how that Pope, who was in general so wise and
considerate, and who knew how to pursue the path of reason and humanity,
under the most difficult circumstances, should have been led to adopt a
measure so injurious; since he, himself, was so convinced of the salutary
effect of seclusion, that during the plague in Avignon, he kept up constant
fires, and suffered no one to approach him[104]; and, in other respects, gave
such orders as averted, or alleviated, much misery.
The changes which occurred about this period in the north of Europe, are
sufficiently memorable to claim a few moments’ attention. In Sweden two
princes died—Håken and Knut, half-brothers of King Magnus; and in
Westgothland alone, 466 priests[105]. The inhabitants of Iceland and
Greenland, found in the coldness of their inhospitable climate, no protection
against the southern enemy who had penetrated to them from happier
countries. The plague caused great havoc among them. Nature made no
allowance for their constant warfare with the elements, and the parsimony
with which she had meted out to them the enjoyments of life[106]. In
Denmark and Norway, however, people were so occupied with their own
misery, that the accustomed voyages to Greenland ceased. Towering
icebergs formed at the same time on the coast of East Greenland, in
consequence of the general concussion of the earth’s organism; and no
mortal, from that time forward, has ever seen that shore or its
inhabitants[107].

It has been observed above, that in Russia, the Black Plague did not
break out until 1351, after it had already passed through the south and north
of Europe. In this country also, the mortality was extraordinarily great; and
the same scenes of affliction and despair were exhibited, as had occurred in
those nations which had already passed the ordeal. The same mode of burial
—the same horrible certainty of death—the same torpor and depression of
spirits. The wealthy abandoned their treasures, and gave their villages and
estates to the churches and monasteries; this being, according to the notions
of the age, the surest way of securing the favour of Heaven and the
forgiveness of past sins. In Russia too, the voice of nature was silenced by
fear and horror. In the hour of danger, fathers and mothers deserted their
children, and children their parents[108].
Of all the estimates of the number of lives lost in Europe, the most
probable is, that altogether, a fourth part of the inhabitants were carried off.
Now, if Europe at present contain 210,000,000 inhabitants, the population,
not to take a higher estimate, which might easily be justified, amounted to
at least 105,000,000 in the 16th century.
It may, therefore, be assumed, without exaggeration, that Europe lost
during the Black Death, 25,000,000 of inhabitants.
That her nations could so quickly overcome such a fearful concussion in
their external circumstances, and, in general, without retrograding more
than they actually did, could so develope their energies in the following
century, is a most convincing proof of the indestructibility of human society
as a whole. To assume, however, that it did not suffer any essential change
internally, because in appearance every thing remained as before, is
inconsistent with a just view of cause and effect. Many historians seem to
have adopted such an opinion; accustomed, as usual, to judge of the moral
condition of the people solely according to the vicissitudes of earthly
power, the events of battles, and the influence of religion, but to pass over
with indifference, the great phenomena of nature, which modify, not only
the surface of the earth, but also the human mind. Hence, most of them have
touched but superficially on the “great mortality” of the 14th century. We,
for our parts, are convinced, that in the history of the world, the Black
Death is one of the most important events which have prepared the way for
the present state of Europe.

He who studies the human mind with attention, and forms a deliberate
judgment on the intellectual powers which set people and states in motion,
may, perhaps, find some proofs of this assertion in the following
observations:—at that time, the advancement of the hierarchy was, in most
countries, extraordinary; for the church acquired treasures and large
properties in land, even to a greater extent than after the crusades; but
experience has demonstrated, that such a state of things is ruinous to the
people, and causes them to retrograde, as was evinced on this occasion.
After the cessation of the Black Plague, a greater fecundity in women
was everywhere remarkable—a grand phenomenon, which, from its
occurrence after every destructive pestilence, proves to conviction, if any
occurrence can do so, the prevalence of a higher power in the direction of
general organic life. Marriages were, almost without exception, prolific; and
double and treble births were more frequent than at other times; under
which head, we should remember the strange remark, that after the “great
mortality” the children were said to have got fewer teeth than before; at
which contemporaries were mightily shocked, and even later writers have
felt surprise.
If we examine the grounds of this oft-repeated assertion, we shall find
that they were astonished to see children cut twenty, or at most, twenty-two
teeth, under the supposition that a greater number had formerly fallen to
their share[109]. Some writers of authority, as, for example, the physician
Savonarola[110], at Ferrara, who probably looked for twenty-eight teeth in
children, published their opinions on this subject. Others copied from them,
without seeing for themselves, as often happens in other matters which are
equally evident; and thus the world believed in the miracle of an
imperfection in the human body which had been caused by the Black
Plague.
The people gradually consoled themselves after the sufferings which they
had undergone; the dead were lamented and forgotten; and in the stirring
vicissitudes of existence, the world belonged to the living[111].

CHAPTER V.
MORAL EFFECTS.
The mental shock sustained by all nations during the prevalence of the
Black Plague, is without parallel and beyond description. In the eyes of the
timorous, danger was the certain harbinger of death; many fell victims to
fear, on the first appearance of the distemper[112], and the most stout-hearted
lost their confidence. Thus, after reliance on the future had died away, the
spiritual union which binds man to his family and his fellow creatures, was
gradually dissolved. The pious closed their accounts with the world,—
eternity presented itself to their view,—their only remaining desire, was for
a participation in the consolations of religion, because to them death was
disarmed of its sting.
Repentance seized the transgressor, admonishing him to consecrate his
remaining hours to the exercise of Christian virtues. All minds were
directed to the contemplation of futurity; and children, who manifest the
more elevated feelings of the soul without alloy, were frequently seen,
while labouring under the plague, breathing out their spirit with prayer and
songs of thanksgiving[113].
An awful sense of contrition seized Christians of every communion; they
resolved to forsake their vices, to make restitution for past offences, before
they were summoned hence, to seek reconciliation with their Maker, and to
avert, by self-chastisement, the punishment due to their former sins. Human
nature would be exalted, could the countless noble actions, which, in times
of most imminent danger, were performed in secret, be recorded for the
instruction of future generations. They, however, have no influence on the
course of worldly events. They are known only to silent eye-witnesses, and
soon fall into oblivion. But hypocrisy, illusion and bigotry, stalk abroad
undaunted; they desecrate what is noble, they pervert what is divine, to the
unholy purposes of selfishness; which hurries along every good feeling in
the false excitement of the age. Thus it was in the years of this plague. In
the 14th century, the monastic system was still in its full vigour, the power
of the ecclesiastical orders and brotherhoods was revered by the people, and

the hierarchy was still formidable to the temporal power. It was, therefore,
in the natural constitution of society that bigoted zeal, which in such times
makes a show of public acts of penance, should avail itself of the semblance
of religion. But this took place in such a manner, that unbridled, self-willed
penitence, degenerated into lukewarmness, renounced obedience to the
hierarchy, and prepared a fearful opposition to the church, paralysed as it
was by antiquated forms.
While all countries were filled with lamentations and woe, there first
arose in Hungary[114], and afterwards in Germany, the Brotherhood of the
Flagellants, called also the Brethren of the Cross, or Cross-bearers, who
took upon themselves the repentance of the people, for the sins they had
committed, and offered prayers and supplications for the averting of this
plague. This Order consisted chiefly of persons of the lower class, who
were either actuated by sincere contrition, or, who joyfully availed
themselves of this pretext for idleness, and were hurried along with the tide
of distracting frenzy. But as these brotherhoods gained in repute, and were
welcomed by the people, with veneration and enthusiasm, many nobles and
ecclesiastics ranged themselves under their standard; and their bands were
not unfrequently augmented by children, honourable women and nuns; so
powerfully were minds of the most opposite temperaments enslaved by this
infatuation[115]. They marched through the cities, in well organized
processions, with leaders and singers; their heads covered as far as the eyes;
their look fixed on the ground, accompanied by every token of the deepest
contrition and mourning. They were robed in sombre garments, with red
crosses on the breast, back, and cap, and bore triple scourges, tied in three
or four knots, in which points of iron were fixed[116]. Tapers and
magnificent banners of velvet and cloth of gold, were carried before them;
wherever they made their appearance, they were welcomed by the ringing
of the bells; and the people flocked from all quarters, to listen to their
hymns and to witness their penance, with devotion and tears.
In the year 1349, two hundred Flagellants first entered Strasburg, where
they were received with great joy, and hospitably lodged by the citizens.
Above a thousand joined the brotherhood, which now assumed the
appearance of a wandering tribe, and separated into two bodies, for the
purpose of journeying to the north and to the south. For more than half a
year, new parties arrived weekly; and, on each arrival, adults and children

left their families to accompany them; till, at length, their sanctity was
questioned, and the doors of houses and churches were closed against
them[117]. At Spires, two hundred boys, of twelve years of age and under,
constituted themselves into a Brotherhood of the Cross, in imitation of the
children, who, about a hundred years before, had united, at the instigation
of some fanatic monks, for the purpose of recovering the Holy Sepulchre.
All the inhabitants of this town were carried away by the illusion; they
conducted the strangers to their houses with songs of thanksgiving, to
regale them for the night. The women embroidered banners for them, and
all were anxious to augment their pomp; and at every succeeding
pilgrimage, their influence and reputation increased[118].
It was not merely some individual parts of the country that fostered them:
all Germany, Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, Silesia, and Flanders, did homage
to the mania; and they at length became as formidable to the secular, as they
were to the ecclesiastical power. The influence of this fanaticism was great
and threatening; resembling the excitement which called all the inhabitants
of Europe into the deserts of Syria and Palestine, about two hundred and
fifty years before. The appearance, in itself, was not novel. As far back as
the 11th century, many believers, in Asia and Southern Europe, afflicted
themselves with the punishment of flagellation. Dominicus Loricatus, a
monk of St. Croce d’Avellano, is mentioned as the master and model of this
species of mortification of the flesh; which, according to the primitive
notions of the Asiatic Anchorites, was deemed eminently Christian. The
author of the solemn processions of the Flagellants, is said to have been St.
Anthony; for even in his time (1231), this kind of penance was so much in
vogue, that it is recorded as an eventful circumstance in the history of the
world. In 1260, the Flagellants appeared in Italy as Devoti. “When the land
was polluted by vices and crimes[119], an unexampled spirit of remorse
suddenly seized the minds of the Italians. The fear of Christ fell upon all:
noble and ignoble, old and young, and even children of five years of age,
marched through the streets with no covering but a scarf round the waist.
They each carried a scourge of leathern thongs, which they applied to their
limbs, amid sighs and tears, with such violence, that the blood flowed from
the wounds. Not only during the day, but even by night, and in the severest
winter, they traversed the cities with burning torches and banners, in
thousands and tens of thousands, headed by their priests, and prostrated

themselves before the altars. They proceeded in the same manner in the
villages: and the woods and mountains resounded with the voices of those
whose cries were raised to God. The melancholy chaunt of the penitent
alone was heard. Enemies were reconciled; men and women vied with each
other in splendid works of charity, as if they dreaded, that Divine
Omnipotence would pronounce on them the doom of annihilation.”
The pilgrimages of the Flagellants extended throughout all the provinces
of Southern Germany, as far as Saxony, Bohemia and Poland, and even
further; but at length, the priests resisted this dangerous fanaticism, without
being able to extirpate the illusion, which was advantageous to the
hierarchy, as long as it submitted to its sway. Regnier, a hermit of Perugia,
is recorded as a fanatic preacher of penitence, with whom the extravagance
originated[120]. In the year 1296, there was a great procession of the
Flagellants in Strasburg[121]; and in 1334, fourteen years before the great
mortality, the sermon of Venturinus, a Dominican friar, of Bergamo,
induced above 10,000 persons to undertake a new pilgrimage. They
scourged themselves in the churches, and were entertained in the market-
places, at the public expense. At Rome, Venturinus was derided, and
banished by the Pope to the mountains of Ricondona. He patiently endured
all—went to the Holy Land, and died at Smyrna, 1346[122]. Hence we see
that this fanaticism was a mania of the middle ages, which, in the year
1349, on so fearful an occasion, and while still so fresh in remembrance,
needed no new founder; of whom, indeed, all the records are silent. It
probably arose in many places at the same time; for the terror of death,
which pervaded all nations and suddenly set such powerful impulses in
motion, might easily conjure up the fanaticism of exaggerated and
overpowering repentance.
The manner and proceedings of the Flagellants of the 13th and 14th
centuries, exactly resemble each other. But, if during the Black Plague,
simple credulity came to their aid, which seized, as a consolation, the
grossest delusion of religious enthusiasm, yet it is evident that the leaders
must have been intimately united, and have exercised the power of a secret
association. Besides, the rude band was generally under the control of men
of learning, some of whom at least, certainly had other objects in view,
independent of those which ostensibly appeared. Whoever was desirous of
joining the brotherhood, was bound to remain in it thirty-four days, and to

have four pence per day at his own disposal, so that he might not be
burthensome to any one; if married, he was obliged to have the sanction of
his wife, and give the assurance that he was reconciled to all men. The
Brothers of the Cross, were not permitted to seek for free quarters, or even
to enter a house without having been invited; they were forbidden to
converse with females; and if they transgressed these rules, or acted without
discretion, they were obliged to confess to the Superior, who sentenced
them to several lashes of the scourge, by way of penance. Ecclesiastics had
not, as such, any pre-eminence among them; according to their original law,
which, however, was often transgressed, they could not become Masters, or
take part in the Secret Councils. Penance was performed twice every day: in
the morning and evening, they went abroad in pairs, singing psalms, amid
the ringing of the bells; and when they arrived at the place of flagellation,
they stripped the upper part of their bodies and put off their shoes, keeping
on only a linen dress, reaching from the waist to the ancles. They then lay
down in a large circle, in different positions, according to the nature of their
crime: the adulterer with his face to the ground; the perjurer on one side,
holding up three of his fingers, &c., and were then castigated, some more
and some less, by the Master, who ordered them to rise in the words of a
prescribed form[123]. Upon this, they scourged themselves, amid the singing
of psalms and loud supplications for the averting of the plague, with
genuflexions, and other ceremonies, of which contemporary writers give
various accounts; and at the same time constantly boasted of their penance,
that the blood of their wounds was mingled with that of the Saviour[124].
One of them, in conclusion, stood up to read a letter, which it was pretended
an angel had brought from heaven, to St. Peter’s church, at Jerusalem,
stating that Christ, who was sore displeased at the sins of man, had granted,
at the intercession of the Holy Virgin and of the angels, that all who should
wander about for thirty-four days and scourge themselves, should be
partakers of the Divine grace[125]. This scene caused as great a commotion
among the believers as the finding of the holy spear once did at Antioch;
and if any among the clergy inquired who had sealed the letter? he was
boldly answered, the same who had sealed the Gospel!
All this had so powerful an effect, that the church was in considerable
danger; for the Flagellants gained more credit than the priests, from whom
they so entirely withdrew themselves, that they even absolved each other.

Besides, they everywhere took possession of the churches, and their new
songs, which went from mouth to mouth, operated strongly on the minds of
the people. Great enthusiasm and originally pious feelings, are clearly
distinguishable in these hymns, and especially in the chief psalm of the
Cross-bearers, which is still extant, and which was sung all over Germany,
in different dialects, and is probably of a more ancient date[126].
Degeneracy, however, soon crept in; crimes were everywhere committed;
and there was no energetic man capable of directing the individual
excitement to purer objects, even had an effectual resistance to the tottering
church been at that early period seasonable, and had it been possible to
restrain the fanaticism. The Flagellants sometimes undertook to make trial
of their power of working miracles; as in Strasburg, where they attempted,
in their own circle, to resuscitate a dead child: they however failed, and
their unskilfulness did them much harm, though they succeeded here and
there in maintaining some confidence in their holy calling, by pretending to
have the power of casting out evil spirits[127].
The Brotherhood of the Cross announced that the pilgrimage of the
Flagellants was to continue for a space of thirty-four years; and many of the
Masters had, doubtless, determined to form a lasting league against the
church; but they had gone too far. So early as the first year of their
establishment, the general indignation set bounds to their intrigues; so that
the strict measures adopted by the Emperor Charles IV., and Pope
Clement[128], who, throughout the whole of this fearful period, manifested
prudence and noble-mindedness, and conducted himself in a manner every
way worthy of his high station, were easily put into execution[129].
The Sorbonne, at Paris, and the Emperor Charles, had already applied to
the Holy See, for assistance against these formidable and heretical excesses,
which had well nigh destroyed the influence of the clergy in every place;
when a hundred of the Brotherhood of the Cross arrived at Avignon from
Basle, and desired admission. The Pope, regardless of the intercession of
several cardinals, interdicted their public penance, which he had not
authorized; and, on pain of excommunication, prohibited throughout
Christendom the continuance of these pilgrimages[130]. Philip VI.,
supported by the condemnatory judgment of the Sorbonne, forbad their
reception in France[131]. Manfred, King of Sicily, at the same time
threatened them with punishment by death: and in the East, they were

withstood by several bishops, among whom was Janussius, of Gnesen[132],
and Preczlaw, of Breslaw, who condemned to death one of their Masters,
formerly a deacon; and, in conformity with the barbarity of the times, had
him publicly burnt[133]. In Westphalia, where so shortly before they had
venerated the Brothers of the Cross, they now persecuted them with
relentless severity[134]; and in the Mark, as well as in all the other countries
of Germany, they pursued them, as if they had been the authors of every
misfortune[135].
The processions of the Brotherhood of the Cross undoubtedly promoted
the spreading of the plague; and it is evident, that the gloomy fanaticism
which gave rise to them, would infuse a new poison into the already
desponding minds of the people.
Still, however, all this was within the bounds of barbarous enthusiasm;
but horrible were the persecutions of the Jews, which were committed in
most countries, with even greater exasperation than in the 12th century,
during the first Crusades. In every destructive pestilence, the common
people at first attribute the mortality to poison. No instruction avails; the
supposed testimony of their eyesight, is to them a proof, and they
authoritatively demand the victims of their rage. On whom then was it so
likely to fall, as on the Jews, the usurers and the strangers who lived at
enmity with the Christians? They were everywhere suspected of having
poisoned the wells or infected the air[136]. They alone were considered as
having brought this fearful mortality upon the Christians[137]. They were, in
consequence, pursued with merciless cruelty; and either indiscriminately
given up to the fury of the populace, or sentenced by sanguinary tribunals,
which, with all the forms of law, ordered them to be burnt alive. In times
like these, much is indeed said of guilt and innocence; but hatred and
revenge bear down all discrimination, and the smallest probability,
magnifies suspicion into certainty. These bloody scenes, which disgraced
Europe in the 14th century, are a counterpart to a similar mania of the age,
which was manifested in the persecutions of witches and sorcerers; and,
like these they prove, that enthusiasm, associated with hatred, and leagued
with the baser passions, may work more powerfully upon whole nations,
than religion and legal order; nay, that it even knows how to profit by the
authority of both, in order the more surely to satiate with blood, the sword
of long suppressed revenge.

The persecution of the Jews commenced in September and October,
1348[138], at Chillon, on the Lake of Geneva, where the first criminal
proceedings were instituted against them, after they had long before been
accused by the people of poisoning the wells; similar scenes followed in
Bern and Freyburg, in January, 1349. Under the influence of excruciating
suffering, the tortured Jews confessed themselves guilty of the crime
imputed to them; and it being affirmed that poison had in fact been found in
a well at Zoffingen, this was deemed a sufficient proof to convince the
world; and the persecution of the abhorred culprits, thus appeared
justifiable. Now, though we can take as little exception at these
proceedings, as at the multifarious confessions of witches, because the
interrogatories of the fanatical and sanguinary tribunals, were so
complicated, that by means of the rack, the required answer must inevitably
be obtained; and it is besides conformable to human nature, that crimes
which are in every body’s mouth, may, in the end, be actually committed by
some, either from wantonness, revenge, or desperate exasperation: yet
crimes and accusations are, under circumstances like these, merely the
offspring of a revengeful, frenzied spirit in the people; and the accusers,
according to the fundamental principles of morality, which are the same in
every age, are the more guilty transgressors.
Already in the autumn of 1348, a dreadful panic, caused by this supposed
empoisonment, seized all nations; in Germany especially, the springs and
wells were built over, that nobody might drink of them, or employ their
contents for culinary purposes: and for a long time, the inhabitants of
numerous towns and villages, used only river and rain water[139]. The city
gates were also guarded with the greatest caution: only confidential persons
were admitted; and if medicine, or any other article, which might be
supposed to be poisonous, was found in the possession of a stranger,—and
it was natural that some should have these things by them for their private
use,—they were forced to swallow a portion of it[140]. By this trying state of
privation, distrust and suspicion, the hatred against the supposed poisoners
became greatly increased, and often broke out in popular commotions,
which only served still further to infuriate the wildest passions. The noble
and the mean, fearlessly bound themselves by an oath, to extirpate the Jews
by fire and sword, and to snatch them from their protectors, of whom the
number was so small, that throughout all Germany, but few places can be

mentioned where these unfortunate people were not regarded as outlaws
and martyred and burnt[141]. Solemn summonses were issued from Bern to
the towns of Basle, Freyburg in the Breisgau, and Strasburg, to pursue the
Jews as poisoners. The Burgomasters and Senators, indeed, opposed this
requisition; but in Basle the populace obliged them to bind themselves by
an oath, to burn the Jews, and to forbid persons of that community from
entering their city, for the space of two hundred years. Upon this, all the
Jews in Basle, whose number could not have been inconsiderable, were
inclosed in a wooden building, constructed for the purpose, and burnt
together with it, upon the mere outcry of the people, without sentence or
trial, which indeed would have availed them nothing. Soon after, the same
thing took place at Freyburg. A regular Diet was held at Bennefeld, in
Alsace, where the bishops, lords and barons, as also deputies of the counties
and towns, consulted how they should proceed with regard to the Jews; and
when the deputies of Strasburg —not indeed the bishop of this town, who
proved himself a violent fanatic—spoke in favour of the persecuted, as
nothing criminal was substantiated against them; a great outcry was raised,
and it was vehemently asked, why, if so, they had covered their wells and
removed their buckets? A sanguinary decree was resolved upon, of which
the populace, who obeyed the call of the nobles and superior clergy, became
but the too willing executioners[142]. Wherever the Jews were not burnt,
they were at least banished; and so being compelled to wander about, they
fell into the hands of the country people, who without humanity, and
regardless of all laws, persecuted them with fire and sword. At Spires, the
Jews, driven to despair, assembled in their own habitations, which they set
on fire, and thus consumed themselves with their families. The few that
remained were forced to submit to baptism; while the dead bodies of the
murdered, which lay about the streets, were put into empty wine casks, and
rolled into the Rhine, lest they should infect the air. The mob was forbidden
to enter the ruins of the habitations that were burnt in the Jewish quarter; for
the senate itself caused search to be made for the treasure, which is said to
have been very considerable. At Strasburg, two thousand Jews were burnt
alive in their own burial ground, where a large scaffold had been erected: a
few who promised to embrace Christianity, were spared, and their children
taken from the pile. The youth and beauty of several females also excited
some commiseration; and they were snatched from death against their will:

many, however, who forcibly made their escape from the flames, were
murdered in the streets.
The senate ordered all pledges and bonds to be returned to the debtors,
and divided the money among the work-people[143]. Many, however,
refused to accept the base price of blood, and, indignant at the scenes of
blood-thirsty avarice, which made the infuriated multitude forget[144] that
the plague was raging around them, presented it to monasteries, in
conformity with the advice of their confessors. In all the countries on the
Rhine, these cruelties continued to be perpetrated during the succeeding
months; and after quiet was in some degree restored, the people thought to
render an acceptable service to God, by taking the bricks of the destroyed
dwellings, and the tombstones of the Jews, to repair churches and to erect
belfries[145].
In Mayence alone, 12,000 Jews are said to have been put to a cruel death.
The Flagellants entered that place in August; the Jews, on this occasion, fell
out with the Christians, and killed several; but when they saw their inability
to withstand the increasing superiority of their enemies, and that nothing
could save them from destruction, they consumed themselves and their
families, by setting fire to their dwellings. Thus also, in other places, the
entry of the Flagellants gave rise to scenes of slaughter; and as thirst for
blood was everywhere combined with an unbridled spirit of proselytism, a
fanatic zeal arose among the Jews, to perish as martyrs to their ancient
religion. And how was it possible, that they could from the heart embrace
Christianity, when its precepts were never more outrageously violated? At
Eslingen, the whole Jewish community burned themselves in their
synagogue[146]; and mothers were often seen throwing their children on the
pile, to prevent their being baptized, and then precipitating themselves into
the flames[147]. In short, whatever deeds, fanaticism, revenge, avarice and
desperation, in fearful combination, could instigate mankind to perform,—
and where in such a case is the limit?—were executed in the year 1349,
throughout Germany, Italy and France, with impunity, and in the eyes of all
the world. It seemed as if the plague gave rise to scandalous acts and frantic
tumults, not to mourning and grief: and the greater part of those who, by
their education and rank, were called upon to raise the voice of reason,
themselves led on the savage mob to murder and to plunder. Almost all the
Jews who saved their lives by baptism, were afterwards burnt at different

times; for they continued to be accused of poisoning the water and the air.
Christians also, whom philanthropy or gain had induced to offer them
protection, were put on the rack and executed with them[148]. Many Jews
who had embraced Christianity, repented of their apostacy,—and, returning
to their former faith, sealed it with their death[149].
The humanity and prudence of Clement VI., must, on this occasion, also
be mentioned to his honour; but even the highest ecclesiastical power was
insufficient to restrain the unbridled fury of the people. He not only
protected the Jews at Avignon, as far as lay in his power, but also issued two
bulls, in which he declared them innocent; and admonished all Christians,
though without success, to cease from such groundless persecutions[150].
The Emperor Charles IV. was also favourable to them, and sought to avert
their destruction, wherever he could; but he dared not draw the sword of
justice, and even found himself obliged to yield to the selfishness of the
Bohemian nobles, who were unwilling to forego so favourable an
opportunity of releasing themselves from their Jewish creditors, under
favour of an imperial mandate[151]. Duke Albert of Austria burned and
pillaged those of his cities, which had persecuted the Jews,—a vain and
inhuman proceeding, which, moreover, is not exempt from the suspicion of
covetousness; yet he was unable, in his own fortress of Kyberg, to protect
some hundreds of Jews, who had been received there, from being
barbarously burnt by the inhabitants[152]. Several other princes and counts,
among whom was Ruprecht von der Pfalz, took the Jews under their
protection on the payment of large sums: in consequence of which they
were called “Jew-masters,” and were in danger of being attacked by the
populace and by their powerful neighbours[153]. These persecuted and ill-
used people, except indeed where humane individuals took compassion on
them at their own peril, or when they could command riches to purchase
protection, had no place of refuge left but the distant country of Lithuania,
where Boleslav V., Duke of Poland (1227–1279), had before granted them
liberty of conscience; and King Casimir the Great (1333–1370), yielding to
the entreaties of Esther, a favourite Jewess, received them, and granted
them further protection[154]: on which account, that country is still inhabited
by a great number of Jews, who by their secluded habits, have, more than
any people in Europe, retained the manners of the middle ages.

But to return to the fearful accusations against the Jews; it was reported
in all Europe, that they were in connexion with secret superiors in Toledo,
to whose decrees they were subject, and from whom they had received
commands respecting the coining of base money, poisoning, the murder of
Christian children, &c.[155]; that they received the poison by sea from
remote parts, and also prepared it themselves from spiders, owls and other
venomous animals; but, in order that their secret might not be discovered,
that it was known only to the Rabbis and rich men[156]. Apparently there
were but few who did not consider this extravagant accusation well
founded; indeed, in many writings of the 14th century, we find great
acrimony with regard to the suspected poison mixers, which plainly
demonstrates the prejudice existing against them. Unhappily, after the
confessions of the first victims in Switzerland, the rack extorted similar
ones in various places. Some even acknowledged having received
poisonous powder in bags, and injunctions from Toledo, by secret
messengers. Bags of this description were also often found in wells, though
it was not unfrequently discovered that the Christians themselves had
thrown them in; probably to give occasion to murder and pillage; similar
instances of which may be found in the persecutions of the witches[157].
This picture needs no additions. A lively image of the Black Plague, and
of the moral evil which followed in its train, will vividly represent itself to
him who is acquainted with nature and the constitution of society. Almost
the only credible accounts of the manner of living, and of the ruin which
occurred in private life, during this pestilence, are from Italy; and these may
enable us to form a just estimate of the general state of families in Europe,
taking into consideration what is peculiar in the manners of each country.
“When the evil had become universal,” (speaking of Florence,) “the
hearts of all the inhabitants were closed to feelings of humanity. They fled
from the sick and all that belonged to them, hoping by these means to save
themselves. Others shut themselves up in their houses, with their wives,
their children and households, living on the most costly food, but carefully
avoiding all excess. None were allowed access to them; no intelligence of
death or sickness was permitted to reach their ears; and they spent their time
in singing and music, and other pastimes. Others, on the contrary,
considered eating and drinking to excess, amusements of all descriptions,
the indulgence of every gratification, and an indifference to what was

passing around them, as the best medicine, and acted accordingly. They
wandered day and night, from one tavern to another, and feasted without
moderation or bounds. In this way they endeavoured to avoid all contact
with the sick, and abandoned their houses and property to chance, like men
whose death-knell had already tolled.
“Amid this general lamentation and woe, the influence and authority of
every law, human and divine, vanished. Most of those who were in office,
had been carried off by the plague, or lay sick, or had lost so many
members of their families, that they were unable to attend to their duties; so
that thenceforth every one acted as he thought proper. Others, in their mode
of living, chose a middle course. They ate and drank what they pleased, and
walked abroad, carrying odoriferous flowers, herbs or spices, which they
smelt to from time to time, in order to invigorate the brain, and to avert the
baneful influence of the air, infected by the sick, and by the innumerable
corpses of those who had died of the plague. Others carried their precaution
still further, and thought the surest way to escape death was by flight. They
therefore left the city; women as well as men abandoning their dwellings
and their relations, and retiring into the country. But of these also, many
were carried off, most of them alone and deserted by all the world,
themselves having previously set the example. Thus it was, that one citizen
fled from another—a neighbour from his neighbours—a relation from his
relations; and in the end, so completely had terror extinguished every
kindlier feeling, that the brother forsook the brother—the sister the sister—
the wife her husband; and at last, even the parent his own offspring, and
abandoned them, unvisited and unsoothed, to their fate. Those, therefore,
that stood in need of assistance fell a prey to greedy attendants; who for an
exorbitant recompense, merely handed the sick their food and medicine,
remained with them in their last moments, and then not unfrequently,
became themselves victims to their avarice and lived not to enjoy their
extorted gain. Propriety and decorum were extinguished among the helpless
sick. Females of rank seemed to forget their natural bashfulness, and
committed the care of their persons, indiscriminately, to men and women of
the lowest order. No longer were women, relatives or friends, found in the
house of mourning, to share the grief of the survivors—no longer was the
corpse accompanied to the grave by neighbours and a numerous train of
priests, carrying wax tapers and singing psalms, nor was it borne along by
other citizens of equal rank. Many breathed their last without a friend to

sooth their dying pillow; and few indeed were they who departed amid the
lamentations and tears of their friends and kindred. Instead of sorrow and
mourning, appeared indifference, frivolity and mirth; this being considered,
especially by the females, as conducive to health. Seldom was the body
followed by even ten or twelve attendants; and instead of the usual bearers
and sextons, mercenaries of the lowest of the populace undertook the office
for the sake of gain; and accompanied by only a few priests, and often
without a single taper, it was borne to the very nearest church, and lowered
into the first grave that was not already too full to receive it. Among the
middling classes, and especially among the poor, the misery was still
greater. Poverty or negligence induced most of these to remain in their
dwellings, or in the immediate neighbourhood; and thus they fell by
thousands: and many ended their lives in the streets, by day and by night.
The stench of putrefying corpses was often the first indication to their
neighbours that more deaths had occurred. The survivors, to preserve
themselves from infection, generally had the bodies taken out of the houses,
and laid before the doors; where the early morn found them in heaps,
exposed to the affrighted gaze of the passing stranger. It was no longer
possible to have a bier for every corpse,—three or four were generally laid
together—husband and wife, father and mother, with two or three children,
were frequently borne to the grave on the same bier; and it often happened
that two priests would accompany a coffin, bearing the cross before it, and
be joined on the way by several other funerals; so that instead of one, there
were five or six bodies for interment.”
Thus far Boccacio. On the conduct of the priests, another contemporary
observes[158]: “In large and small towns, they had withdrawn themselves
through fear, leaving the performance of ecclesiastical duties to the few
who were found courageous and faithful enough to undertake them.” But
we ought not on that account to throw more blame on them than on others;
for we find proofs of the same timidity and heartlessness in every class.
During the prevalence of the Black Plague, the charitable orders conducted
themselves admirably, and did as much good as can be done by individual
bodies, in times of great misery and destruction; when compassion,
courage, and the nobler feelings, are found but in the few, while cowardice,
selfishness and ill-will, with the baser passions in their train, assert the
supremacy. In place of virtue, which had been driven from the earth,

wickedness everywhere reared her rebellious standard, and succeeding
generations were consigned to the dominion of her baleful tyranny.

CHAPTER VI.
PHYSICIANS.
If we now turn to the medical talent which encountered the “Great
Mortality,” the middle ages must stand excused, since even the moderns are
of opinion that the art of medicine is not able to cope with the Oriental
plague, and can afford deliverance from it only under particularly
favourable circumstances[159]. We must bear in mind also, that human
science and art appear particularly weak in great pestilences, because they
have to contend with the powers of nature, of which they have no
knowledge; and which, if they had been, or could be comprehended in their
collective effects, would remain uncontrollable by them, principally on
account of the disordered condition of human society. Moreover, every new
plague has its peculiarities, which are the less easily discovered on first
view, because, during its ravages, fear and consternation humble the proud
spirit.
The physicians of the 14th century, during the Black Death, did what
human intellect could do in the actual condition of the healing art; and their
knowledge of the disease was by no means despicable. They, like the rest of
mankind, have indulged in prejudices, and defended them, perhaps, with
too much obstinacy; some of these, however, were founded on the mode of
thinking of the age, and passed current in those days, as established truths:
others continue to exist to the present hour.
Their successors in the 19th century, ought not therefore to vaunt too
highly the pre-eminence of their knowledge, for they too will be subjected
to the severe judgment of posterity—they too, will, with reason, be accused
of human weakness and want of foresight.
The medical faculty of Paris, the most celebrated of the 14th century,
were commissioned to deliver their opinion on the causes of the Black
Plague, and to furnish some appropriate regulations with regard to living,
during its prevalence. This document is sufficiently remarkable to find a
place here.

“We, the Members of the College of Physicians of Paris, have, after
mature consideration and consultation on the present mortality, collected
the advice of our old masters in the art, and intend to make known the
causes of this pestilence, more clearly than could be done according to the
rules and principles of astrology and natural science; we, therefore, declare
as follows:—
“It is known that in India, and the vicinity of the Great Sea, the
constellations which combated the rays of the sun, and the warmth of the
heavenly fire, exerted their power especially against that sea, and struggled
violently with its waters. (Hence, vapours often originate which envelope
the sun, and convert his light into darkness.) These vapours alternately rose
and fell for twenty-eight days; but at last, sun and fire acted so powerfully
upon the sea, that they attracted a great portion of it to themselves, and the
waters of the ocean arose in the form of vapour; thereby the waters were, in
some parts, so corrupted, that the fish which they contained, died. These
corrupted waters, however, the heat of the sun could not consume, neither
could other wholesome water, hail or snow, and dew, originate therefrom.
On the contrary, this vapour spread itself through the air in many places on
the earth, and enveloped them in fog.
“Such was the case all over Arabia, in a part of India; in Crete; in the
plains and valleys of Macedonia; in Hungary, Albania and Sicily. Should
the same thing occur in Sardinia, not a man will be left alive; and the like
will continue, so long as the sun remains in the sign of Leo, on all the
islands and adjoining countries to which this corrupted sea-wind extends, or
has already extended from India. If the inhabitants of those parts do not
employ and adhere to the following, or similar means and precepts, we
announce to them inevitable death—except the grace of Christ preserve
their lives.
“We are of opinion, that the constellations, with the aid of Nature, strive,
by virtue of their divine might, to protect and heal the human race; and to
this end, in union with the rays of the sun, acting through the power of fire,
endeavour to break through the mist. Accordingly, within the next ten days,
and until the 17th of the ensuing month of July, this mist will be converted
into a stinking deleterious rain, whereby the air will be much purified. Now,
as soon as this rain shall announce itself, by thunder or hail, every one of
you should protect himself from the air; and, as well before as after the rain,

kindle a large fire of vine-wood, green laurel, or other green wood;
wormwood and chamomile should also be burnt in great quantity in the
market-places, in other densely inhabited localities, and in the houses. Until
the earth is again completely dry, and for three days afterwards, no one
ought to go abroad in the fields. During this time the diet should be simple,
and people should be cautious in avoiding exposure in the cool of the
evening, at night, and in the morning. Poultry and water-fowl, young pork,
old beef, and fat meat, in general, should not be eaten; but on the contrary,
meat of a proper age, of a warm and dry, but on no account of a heating and
exciting nature. Broth should be taken, seasoned with ground pepper, ginger
and cloves, especially by those who are accustomed to live temperately, and
are yet choice in their diet. Sleep in the day-time is detrimental; it should be
taken at night until sunrise, or somewhat longer. At breakfast, one should
drink little; supper should be taken an hour before sunset, when more may
be drunk than in the morning. Clear light wine, mixed with a fifth or sixth
part of water, should be used as a beverage. Dried or fresh fruits, with wine,
are not injurious; but highly so without it. Beet-root and other vegetables,
whether eaten pickled or fresh, are hurtful; on the contrary, spicy pot-herbs,
as sage or rosemary, are wholesome. Cold, moist, watery food is in general
prejudicial. Going out at night, and even until three o’clock in the morning,
is dangerous, on account of the dew. Only small river fish should be used.
Too much exercise is hurtful. The body should be kept warmer than usual,
and thus protected from moisture and cold. Rain-water must not be
employed in cooking, and every one should guard against exposure to wet
weather. If it rain, a little fine treacle should be taken after dinner. Fat
people should not sit in the sunshine. Good clear wine should be selected
and drunk often, but in small quantities, by day. Olive oil as an article of
food, is fatal. Equally injurious are fasting and excessive abstemiousness,
anxiety of mind, anger, and immoderate drinking. Young people, in autumn
especially, must abstain from all these things, if they do not wish to run a
risk of dying of dysentery. In order to keep the body properly open, an
enema, or some other simple means, should be employed, when necessary.
Bathing is injurious. Men must preserve chastity as they value their lives.
Every one should impress this on his recollection, but especially those who
reside on the coast, or upon an island into which the noxious wind has
penetrated.”[160]

On what occasion these strange precepts were delivered can no longer be
ascertained, even if it were an object to know it. It must be acknowledged,
however, that they do not redound to the credit either of the faculty of Paris,
or of the 14th century in general. This famous faculty found themselves
under the painful necessity of being wise at command, and of firing a point
blank shot of erudition at an enemy who enveloped himself in a dark mist,
of the nature of which they had no conception. In concealing their
ignorance by authoritative assertions, they suffered themselves, therefore, to
be misled; and while endeavouring to appear to the world with eclat, only
betrayed to the intelligent their lamentable weakness. Now some might
suppose, that in the condition of the sciences of the 14th century, no
intelligent physicians existed; but this is altogether at variance with the laws
of human advancement, and is contradicted by history. The real knowledge
of an age is shewn only in the archives of its literature. Here alone the
genius of truth speaks audibly:—here alone men of talent deposit the results
of their experience and reflection, without vanity or a selfish object. There
is no ground for believing that, in the 14th century, men of this kind were
publicly questioned regarding their views; and it is, therefore, the more
necessary that impartial history should take up their cause and do justice to
their merits.
The first notice on this subject is due to a very celebrated teacher in
Perugia, Gentilis of Foligno, who, on the 18th of June, 1348, fell a sacrifice
to the plague, in the faithful discharge of his duty[161]. Attached to Arabian
doctrines, and to the universally respected Galen, he, in common with all
his contemporaries, believed in a putrid corruption of the blood in the lungs
and in the heart, which was occasioned by the pestilential atmosphere, and
was forthwith communicated to the whole body. He thought, therefore, that
every thing depended upon a sufficient purification of the air, by means of
large blazing fires of odoriferous wood, in the vicinity of the healthy, as
well as of the sick, and also upon an appropriate manner of living; so that
the putridity might not overpower the diseased. In conformity with notions
derived from the ancients, he depended upon bleeding and purging, at the
commencement of the attack, for the purpose of purification; ordered the
healthy to wash themselves frequently with vinegar or wine, to sprinkle
their dwellings with vinegar, and to smell often to camphor, or other volatile
substances. Hereupon he gave, after the Arabian fashion, detailed rules,
with an abundance of different medicines, of whose healing powers

wonderful things were believed. He laid little stress upon super-lunar
influences, so far as respected the malady itself; on which account, he did
not enter into the great controversies of the astrologers, but always kept in
view, as an object of medical attention, the corruption of the blood in the
lungs and heart. He believed in a progressive infection from country to
country, according to the notions of the present day; and the contagious
power of the disease, even in the vicinity of those affected by plague, was,
in his opinion, beyond all doubt[162]. On this point, intelligent
contemporaries were all agreed; and in truth, it required no great genius to
be convinced of so palpable a fact. Besides, correct notions of contagion
have descended from remote antiquity, and were maintained unchanged in
the 14th century[163]. So far back as the age of Plato, a knowledge of the
contagious power of malignant inflammations of the eye, of which also no
physician of the middle ages entertained a doubt[164], was general among
the people[165]; yet, in modern times, surgeons have filled volumes with
partial controversies on this subject. The whole language of antiquity has
adapted itself to the notions of the people, respecting the contagion of
pestilential diseases; and their terms were, beyond comparison, more
expressive than those in use among the moderns[166].
Arrangements for the protection of the healthy against contagious
diseases, the necessity of which is shewn from these notions, were regarded
by the ancients as useful; and by many, whose circumstances permitted it,
were carried into effect in their houses. Even a total separation of the sick
from the healthy, that indispensable means of protection against infection
by contact, was proposed by physicians of the 2nd century after Christ, in
order to check the spreading of leprosy. But it was decidedly opposed,
because, as it was alleged, the healing art ought not to be guilty of such
harshness[167]. This mildness of the ancients, in whose manner of thinking
inhumanity was so often and so undisguisedly conspicuous, might excite
surprise, if it were any thing more than apparent. The true ground of the
neglect of public protection against pestilential diseases, lay in the general
notion and constitution of human society,—it lay in the disregard of human
life, of which the great nations of antiquity have given proofs in every page
of their history. Let it not be supposed that they wanted knowledge
respecting the propagation of contagious diseases. On the contrary, they
were as well informed on this subject as the moderns; but this was shewn

where individual property, not where human life, on the grand scale, was to
be protected. Hence the ancients made a general practice of arresting the
progress of murrains among cattle, by a separation of the diseased from the
healthy. Their herds alone enjoyed that protection which they held it
impracticable to extend to human society, because they had no wish to do
so[168]. That the governments in the 14th century, were not yet so far
advanced, as to put into practice general regulations for checking the
plague, needs no especial proof. Physicians could, therefore, only advise
public purifications of the air by means of large fires, as had often been
practised in ancient times; and they were obliged to leave it to individual
families, either to seek safety in flight, or to shut themselves up in their
dwellings[169], a method which answers in common plagues, but which here
afforded no complete security, because such was the fury of the disease
when it was at its height, that the atmosphere of whole cities was penetrated
by the infection.
Of the astral influence which was considered to have originated the
“Great Mortality,” physicians and learned men were as completely
convinced as of the fact of its reality. A grand conjunction of the three
superior planets, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, in the sign of Aquarius, which
took place, according to Guy de Chauliac, on the 24th of March, 1345, was
generally received as its principal cause. In fixing the day, this physician,
who was deeply versed in astrology, did not agree with others; whereupon
there arose various disputations, of weight in that age, but of none in ours;
people, however, agreed in this—that conjunctions of the planets infallibly
prognosticated great events; great revolutions of kingdoms, new prophets,
destructive plagues, and other occurrences which bring distress and horror
on mankind. No medical author of the 14th and 15th centuries omits an
opportunity of representing them as among the general prognostics of great
plagues; nor can we, for our parts, regard the astrology of the middle ages,
as a mere offspring of superstition. It has not only, in common with all ideas
which inspire and guide mankind, a high historical importance, entirely
independent of its error or truth—for the influence of both is equally
powerful—but there are also contained in it, as in alchymy, grand thoughts
of antiquity, of which modern natural philosophy is so little ashamed that
she claims them as her property. Foremost among these, is the idea of the
general life which diffuses itself throughout the whole universe, expressed

by the greatest Greek sages, and transmitted to the middle ages, through the
new Platonic natural philosophy. To this impression of an universal
organism, the assumption of a reciprocal influence of terrestrial bodies
could not be foreign[170], nor did this cease to correspond with a higher
view of nature, until astrologers overstepped the limits of human knowledge
with frivolous and mystical calculations.
Guy de Chauliac, considers the influence of the conjunction, which was
held to be all-potent, as the chief general cause of the Black Plague; and the
diseased state of bodies, the corruption of the fluids, debility, obstruction,
and so forth, as the especial subordinate causes[171]. By these, according to
his opinion, the quality of the air, and of the other elements, was so altered,
that they set poisonous fluids in motion towards the inward parts of the
body, in the same manner as the magnet attracts iron; whence there arose in
the commencement fever and the spitting of blood; afterwards, however, a
deposition in the form of glandular swellings and inflammatory boils.
Herein the notion of an epidemic constitution was set forth clearly, and
conformably to the spirit of the age. Of contagion, Guy de Chauliac was
completely convinced. He sought to protect himself against it by the usual
means[172]; and it was probably he who advised Pope Clement VI. to shut
himself up while the plague lasted. The preservation of this pope’s life,
however, was most beneficial to the city of Avignon, for he loaded the poor
with judicious acts of kindness, took care to have proper attendants
provided, and paid physicians himself to afford assistance wherever human
aid could avail—an advantage which, perhaps, no other city enjoyed[173].
Nor was the treatment of plague-patients in Avignon by any means
objectionable; for, after the usual depletions by bleeding and aperients,
where circumstances required them, they endeavoured to bring the buboes
to suppuration; they made incisions into the inflammatory boils, or burned
them with a red-hot iron, a practice which at all times proves salutary, and
in the Black Plague saved many lives. In this city, the Jews, who lived in a
state of the greatest filth, were most severely visited, as also the Spaniards,
whom Chalin accuses of great intemperance[174].
Still more distinct notions on the causes of the plague were stated to his
contemporaries in the 14th century, by Galeazzo di Santa Sofia, a learned
man, a native of Padua, who likewise treated plague-patients at Vienna[175],
though in what year is undetermined. He distinguishes carefully pestilence

from epidemy and endemy. The common notion of the two first accords
exactly with that of an epidemic constitution, for both consist, according to
him, in an unknown change or corruption of the air; with this difference,
that pestilence calls forth diseases of different kinds; epidemy, on the
contrary, always the same disease. As an example of an epidemy, he
adduces a cough (influenza) which was observed in all climates at the same
time, without perceptible cause; but he recognised the approach of a
pestilence, independently of unusual natural phenomena, by the more
frequent occurrence of various kinds of fever, to which the modern
physicians would assign a nervous and putrid character. The endemy
originates, according to him, only in local telluric changes—in deleterious
influences which develop themselves in the earth and in the water, without a
corruption of the air. These notions were variously jumbled together in his
time, like every thing which human understanding separates by too fine a
line of limitation. The estimation of cosmical influences, however, in the
epidemy and pestilence, is well worthy of commendation; and Santa Sofia,
in this respect, not only agrees with the most intelligent persons of the 14th
and 15th centuries, but he has also promulgated an opinion which must,
even now, serve as a foundation for our scarcely commenced investigations
into cosmical influences[176]. Pestilence and epidemy, consist not in
alterations of the four primary qualities[177], but in a corruption of the air,
powerful, though quite immaterial, and not cognoscible by the senses:—
(corruptio aëris non substantialis, sed qualitativa) in a disproportion of the
imponderables in the atmosphere, as it would be expressed by the
moderns[178]. The causes of the pestilence and epidemy are, first of all,
astral influences, especially on occasion of planetary conjunctions; then
extensive putrefaction of animal and vegetable bodies, and terrestrial
corruptions (corruptio in terra); to which also, bad diet and want may
contribute. Santa Sofia considers the putrefaction of locusts, that had
perished in the sea, and were again thrown up, combined with astral and
terrestrial influences, as the cause of the pestilence in the eventful year of
the “Great Mortality.”
All the fevers which were called forth by the pestilence, are, according to
him, of the putrid kind; for they originate principally from putridity of the
heart’s blood, which inevitably follows the inhalation of infected air. The
Oriental Plague is, sometimes, but by no means always, occasioned by

pestilence (?), which imparts to it a character (qualitas occulta) hostile to
human nature. It originates frequently from other causes, among which, this
physician was aware that contagion was to be reckoned; and it deserves to
be remarked, that he held epidemic small-pox and measles to be infallible
forerunners of the plague, as do the physicians and people of the East[179],
at the present day.
In the exposition of his therapeutical views of the plague, a clearness of
intellect is again shewn by Santa Sofia, which reflects credit on the age. It
seemed to him to depend, 1st, on an evacuation of putrid matters, by
purgatives and bleeding: yet he did not sanction the employment of these
means indiscriminately, and without consideration; least of all where the
condition of the blood was healthy. He also declared himself decidedly
against bleeding ad deliquium (venæ sectio eradicativa). 2d, Strengthening
of the heart and prevention of putrescence. 3d, Appropriate regimen. 4th,
Improvement of the air. 5th, Appropriate treatment of tumid glands and
inflammatory boils, with emollient, or even stimulating poultices (mustard,
lily-bulbs), as well as with red-hot gold and iron. Lastly, 6th, Attention to
prominent symptoms. The stores of the Arabian pharmacy, which he
brought into action to meet all these indications, were indeed very
considerable; it is to be observed, however, that, for the most part, gentle
means were accumulated, which, in case of abuse, would do no harm; for
the character of the Arabian system of medicine, whose principles were
everywhere followed at this time, was mildness and caution. On this
account too, we cannot believe that a very prolix treatise by Marsigli di
Santa Sofia[180], a contemporary relative of Galeazzo, on the prevention and
treatment of plague, can have caused much harm, although, perhaps, even
in the 14th century, an agreeable latitude and confident assertions respecting
things which no mortal has investigated, or which it is quite a matter of
indifference to distinguish, were considered as proofs of a valuable practical
talent.
The agreement of contemporary and later writers, shews that the
published views of the most celebrated physicians of the 14th century, were
those generally adopted. Among these, Chalin de Vinario is the most
experienced. Though devoted to astrology, still more than his distinguished
contemporary, he acknowledges the great power of terrestrial influences,
and expresses himself very sensibly on the indisputable doctrine of

contagion, endeavouring thereby to apologize for many surgeons and
physicians of his time, who neglected their duty[181]. He asserted boldly,
and with truth, “that all epidemic diseases might become contagious[182],
and all fevers epidemic,” which attentive observers of all subsequent ages
have confirmed.
He delivered his sentiments on blood-letting with sagacity, as an
experienced physician; yet he was unable, as may be imagined, to moderate
the desire for bleeding shewn by the ignorant monks. He was averse to
draw blood from the veins of patients under fourteen years of age; but
counteracted inflammatory excitement in them by cupping; and
endeavoured to moderate the inflammation of the tumid glands by
leeches[183]. Most of those who were bled, died; he therefore reserved this
remedy for the plethoric; especially for the papal courtiers, and the
hypocritical priests, whom he saw gratifying their sensual desires, and
imitating Epicurus, whilst they pompously pretended to follow Christ[184].
He recommended burning the boils with a red-hot iron, only in the plague
without fever, which occurred in single cases[185]; and was always ready to
correct those over-hasty surgeons, who, with fire and violent remedies, did
irremediable injury to their patients[186]. Michael Savonarola, professor in
Ferrara (1462), reasoning on the susceptibility of the human frame to the
influence of pestilential infection, as the cause of such various
modifications of disease, expresses himself as a modern physician would on
this point; and an adoption of the principle of contagion was the foundation
of his definition of the plague[187]. No less worthy of observation are the
views of the celebrated Valescus of Taranta, who, during the final visitation
of the Black Death, in 1382, practised as a physician at Montpellier, and
handed down to posterity what has been repeated in innumerable treatises
on plague, which were written during the 15th and 16th centuries[188].
Of all these notions and views regarding the plague, whose development
we have represented, there are two especially, which are prominent in
historical importance:—1st, The opinion of learned physicians, that the
pestilence, or epidemic constitution, is the parent of various kinds of
disease; that the plague sometimes, indeed, but by no means always,
originates from it: that, to speak in the language of the moderns, the
pestilence bears the same relation to contagion, that a predisposing cause

does to an occasional cause: and 2dly, the universal conviction of the
contagious power of that disease.
Contagion gradually attracted more notice: it was thought that in it, the
most powerful occasional cause might be avoided; the possibility of
protecting whole cities by separation, became gradually more evident; and
so horrifying was the recollection of the eventful year of the “Great
Mortality,” that before the close of the 14th century, ere the ill effects of the
Black Plague had ceased, nations endeavoured to guard against the return of
this enemy, by an earnest and effectual defence.
The first regulation which was issued for this purpose, originated with
Viscount Bernabo, and is dated the 17th Jan. 1374. “Every plague-patient
was to be taken out of the city into the fields, there to die or to recover.
Those who attended upon a plague-patient, were to remain apart for ten
days, before they again associated with any body. The priests were to
examine the diseased, and point out to special commissioners the persons
infected; under punishment of the confiscation of their goods, and of being
burned alive. Whoever imported the plague, the state condemned his goods
to confiscation. Finally, none except those who were appointed for that
purpose, were to attend plague-patients, under penalty of death and
confiscation[189].”
These orders, in correspondence with the spirit of the 14th century, are
sufficiently decided to indicate a recollection of the good effects of
confinement, and of keeping at a distance those suspected of having plague.
It was said that Milan itself, by a rigorous barricado of three houses in
which the plague had broken out, maintained itself free from the “Great
Mortality,” for a considerable time[190]; and examples of the preservation of
individual families, by means of a strict separation, were certainly very
frequent. That these orders must have caused universal affliction from their
uncommon severity, as we know to have been especially the case in the city
of Reggio, may be easily conceived; but Bernabo did not suffer himself to
be deterred from his purpose by fear—on the contrary, when the plague
returned in the year 1383, he forbad the admission of people from infected
places into his territories, on pain of death[191]. We have now, it is true, no
account how far he succeeded; yet it is to be supposed that he arrested the
disease, for it had long lost the property of the Black Death, to spread

abroad in the air the contagious matter which proceeded from the lungs,
charged with putridity, and to taint the atmosphere of whole cities by the
vast numbers of the sick. Now that it had resumed its milder form, so that it
infected only by contact, it admitted being confined within individual
dwellings, as easily as in modern times.
Bernabo’s example was imitated; nor was there any century more
appropriate for recommending to governments strong regulations against
the plague, than the 14th; for when it broke out in Italy, in the year 1399,
and still demanded new victims, it was for the 16th time; without reckoning
frequent visitations of measles and small-pox. In this same year, Viscount
John, in milder terms than his predecessor, ordered that no stranger should
be admitted from infected places, and that the city gates should be strictly
guarded. Infected houses were to be ventilated for at least eight or ten days,
and purified from noxious vapours by fires, and by fumigations with
balsamic and aromatic substances. Straw, rags, and the like, were to be
burned; and the bedsteads which had been used, set out for four days in the
rain or the sunshine, so that, by means of the one or the other, the morbific
vapour might be destroyed. No one was to venture to make use of clothes or
beds out of infected dwellings, unless they had been previously washed and
dried either at the fire or in the sun. People were, likewise, to avoid, as long
as possible, occupying houses which had been frequented by plague-
patients[192].
We cannot precisely perceive in these an advance towards general
regulations; and perhaps people were convinced of the insurmountable
impediments which opposed the separation of open inland countries, where
bodies of people connected together could not be brought, even by the most
obdurate severity, to renounce the habit of a profitable intercourse.
Doubtless it is nature which has done the most to banish the Oriental
plague from western Europe, where the increasing cultivation of the earth,
and the advancing order in civilized society, have prevented it from
remaining domesticated; which it most probably was in the more ancient
times.
In the 15th century, during which it broke out seventeen times in different
places in Europe[193], it was of the more consequence to oppose a barrier to
its entrance from Asia, Africa, and Greece (which had become Turkish); for

it would have been difficult for it to maintain itself indigenously any longer.
Among the southern commercial states, however, which were called on to
make the greatest exertions to this end, it was principally Venice, formerly
so severely attacked by the Black Plague, that put the necessary restraint
upon the perilous profits of the merchant. Until towards the end of the 15th
century, the very considerable intercourse with the East was free and
unimpeded. Ships of commercial cities had often brought over the plague:
nay, the former irruption of the “Great Mortality” itself had been
occasioned by navigators. For, as in the latter end of Autumn, 1347, four
ships full of plague-patients returned from the Levant to Genoa, the disease
spread itself there with astonishing rapidity. On this account, in the
following year, the Genoese forbad the entrance of suspected ships into
their port. These sailed to Pisa and other cities on the coast, where already
nature had made such mighty preparations for the reception of the Black
Plague, and what we have already described took place in consequence[194].
In the year 1485, when, among the cities of northern Italy, Milan
especially felt the scourge of the plague, a special council of health,
consisting of three nobles, was established at Venice, who probably tried
every thing in their power to prevent the entrance of this disease, and
gradually called into activity all those regulations which have served in later
times as a pattern for the other southern states of Europe. Their endeavours
were, however, not crowned with complete success; on which account their
powers were increased, in the year 1504, by granting them the right of life
and death over those who violated the regulations[195]. Bills of health were
probably first introduced in the year 1527, during a fatal plague[196] which
visited Italy for five years (1525–30), and called forth redoubled caution.
The first lazarettos were established upon islands at some distance from
the city, seemingly as early as the year 1485. Here all strangers coming
from places where the existence of plague was suspected were detained. If
it appeared in the city itself, the sick were despatched with their families to
what was called the Old Lazaretto, were there furnished with provisions and
medicines, and, when they were cured, were detained, together with all
those who had had intercourse with them, still forty days longer in the New
Lazaretto, situated on another island. All these regulations were every year
improved, and their needful rigour was increased, so that from the year
1585 onwards, no appeal was allowed from the sentence of the Council of

Health; and the other commercial nations gradually came to the support of
the Venetians, by adopting corresponding regulations[197]. Bills of health,
however, were not general until the year 1665[198].
The appointment of a forty days’ detention, whence quarantines derive
their name, was not dictated by caprice, but probably had a medical origin,
which is derivable in part from the doctrine of critical days; for the fortieth
day, according to the most ancient notions, has been always regarded as the
last of ardent diseases, and the limit of separation between these and those
which are chronic. It was the custom to subject lying-in women for forty
days to a more exact superintendence. There was a good deal also said in
medical works of forty day epochs in the formation of the fœtus, not to
mention that the alchymists expected more durable revolutions in forty
days, which period they called the philosophical month.
This period being generally held to prevail in natural processes, it
appeared reasonable to assume, and legally to establish it, as that required
for the development of latent principles of contagion, since public
regulations cannot dispense with decisions of this kind, even though they
should not be wholly justified by the nature of the case. Great stress has
likewise been laid on theological and legal grounds, which were certainly of
greater weight in the fifteenth century than in more modern times[199].
On this matter, however, we cannot decide, since our only object here is
to point out the origin of a political means of protection against a disease,
which has been the greatest impediment to civilization within the memory
of man; a means, that, like Jenner’s vaccine, after the small-pox had
ravaged Europe for twelve hundred years, has diminished the check which
mortality puts on the progress of civilization, and thus given to the life and
manners of the nations of this part of the world a new direction, the result of
which we cannot foretell.

APPENDIX.

I.
Das alte Geisslerlied
NACH MASSMANN’S AUSGABE VON HERRN PROFESSOR LACHMANN MIT DER HANDSCHRIFT VERGLICHEN.

Sve siner sele wille pleghen
De sal gelden unde weder geuen
So wert siner sele raed
Des help uns leue herre goed
Nu tredet here we botsen wille 5
Vle wi io de hetsen helle
Lucifer is en bose geselle
Sven her hauet
Mit peke he en lauet
Datz vle wi ef wir hauen sin 10
Des help uns maria koninghin
Das wir dines kindes hulde win
Jesus crist de wart ge vanghen
An en cruce wart he ge hanghen
Dat cruce wart des blodes rod 15
Wer klaghen sin marter unde sin dod
Sunder war mide wilt tu mi lonen
Dre negele unde en dornet crone
Das cruce vrone en sper en stich
Sunder datz leyd ich dor dich 20
Was wltu nu liden dor mich
So rope wir herre mit luden done
Unsen denst den nem to lone
Be hode uns vor der helle nod
Des bidde wi dich dor dinen dod 25
Dor god vor gete wi unse blot
Dat is uns tho den suden guot
Maria muoter koninginghe
Dor dines leuen kindes minne
Al unse nod si dir ghe klaghet 30
Des help uns moter maghet reyne.
De erde beuet och kleuen de steyne
Lebe hertze du salt weyne
Wir wenen trene mit den oghen
Unde hebben des so guden louen 35
Mit unsen sinnen unde mit hertzen
Dor uns leyd crist vil manighen smertzen
Nu slaed w sere
Dor cristus ere.
Dor god nu latet de sunde mere 40
Dor god nu latet de sunde varen
Se wil sich god ouer uns en barmen
Maria stund in grotzen noden
Do se ire leue kint sa doden
En svert dor ire sele snet 45
Sunder dat la di wesen led
In korter vrist
God tornich ist
Jesus wart gelauet mid gallen
Des sole wi an en cruce vallen 50
Er heuet uch mit uwen armen

Er heuet uch mit uwen armen
Dat sic god ouer uns en barme
Jesus dorch dine namen dry
Nu make uns hir van sunde vry
Jesus dor dine wnden rod 55
Be hod uns vor den gehen dod
Dat he sende sinen geist
Und uns dat kortelike leist
De vrowe unde man ir e tobreken
Dat wil god selven an en wreken 60
Sveuel pik und och de galle
Dat gutet de duuel in se alle
Vor war sint se des duuels spot
Dor vor behode uns herre god
De e de ist en reyne leuen 65
De had uns god selven gheuen
Ich rade uch vrowen unde mannen
Dor god gy solen houard annen
Des biddet uch de arme sele
Dorch god nu latet houard mere 70
Dor god nu latet houard varen
So wil sich god ouer uns en barmen
Cristus rep in hemelrike
Sinen engelen al gelike
De cristenheit wil mi ent wichen 75
Des wil lan och se vor gaen
Marie bat ire kint so sere
Leue kint la se di boten
Dat wil ich sceppen dat se moten
Bekeren sich. 80
Des bidde ich dich
Gi logenere
Gy meynen ed sverer
Gi bichten reyne und lan de sunde uch ruwen
So wil sich god in uch vor nuwen 85
Owe du arme wokerere
Du bringest en lod up en punt
Dat senket din an der helle grunt
Ir morder und ir straten rouere
Ir sint dem leuen gode un mere 90
Ir ne wilt uch ouer nemende barmen
Des sin gy eweliken vor loren
Were dusse bote nicht ge worden
De cristenheit wer gar vorsunden
De leyde duuel had se ge bunden 95
Maria had lost unsen bant
Sunder ich saghe di leue mere
Sunte peter is portenere
Wende dich an en he letset dich in
He bringhet dich vor de koninghin 100
Leue herre sunte Michahel
Du bist en plegher aller sel

Du bist en plegher aller sel
Be hode uns vor der helle nod
Dat do dor dines sceppers dod.

The Ancient Song of the Flagellants.
ACCORDING TO MASSMANN’S EDITION COMPARED WITH THE MS. BY PROFESSOR LACHMANN.

(Translation.)

Whoe’er to save his soul is fain,
Must pay and render back again.
His safety so shall he consult:
Help us, good Lord, to this result.
Ye that repent your crimes, draw nigh. 5
From the burning hell we fly,
From Satan’s wicked company.
Whom he leads
With pitch he feeds.
If we be wise we this shall flee. 10
Maria! Queen! we trust in thee,
To move thy Son to sympathy.
Jesus Christ was captive led,
And to the cross was riveted.
The cross was reddened with his gore 15
And we his martyrdom deplore.
“Sinner, canst thou to me atone.
Three pointed nails, a thorny crown,
The holy cross, a spear, a wound,
These are the cruel pangs I found. 20
What wilt thou, sinner, bear for me?”
Lord, with loud voice we answer thee,
Accept our service in return,
And save us lest in hell we burn.
We, through thy death, to thee have sued. 25
For God in heaven we shed our blood:
This for our sins will work to good.
Blessed Maria! Mother! Queen!
Through thy loved Son’s redeeming mean
Be all our wants to thee portrayed. 30
Aid us, Mother! spotless maid!
Trembles the earth, the rocks are rent[200],
Fond heart of mine, thou must relent.
Tears from our sorrowing eyes we weep;
Therefore so firm our faith we keep 35
With all our hearts—with all our senses.
Christ bore his pangs for our offences.
Ply well the scourge for Jesus’ sake,
And God through Christ your sins shall take.
For love of God abandon sin, 40
To mend your vicious lives begin,
So shall we his mercy win.
Direful was Maria’s pain
When she beheld her dear One slain.
Pierced was her soul as with a dart: 45
Sinner, let this affect thy heart.
The time draws near
When God in anger shall appear.
Jesus was refreshed with gall:
Prostrate crosswise let us fall, 50
Th ith lift d i

Then with uplifted arms arise,
That God with us may sympathize.
Jesus, by thy titles three[201],
From our bondage set us free.
Jesus, by thy precious blood, 55
Save us from the fiery flood.
Lord, our helplessness defend,
And to our aid thy Spirit send.
If man and wife their vows should break
God will on such his vengeance wreak. 60
Brimstone and pitch, and mingled gall,
Satan pours on such sinners all.
Truly, the devil’s scorn are they:
Therefore, O Lord, thine aid we pray.
Wedlock’s an honourable tie 65
Which God himself doth sanctify.
By this warning, man, abide,
God shall surely punish pride.
Let your precious soul entreat you,
Lay down pride lest vengeance meet you. 70
I do beseech ye, pride forsake,
So God on us shall pity take.
Christ in heaven, where he commands,
Thus addressed his angel bands:—
“Christendom dishonours me, 75
Therefore her ruin I decree.”
Then Mary thus implored her Son:—
“Penance to thee, loved Child, be done;
That she repent be mine the care;
Stay then thy wrath, and hear my prayer.” 80
Ye liars!
Ye that break your sacrament,
Shrive ye throughly and repent.
Your heinous sins sincerely rue,
So shall the Lord your hearts renew. 85
Woe! usurer, though thy wealth abound,
For every ounce thou mak’st a pound
Shall sink thee to the hell profound.
Ye murd’rers, and ye robbers all,
The wrath of God on you shall fall, 90
Mercy ye ne’er to others shew,
None shall ye find; but endless woe.
Had it not been for our contrition,
All Christendom had met perdition.
Satan had bound her in his chain; 95
Mary hath loosed her bonds again.
Glad news I bring thee, sinful mortal,
In heaven Saint Peter keeps the portal,
Apply to him with suppliant mien,
He bringeth thee before thy Queen. 100
Benignant Michael, blessed saint,

Be g a t c ae , b essed sa t,
Guardian of souls, receive our plaint.
Through thy Almighty Maker’s death,
Preserve us from the hell beneath.

II.
Examination of the Jews accused of poisoning the Wells[202].

Answer from the Castellan of Chillon to the City of Strasburg, together with
a Copy of the Inquisition and Confession of several Jews confined in the
Castle of Chillon on suspicion of poisoning. Anno 1348.
To the Honorable the Mayor, Senate and Citizens of the City of
Strasburg, the Castellan of Chillon, Deputy of the Bailiff of Chablais,
sendeth greeting with all due submission and respect.

Understanding that you desire to be made acquainted with the confession
of the Jews, and the proofs brought forward against them, I certify, by these
presents, to you, and each of you that desires to be informed, that they of
Berne have had a copy of the inquisition and confession of the Jews who
lately resided in the places specified, and who were accused of putting
poison into the wells and several other places: as also the most conclusive
evidence of the truth of the charge preferred against them. Many Jews were
put to the question, others being excused from it, because they confessed,
and were brought to trial and burnt. Several Christians, also, who had
poison given them by the Jews for the purpose of destroying the Christians,
were put on the wheel and tortured. This burning of the Jews and torturing
of the said Christians took place in many parts of the county of Savoy.
Fare you well.

The Confession made on the 15th day of September, in the year of our Lord
1348, in the Castle of Chillon, by the Jews arrested in Neustadt, on the
Charge of Poisoning the Wells, Springs and other places; also Food, &c.,
with the design of destroying and extirpating all Christians.

I. Balavignus, a Jewish physician, inhabitant of Thonon, was arrested at
Chillon in consequence of being found in the neighbourhood. He was put
for a short time to the rack, and on being taken down, confessed, after much
hesitation, that, about ten weeks before, the Rabbi Jacob of Toledo, who,
because of a citation, had resided at Chamberi since Easter, sent him, by a
Jewish boy, some poison in the mummy of an egg: it was a powder sewed
up in a thin leathern pouch accompanied by a letter, commanding him, on
penalty of excommunication, and by his required obedience to the law, to
throw this poison into the larger and more frequented wells of the town of
Thonon, to poison those who drew water there. He was further enjoined not
to communicate the circumstance to any person whatever, under the same
penalty. In conformity with this command of the Jewish rabbis and doctors
of the law, he, Balavignus, distributed the poison in several places, and
acknowledged having one evening placed a certain portion under a stone in
a spring on the shore at Thonon. He further confessed that the said boy
brought various letters of a similar import, addressed to others of his nation,
and particularly specified some directed severally to Mossoiet, Banditon,
and Samoleto of Neustadt; to Musseo Abramo and Aquetus of Montreantz,
Jews residing at Thurn in Vivey; to Benetonus and his son at St. Moritz; to
Vivianus Jacobus, Aquetus and Sonetus, Jews at Aquani. Several letters of a
like nature were sent to Abram and Musset, Jews at Moncheoli; and the boy
told him that he had taken many others to different and distant places, but
he did not recollect to whom they were addressed. Balavignus further
confessed that, after having put the poison into the spring at Thonon, he had
positively forbidden his wife and children to drink the water, but had not
thought fit to assign a reason. He avowed the truth of this statement, and, in
the presence of several credible witnesses, swore by his law, and the Five
Books of Moses, to every item of his deposition.
On the day following, Balavignus, voluntarily and without torture,
ratified the above confession verbatim before many persons of character,
and, of his own accord, acknowledged that, on returning one day from Tour
near Vivey, he had thrown into a well below Mustruez, namely that of La
Conerayde, a quantity of the poison tied up in a rag, given to him for the
purpose by Aquetus of Montreantz, an inhabitant of the said Tour: that he
had acquainted Manssiono, and his son Delosaz, residents of Neustadt, with
the circumstance of his having done so, and advertised them not to drink of
the water. He described the colour of the poison as being red and black.

On the nineteenth day of September, the above-named Balavignus
confessed, without torture, that about three weeks after Whitsuntide, a Jew
named Mussus told him that he had thrown poison into the well, in the
custom-house of that place, the property of the Borneller family; and that he
no longer drank the water of this well, but that of the lake. He further
deposed that Mussus informed him that he had also laid some of the poison
under the stones in the custom-house at Chillon. Search was accordingly
made in this well, and the poison found: some of it was given to a Jew by
way of trial, and he died in consequence. He also stated that the rabbis had
ordered him and other Jews to refrain from drinking of the water for nine
days after the poison was infused into it; and immediately on having
poisoned the waters, he communicated the circumstance to the other Jews.
He, Balavignus, confessed that about two months previously, being at
Evian, he had some conversation on the subject with a Jew called Jacob,
and, among other things, asked him whether he also had received writings
and poison, and was answered in the affirmative; he then questioned him
whether he had obeyed the command, and Jacob replied that he had not, but
had given the poison to Savetus, a Jew, who had thrown it into the Well de
Morer at Evian. Jacob also desired him, Balavignus, to execute the
command imposed on him with due caution. He confessed that Aquetus of
Montreantz had informed him that he had thrown some of the poison into
the well above Tour, the water of which he sometimes drank. He confessed
that Samolet had told him that he had laid the poison which he had
received, in a well, which, however, he refused to name to him. Balavignus,
as a physician, further deposed that a person infected by such poison
coming in contact with another while in a state of perspiration, infection
would be the almost inevitable result; as might also happen from the breath
of an infected person. This fact he believed to be correct, and was
confirmed in his opinion by the attestation of many experienced physicians.
He also declared that none of his community could exculpate themselves
from this accusation, as the plot was communicated to all; and that all were
guilty of the above charges. Balavignus was conveyed over the lake from
Chillon to Clarens, to point out the well into which he confessed having
thrown the powder. On landing, he was conducted to the spot; and, having
seen the well, acknowledged that to be the place, saying, “This is the well
into which I put the poison.” The well was examined in his presence, and
the linen cloth in which the poison had been wrapped was found in the

wastepipe by a notary-public named Heinrich Gerhard, in the presence of
many persons, and was shewn to the said Jew. He acknowledged this to be
the linen which had contained the poison, which he described as being of
two colours, red and black, but said that he had thrown it into the open well.
The linen cloth was taken away and is preserved.
Balavignus, in conclusion, attests the truth of all and every thing as above
related. He believes this poison to contain a portion of the basilisk, because
he had heard, and felt assured, that the above poison could not be prepared
without it.

II. Banditono, a Jew of Neustadt, was, on the fifteenth day of September,
subjected for a short time to the torture. After a long interval, he confessed
having cast a quantity of poison, about the size of a large nut, given him by
Musseus, a Jew, at Tour, near Vivey, into the well of Carutet, in order to
poison those who drank of it.
The following day, Banditono, voluntarily and without torture, attested
the truth of the aforesaid deposition; and also confessed that the Rabbi
Jacob von Pasche, who came from Toledo and had settled at Chamberi, sent
him, at Pilliex, by a Jewish servant, some poison about the size of a large
nut, together with a letter directing him to throw the powder into the wells
on pain of excommunication. He had therefore thrown the poison, which
was sown up in a leathern bag, into the well of Cercliti de Roch; further,
also, that he saw many other letters in the hands of the servant addressed to
different Jews; that he had also seen the said servant deliver one, on the
outside of the upper gate, to Samuletus, the Jew, at Neustadt. He stated,
also, that the Jew, Massolet, had informed him that he had put poison into
the well near the bridge at Vivey.

III. The said Manssiono, Jew of Neustadt, was put upon the rack on the
fifteenth day of the same month, but refused to admit the above charge,
protesting his entire ignorance of the whole matter; but the day following,
he, voluntarily and without any torture, confessed, in the presence of many
persons, that he came from Mancheolo one day in last Whitsun-week, in
company with a Jew named Provenzal, and, on reaching the well of
Chabloz Crüez between Vyona and Mura, the latter said, “You must put

some of the poison which I will give you into that well, or woe betide you!”
He therefore took a portion of the powder about the bigness of a nut, and
did as he was directed. He believed that the Jews in the neighbourhood of
Evian had convened a council among themselves relative to this plot, before
Whitsuntide. He further said that Balavignus had informed him of his
having poisoned the well de la Conerayde below Mustruez. He also
affirmed his conviction of the culpability of the Jews in this affair, stating
that they were fully acquainted with all the particulars, and guilty of the
alleged crime.
On the third day of the October following, Manssiono was brought
before the commissioners, and did not in the least vary from his former
deposition, or deny having put the poison into the said wells.
The above-named Jews, prior to their execution, solemnly swore by their
Law to the truth of their several depositions, and declared that all Jews
whatsoever, from seven years old and upwards, could not be exempted from
the charge of guilt, as all of them were acquainted with the plot, and more
or less participators in the crime.
[The seven other examinations scarcely differ from the above, except in
the names of the accused, and afford but little variety. We will, therefore,
only add a characteristic passage at the conclusion of this document. The
whole speaks for itself.]
There still remain numerous proofs and accusations against the above-
mentioned Jews: also against Jews and Christians in different parts of the
county of Savoy, who have already received the punishment due to their
heinous crime; which, however, I have not at hand, and cannot therefore
send you. I must add, that all the Jews of Neustadt were burnt according to
the just sentence of the law. At Augst, I was present when three Christians
were flayed on account of being accessory to the plot of poisoning. Very
many Christians were arrested for this crime in various places in this
country, especially at Evian, Gebenne, Krusilien and Hochstett, who at last
and in their dying moments were brought to confess and acknowledge that
they had received the poison from the Jews. Of these Christians some have
been quartered; others flayed and afterwards hanged. Certain
commissioners have been appointed by the magistrates to enforce judgment
against all the Jews; and I believe that none will escape.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] I might here enlarge on the general importance of the study of epidemics; but this
has been so fully set forth in the author’s Address to the Physicians of Germany, which
immediately follows, as well as in the Preface to the Sweating Sickness, at p. 177, that
any further observations on this subject would be superfluous on my part.
[2] στε καὶ ἐλέχθη ὑπ’ αὐτῶν ὡς οἱ Πελοποννήσιοι φάρμακα ἐσβεβλήκοιεν ἐς τὰ
φρέατα. Thucyd. Hist. B. ii. 49. “The disease was attributed by the people to poison,
and nothing apparently could be more authentic than the reports that were spread of
miscreants taken in the act of putting poisonous drugs into the food and drink of the
common people.” Observations on the Cholera in St. Petersburg, p. 9. by G. W.
Lefevre, M.D. 8vo. 1831.
[3] Only two copies are known to exist, one in the British Museum, and one in the
library of the College of Physicians.
[4] La Mortalega Grande. Matth. de Griffonibus. Muratori. Script. rer. Italicar. T.
XVIII. p. 167. D. They were called by others Anguinalgia. Andr. Gratiol. Discorso di
Peste. Venet. 1576. 4to. Swedish: Diger-döden. Loccenii Histor. Suecan. L. III. p. 104.
—Danish: den sorte Dod. Pontan. Rer. Danicar. Histor. L. VIII. p. 476.—Amstelod.
1631, fol. Icelandic: Svatur Daudi. Saabye, Tagebuch in Grönland. Introduction XVIII.
Mansa, de Epidemiis maxime memorabilibus, quæ in Dania grassatæ sunt, &c. Part I. p.
12. Havniæ, 1831, 8.—In Westphalia the name of de groete Doet was prevalent.
Meibom.
[5] Joann. Cantacuzen. Historiar. L. IV. c. 8. Ed. Paris. p. 730. 5. The ex-emperor has
indeed copied some passages from Thucydides, as Sprengel justly observes, (Appendix
to the Geschichte der Medicin. Vol. I. H. I. S. 73,) though this was most probably only
for the sake of rounding a period. This is no detriment to his credibility, because his
statements accord with the other accounts.
[6] Ἀποστάσεις μεγάλαι.
[7] Μελαίναι φλυκτίδες.
[8] ὥσπερ στίγματα μέλανα.
[9] Guidon. de Cauliaco Chirurgia. Tract 11. c. 5. p. 113. Ed. Lugdun. 1572.
[10] Et fuit tantæ contagiositatis specialiter quæ fuit cum sputo sanguinis, quod non
solum morando, sed etiam inspiciendo unus recipiebat ab alio: intantum quod gentes
moriebantur sine servitoribus, et sepeliebantur sine sacerdotibus, pater non visitabat
filium, nec filius patrem: charitas erat mortua, spes prostrata.
[11] Deguignes, Histoire générale des Huns, des Turcs, des Mogols, &c. Tom. IV. Paris,
1758. 4to. p. 226.
[12] Decameron. Giorn. I. Introd.
[13] From this period black petechiæ have always been considered as fatal in the
plague.
[14] A very usual circumstance in plague epidemics.

[15] Auger. de Biterris, Vitæ Romanor. pontificum, Muratori Scriptor. rer. Italic. Vol.
III. Pt. II. p. 556.
[16] Contin. altera Chronici Guillelmi de Nangis in d’Acher, Spicilegium sive Collectio
Veterum Scriptorum, &c. Ed. de la Barre, Tom. III. p. 110.
[17] “The people all died of boils and inflamed glands which appeared under the arms
and in the groins.” Jac. v. Königshoven, the oldest Chronicle of Alsace and Strasburg,
and indeed of all Germany. Strasburg, 1698. 4. cap. 5, § 86. p. 301.
[18] Hainr. Rebdorff, Annales, Marq. Freher. Germanicarum rerum Scriptores. Francof.
1624. fol. p. 439.
[19] Königshoven, in loc. cit.
[20] Anonym. Leobiens. Chron. L. VI. in Hier. Pez, Scriptor. rer. Austriac. Lips. 1721.
fol. Tom. I. p. 970. The above named appearances are here called, rote sprinkel, swarcze
erhubenn und druesz under den üchsen und ze den gemüchten.
[21] Ubb. Emmiie rer. Frisiacar. histor. L. XIV. p. 203. Lugd. Bat. 1616. fol.
[22] Guillelmus de Nangis, loc. cit.
[23] Ant. Wood, Historia et Antiquitates Universit. Oxoniens. Oxon. 1764. fol. L. l. p.
172.
[24] Mezeray, Histoire de France. Paris, 1685. fol. T. II. p. 418.
[25] Barnes, who has given a lively picture of the black plague, in England, taken from
the Registers of the 14th century, describes the external symptoms in the following
terms: knobs or swellings in the groin or under the armpits, called kernels, biles, blains,
blisters, pimples, wheals or plague-sores. The Hist. of Edw. III. Cambridge, 1688, fol.
p. 432.
[26] Torfæus, Historia rerum Norvegicarum. Hafn. 1711. fol. L. ix. c. 8. p. 478. This
author has followed Pontanus (Rerum Danicar. Historia. Amstelod. 1631. fol.) who has
given only a general account of the plague in Denmark, and nothing respecting its
symptoms.
[27] Dlugoss, vide Longini Histor. polonic. L. xii. Lips. 1711. fol. T. I. p. 1086.
[28] W. M. Richter, Geschichte der Medicin in Russland. Moskwa, 1813, 8. p. 215.
Richter has taken his information on the black plague in Russia, from authentic Russian
MSS.
[29] Compare on this point, Balling’s treatise “Zur Diagnostik der Lungenerweichung.”
Vol XVI. ii. 3. p. 257 of litt. Annalen der ges. Heilkunde.
[30] It is expressly ascertained with respect to Avignon and Paris, that uncleanliness of
the streets increased the plague considerably. Raim. Chalin de Vinario.
[31] De Peste Libri tres, opera Jacobi Dalechampii in lucem editi. Lugduni, 1552. 16.
p. 35. Dalechamp has only improved the language of this work, adding nothing to it but
a preface in the form of two letters. Raymond Chalin de Vinario was contemporary with
Guy de Chauliac at Avignon. He enjoyed a high reputation, and was in very affluent
circumstances. He often makes mention of cardinals and high officers of the papal
court, whom he had treated; and it is even probable, though not certain, that he was
physician to Clement VI. (1342–1352), Innocent VI. (1352–1362), and Urban V. (1362–
1370). He and Guy de Chauliac never mention each other.

[32] Dalechamp, p. 205—where, and at pp. 32–36, the plague-eruptions are mentioned
in the usual indefinite terms: Exanthemata viridia, cærulea, nigra, rubra, lata, diffusa,
velut signata punctis, &c.
[33] “Pestilentis morbi gravissimum symptoma est, quod zonam vulgo nuncupant. Ea
sic fit: Pustulæ nonnunquam per febres pestilentes fuscæ, nigræ, lividæ existunt, in
partibus corporis a glandularum emissariis sejunctis, ut in femore, tibia, capite, brachio,
humeris, quarum fervore et caliditate succi corporis attracti, glandulas in trajectione
replent, et attollunt, unde bubones fiunt atque carbunculi. Ab iis tanquam solidus
quidam nervus in partem vicinam distentam ac veluti convulsione rigentem producitur,
puta brachium vel tibiam, nunc rubens, nunc fuscus, nunc obscurior, nunc virens, nunc
iridis colore, duos vel quatuor digitos latus. Hujus summo, qua desinit in emissarium,
plerumque tuberculum pestilens visitur, altero vero extremo, qua in propinquum
membrum porrigitur, carbunculus. Hoc scilicet malum vulgus zonam cinctumve
nominat, periculosum minus, cum hic tuberculo, illic carbunculo terminatur, quam si
tuberculum in capite solum emineat.” p. 198.
[34] V. Hoff. Geschichte der natürlichen Veränderungen der Erdoberfläche, T. II. p. 264.
Gotha, 1824. This eruption was not succeeded by any other in the same century, either
of Etna or of Vesuvius.
[35] Deguignes, loc. cit. p. 226, from Chinese sources.
[36] Ibid. p. 225.
[37] There were also many locusts which had been blown into the sea by a hurricane,
and afterwards cast dead upon the shore, and produced a noxious exhalation; and a
dense and awful fog was seen in the heavens, rising in the East, and descending upon
Italy. Mansfeld Chronicle, in M. Cyriac Spangenberg, chap. 287, fol. 336. b. Eisleben,
1572. Compare Staind. Chron. (?) in Schnurrer, (“Ingens vapor magnitudine horribili
boreali movens, regionem, magno adspicientium terrore dilabitur,”) and Ad. von
Lebenwaldt, Land-Stadt-und Hausarzney-Buch. fol. p. 15. Nuremberg, 1695, who
mentions a dark, thick mist which covered the earth. Chalin expresses himself on this
subject in the following terms:—“Cœlum ingravescit, aër impurus sentitur: nubes
crassæ ac multæ luminibus cœli obstruunt, immundus ac ignavus tepor hominum
emollit corpora, exoriens sol pallescit.” p. 50.
[38] See Caius’ account of the causes of the sweating sickness, in the Appendix.—
Transl. note.
[39] Mezeray, Histoire de France, Tom. II. 418. Paris, 1685. Compare Oudegheerst’s
Chroniques de Flandres. Antwerp, 1571, 4to. Chap. 175, f. 297.
[40] They spread in a direction from East to West, over most of the countries from
which we have received intelligence. Anonym. Leobiens, Chron. loc. cit.
[41] Giov. Villani Istorie Fiorentine, L. XII. chap. 121, 122. in Muratori, T. XIII. pp.
1001, 1002. Compare Barnes, loc. cit. p. 430.
[42] J. Vitoduran. Chronicon, in Füssli. Thesaurus Histor. Helvet. Tigur. 1735. fol. p.
84.
[43] Albert. Argentiniens. Chronic. in Urstis. Scriptor. rer. Germanic. Francof. 1585. fol.
P. II. p. 147. Compare Chalin, loc. cit.
[44] Petrarch. Opera. Basil. 1554. fol. p. 210. Barnes, loc. cit. p. 431.
[45] “Un tremblement de terre universel, mesme en France et aux pays septentrionaux,
renversoit les villes toutes entières, déracinoit les arbres et les montagnes, et remplissoit

les campagnes d’abysmes si profondes, qu’il semblait que l’enfer eût voulu engloutir le
genre humain.” Mezeray, loc. cit. p. 418. Barnes, p. 431.
[46] Villani, loc. cit. c. 119. p. 1000.
[47] Guillelm. de Nangis, Cont. alt. Chron. loc. cit. p. 109.
[48] Ibid. p. 110.
[49] Villani, loc. cit. c. 72. p. 954.
[50] Anonym. Istorie Pistolesi, in Muratori, T. XI. p. 524. “Ne gli anni di Chr. 1346 et
1357, fu grandissima carestia in tutta la Christianità, in tanto, che molta gente moria di
fame, e fu grande mortalità in ogni paese del mondo.”
[51] According to Papon, its origin is quite lost in the obscurity of remote ages; and
even before the Christian Era, we are able to trace many references to former
pestilences. De la peste, ou époques mémorables de ce fléau, et les moyens de s’en
préserver. T. II. Paris, An VIII. de la rép. 8.
[52] 1301, in the South of France; 1311, in Italy; 1316, in Italy, Burgundy and Northern
Europe; 1335, the locust year, in the middle of Europe; 1340, in Upper Italy; 1342, in
France; and 1347, in Marseilles and most of the larger islands of the Mediterranean.
Ibid. T. II. p. 273.
[53] Compare Deguignes, loc. cit. p. 288.
[54] According to the general Byzantine designation, “from the country of the
hyperborean Scythians.” Kantakuzen, loc. cit.
[55] Guid. Cauliac, loc. cit.
[56] Matt. Villani, Istorie, in Muratori, T. XIV. p. 14.
[57] Annal. Cæsenat, Ibid. p. 1179.
[58] Barnes, loc. cit.
[59] Olof Dalin’s, Svea-Rikes Historie, III. vol. Stockholm, 1747–61, 4. Vol. II. C. 12,
p. 496.
[60] Dlugoss, Histor. Polon. L. IX. p. 1086, T. I. Lips. 1711, fol.
[61] Deguignes, loc. cit. p. 223, f.
[62] Matt. Villani, Istoria, loc. cit. p. 13.
[63] Knighton, in Barnes, loc. cit. p. 434.
[64] Jno. Trithem Annal. Hirsaugiens. (Monast. St. Gall. Hirsaug. 1690. fol.) T. II. p.
296. According to Boccacio, loc. cit. 100,000; according to Matt. Villani, loc. cit. p. 14,
three out of five.
[65] Odoric. Raynald. Annal. ecclesiastic. Colon. Agripp. 1691. fol. Vol. XVI. p. 280.
[66] Vitoduran. Chronic. in Füssli, loc. cit.
[67] Tromby, Storia de S. Brunone e dell’ordine Cartusiano. Vol. VI. L. VIII. p. 235.
Napol. 1777. fol.
[68] Barnes, p. 435.
[69] Ibid.
[70] Baluz. Vitæ Papar. Avenionens. Paris, 1693–4. Vol. I. p. 316. According to Rebdorf
in Freher. loc. cit. at the worst period, 500 daily.

[71] Königshoven, loc. cit.
[72] According to Reimar Kork, from Easter to Michaelmas 1350, 80 to 90,000; among
whom were eleven members of the senate, and bishop John IV. Vid. John Rud. Becker,
Circumstantial History of the Imper. and free city of Lübeck. Lübeck, 1782, 84, 1805. 3
Vols. 4. Vol. I. p. 269. 71. Although Lübeck was then in its most flourishing state, yet
this account, which agrees with that of Paul Lange, is certainly exaggerated. (Chronic.
Citizense, in I. Pistorius, Rerum Germanic. Scriptores aliquot insignes, cur. Struve.
Ratisb. 1626. fol. p. 1214.) We have, therefore, chosen the lower estimate of an
anonym. writer. Chronic. Sclavic. by Erpold Lindenbrog. Scriptores rerum Germanic.
Septentrional. vicinorumque populor. diversi, Francof. 1630. fol. p. 225, and
Spangenberg, loc. cit., with whom again the assurance of the two authors, that on the
10th August, 1350, 15 or 1700 (according to Becker 2500) persons had died, does not
coincide. Compare Chronik des Franciskaner Lesemeisters Detmar, nach der Urschrift
und mit Ergänzungen aus anderen Chroniken herausgeg. published by F. H. Grautoff.
Hamburg, 1829, 30. 8. P. I. p. 269. App. 471.
[73] Förstemann, Versuch einer Geschichte der christlichen Geisslergesellschaften, in
Staüdlin’s und Tzschirner’s, Archiv für alte und neue Kirchengeschichte, Vol. III. 1817.
[74] Limburg Chronicle, pub. by C. D. Vogel. Marburg, 1828. 8vo. p. 14.
[75] Barnes, loc. cit.
[76] Ibid.
[77] Spangenberg. fol. 339. a. Grawsam Sterben vieler faulen Troppfen. Many lazy
monks died a cruel death.
[78] Vitoduran, loc. cit.
[79] Becker, loc. cit.
[80] Hainr. Rebdorf. p. 630.
[81] Guillelm. de Nang. loc. cit.
[82] Johanna, queen of Navarre, daughter of Louis X., and Johanna of Burgundy, wife
of king Philip de Valois.
[83] Fulco de Chanac.
[84] Mich. Felibien, Histoire de la ville de Paris, Liv. XII. Vol. II. p. 601, Paris, 1725.
fol. Comp. Guillelm. de Nangis. loc. cit. and Daniel, Histoire de France, Tom. II. p.
484. Amsterd. 1720. 4to.
[85] Torfæus, loc. cit.
[86] According to another account, 960. Chronic. Salisburg, in Pez. loc. cit. T. I. p. 412.
[87] According to an anonymous Chronicler, each of these pits is said to have contained
40,000; this, however, we are to understand as only in round numbers. Anonym.
Leobiens, in Pez. p. 970. According to this writer, above seventy persons died in some
houses, and many were entirely deserted, and at St. Stephen’s alone, fifty-four
ecclesiastics were cut off.
[88] 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.
[89] Spangenberg. loc. cit. chap. 287. fol. 337. b.
[90] Barnes, 435.

[91] Trithem. Annal. Hirsaug. loc. cit.
[92] Loc. cit. L. XII. c. 99. p. 977.
[93] Chronic. Claustro-Neoburg. in Pez. Vol. I. p. 490. Comp. Barnes, p. 435. Raynald
Histor. ecclesiastic, loc. cit. According to this account, a runaway Venetian is said to
have brought the plague to Padua.
[94] Giov. Villani, L. XII. c. 83. p. 964.
[95] Barnes, p. 436.
[96] Wood, loc. cit.
[97] Wood says, that before the plague, there were 13,000 students at Oxford; a number
which may, in some degree, enable us to form an estimate of the state of education in
England at that time, if we consider that the universities were, in the middle ages,
frequented by younger students, who in modern times do not quit school till their 18th
year.
[98] Barnes and Wood, loc. cit.
[99] Gobelin. Person, in Meibom. loc. cit.
[100] Juan de Mariana. Historia General de España, illustrated by Don José Sabau y
Blanco. Tom. IX. Madrid, 1819. 8vo. Libro XVI. p. 225. Don Diego Ortiz de Zúñiga,
Annales ecclesiasticos y seculares de Sevilla. Madrid, 1795. 4to. T. II. p. 121. Don Juan
de Ferreras, Historia de España. Madrid, 1721. T. VII. p. 353.
[101] Gobelin. Person, loc. cit. Comp. Chalin, p. 53.
[102] Guillelm. de Nangis, loc. cit.
[103] Spangenberg. fol. 337. b. Limburg. Chronic, p. 20. “Und die auch von Rom
kamen, wurden eines Theils böser als sie vor gewesen waren.”
[104] Guillelm. de Nangis, loc. cit. and many others.
[105] Dalin’s Svea Rikes Historie, Vol. II. c. 12. p. 496.
[106] Saabye. Tagebuch in Grönland. Einleit. XVIII.—Torfæi Histor. Norveg. Tom. IV.
L. IX. c. viii. p. 478–79. F. G. Mansa, De epidemiis maxime memorabilibus quæ in
Dania Grassatæ sunt, et de Medicinæ statu. Partic. I. Havn. 1831. 8vo. p. 12.
[107] Torfæi Groenlandia antiqua, s. veteris Groenlandiæ; descriptio. Havniæ, 1715.
8vo. p. 23.—Pontan. Rer. danicar. Histor. Amstelod. 1631. fol. L. VII. p. 476.
[108] Richter, loc. cit.
[109] We shall take this view of the subject from Guillelm. de Nangis and Barnes, if we
read them with attention. Compare Olof Dalin, loc. cit.
[110] Practica de ægritudinibus a capite usque ad pedes. Papiæ, 1486. fol. Tract VI. c.
vii.
[111] “Darnach, da das Sterben, die Geiselfarth, Römerfarth, Judenschlacht, als
vorgeschrieben stehet, ein End hatte, da hub die Welt wieder an zu leben und fröhlich
zu seyn, und machten die Männer neue Kleidung.” Limburger Chronik. p. 26. After
this, when, as was stated before, the Mortality, the Processions of the Flagellants, the
Expeditions to Rome, and the Massacre of the Jews, were at an end, the world began to
revive and be joyful, and the people put on new clothing.
[112] Chalin, loc. cit. p. 92. Detmar’s Lübeck Chronicle, V. I. p. 401.

[113] Chronic. Ditmari, Episcop. Mersepurg, Francof. 1580, fol. p.358.—“Spagenberg,
p. 338. The lamentation was piteous; and the only remaining solace, was the prevalent
anxiety, inspired by the danger, to prepare for a glorious departure; no other hope
remained—death appeared inevitable. Many were hence induced to search into their
own hearts, to turn to God, and to abandon their wicked courses: parents warned their
children, and instructed them how to pray, and to submit to the ways of Providence:
neighbours mutually admonished each other; none could reckon on a single hour’s
respite. Many persons, and even young children, were seen bidding farewell to the
world; some with prayer, others with praises on their lips.”
[114] Torfæi Hist. rer. Norvegic. L. IX. c. viii. p. 478. (Havn. 1711, fol.) Die Cronica
van der hilliger Stat van Coellen, off dat tzytboich, Coellen, 1490, fol. p. 263. “In dem
vurss jair erhoiff sich eyn alzo wunderlich nuwe Geselschaft in Ungarien,” &c. The
Chronicle of the holy city of Cologne, 1499. In this same year, a very remarkable
society was formed in Hungary.
[115] Albert. Argentinens. Chronic. p. 149, in Chr. Urstisius. Germaniæ historicorum
illustrium Tomus unus. Francof. 1585, fol.—Guillelm. de Nang. loc. cit.—Comp. also
the Saxon Chronicle, by Mattheus Dresseren, Physician and Professor at Leipsig,
Wittenberg, 1596, fol. p. 340; the above-named Limburg Chronicle, and the Germaniæ
Chronicon, on the origin, name, commerce, &c., of all the Teutonic nations of
Germany: by Seb. Francken, of Wörd. Tübingen, 1534, fol. p. 201.
[116] Ditmar, loc. cit.
[117] Königshoven, Elsassische und Strassburgische Chronicke. loc. cit. p. 297. f.
[118] Albert. Argentin. loc. cit. They never remained longer than one night at any place.
[119] Words of Monachus Paduanus, quoted in Förstemann’s Treatise, which is the best
upon this subject.—See p. 24.
[120] Schnurrer, Chronicle of the Plagues, T. I. p. 291.
[121] Königshoven, loc. cit.
[122] Förstemann, loc. cit. The pilgrimages of the Flagellants of the year 1349, were
not the last. Later in the 14th century this fanaticism still manifested itself several times,
though never to so great an extent: in the 15th century, it was deemed necessary, in
several parts of Germany, to extirpate them by fire and sword; and in the year 1710,
processions of the Cross-bearers were still seen in Italy. How deeply this mania had
taken root, is proved by the deposition of a citizen of Nordhäusen (1446): that his wife,
in the belief of performing a Christian act, wanted to scourge her children, as soon as
they were baptized.
[123] Königshoven, p. 298:
“Stant uf durch der reinen Martel ere;
Und hüte dich vor der Sünden mere.”
[124] Guill. de Nang. loc. cit.
[125] Albert. Argentinens. loc. cit.
[126] We meet with fragments of different lengths in the Chronicles of the times, but
the only entire MS. which we possess, is in the valuable Library of President von
Meusebach. Massmann has had this printed, accompanied by a translation, entitled
Erläuterungen zum Wessobrunner Gebet des 8ten Jahrhunderts. Nebst Zweien noch
ungedruckten, Gedichten des Vierzehnten Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 1824. “Elucidations

of the Wessobrunn Prayer of the 8th century, together with two unpublished Hymns the
14th century.” We shall subjoin it at the end of this Treatise, as a striking document of
the age. The Limburg Chronicle asserts, indeed, that it was not composed till that time,
although a part, if not the whole, of it, was sung in the procession of the Flagellants, in
1260.—See Incerti auctoris Chronicon rerum per Austriam Vicinasque regiones
gestarum inde ab anno 1025, usque ad annum 1282. Munich, 1827 8, p. 9.
[127] Trithem. Annal. Hirsaugiens, T. II. p. 206.
[128] He issued a bull against them, Oct. 20, 1349. Raynald. Trithem. loc. cit.
[129] But as they at last ceased to excite astonishment, were no longer welcomed by the
ringing of bells, and were not received with veneration, as before, they vanished as
human imaginations are wont to do. Saxon Chronicle, by Matt. Dresseren. Wittenberg,
1596, fol. p. 340, 341.
[130] Albert. Argentinens. loc. cit.
[131] Guillelm. de Nangis.
[132] Ditmar. loc. cit.
[133] Klose of Breslaw’s Documental History and Description, 8vo. Vol. II. p. 190.
Breslaw, 1781.
[134] Limburg Chronicle, p. 17.
[135] Kehrberg’s Description of Königsberg, i. e. Neumark, 1724, 4to. p. 240.
[136] So says the Polish historian Dlugoss, loc. cit., while most of his contemporaries
mention only the poisoning of the wells. It is evident, that in the state of their feelings,
it mattered little whether they added another still more formidable accusation.
[137] In those places where no Jews resided, as in Leipsig, Magdeburg, Brieg,
Frankenstein, &c., the grave-diggers were accused of the crime.—V. Möhsen’s History
of the Sciences in the March of Brandenburg, T. II. p. 265.
[138] See the original proceedings, in the Appendix.
[139] Hermanni Gygantis Flores temporum, sive Chronicon Universale—Ed.
Meuschen. Lugdun. Bat. 1743. 4to. p. 139. Hermann, a Franciscan monk of Franconia,
who wrote in the year 1349, was an eye-witness of the most revolting scenes of
vengeance, throughout all Germany.
[140] Guid. Cauliac. loc. cit.
[141] Hermann. loc. cit.
[142] Albert. Argentin.—Königshoven, loc. cit.
[143] Dies was ouch die Vergift, die die Juden döttete. “This was also the poison that
killed the Jews,” observes Königshoven, which he illustrates by saying, that their
increase in Germany was very great, and their mode of gaining a livelihood, which,
however, was the only resource left them, had engendered ill-will against them in all
quarters.
[144] Many wealthy Jews, for example, were, on their way to the stake, stripped of their
garments, for the sake of the gold coin that was sewed in them.—Albert. Argentinens.
[145] Vide preceding note.
[146] Spangenberg, loc. cit.
[147] Guillelm. de Nangis.—Dlugoss, loc. cit.

[148] Albert. Argentinens.
[149] Spangenberg describes a similar scene which took place at Kostnitz.
[150] Guillelm. de Nang.—Raynald.
[151] Histor. Landgrav. Thuring. in Pistor. loc. cit. Vol. I. p. 948.
[152] Anonym. Leobiens, in Pez. loc. cit.
[153] Spangenberg. In the county of Mark, the Jews were no better off than in the rest
of Germany. Margrave Ludwig, the Roman, even countenanced their persecutions, of
which Kehrberg, loc. cit. 241. gives the following official account: Coram cunctis
Christi fidelibus præsentia percepturis, ego Johannes dictus de Wedel Advocatus, inclyti
Principis Domini, Ludovici, Marchionis, publice profiteor et recognosco, quod nomine
Domini mei civitatem Königsberg visitavi et intravi, et ex parte Domini Marchionis
Consulibus ejusdem civitatis in adjutorium mihi assumtis, Judæos inibi morantes igne
cremavi, bonaque omnia eorundem Judæorum ex parte Domini mei totaliter usurpavi et
assumsi. In cujus testimonium præsentibus meum sigillum appendi. Datum A.D. 1351.
in Vigilia S. Matthæi Apostoli.
[154] Basnage, Histoire des Juifs. A la Haye, 1716. 8vo. T. IX. Part 2. Liv. IX. Chap.
23. §. 12. 24. pp. 664. 679. This valuable work gives an interesting account of the state
of the Jews of the middle ages. Compare J. M. Jost’s History of the Israelites from the
time of the Maccabees to the present day. T. VII. Berlin, 1827. 8vo. pp. 8. 262.
[155] Albert. Argentinens.
[156] Hermann. Gygas. loc. cit.
[157] On this subject see Königshoven, who has preserved some very valuable original
proceedings. The most important are, the criminal examinations of ten Jews, at Chillon,
on the Lake of Geneva, held in September and October, 1348.—V. Appendix. They
produced the most strange confessions, and sanctioned, by the false name of justice, the
blood-thirsty fanaticism which lighted the funeral piles. Copies of these proceedings
were sent to Bern and Strasburg, where they gave rise to the first persecutions against
the Jews.—V. also the original document of the offensive and defensive Alliance
between Berthold von Götz, Bishop of Strasburg, and many powerful lords and nobles,
in favour of the city of Strasburg, against Charles IV. The latter saw himself compelled,
in consequence, to grant to that city an amnesty for the Jewish persecutions, which in
our days would be deemed disgraceful to an imperial crown. Not to mention many other
documents, which no less clearly shew the spirit of the 14th century, p. 1021. f.
[158] Guillelm. de Nangis, p. 110.
[159] “Curationem omnem respuit pestis confirmata.”—Chalin, p. 33.
[160] Jacob. Francischini de Ambrosiis. In the Appendix to the Istorie Pistolesi, in
Muratori, Tom. XI. p. 528.
[161] Gentilis de Fulgineo Consilia. De Peste Cons. I. II. fol. 76, 77. Venet. 1514. fol.
[162] —“venenosa putredo circa partes cordis et pulmonis de quibus exeunte venenoso
vapore, periculum est in vicinitatibus.” Cons. I. fol. 76, a.
[163] Dr. Maclean’s notion that the doctrine of contagion was first promulgated in the
year 1547, by Pope Paul III., &c., thus falls to the ground, together with all the
arguments founded on it.—See Maclean on Epid. and Pestilent. Diseases, 8vo, 1817, Pt.
II. Book II. ch. 3, 4.—Transl. note.
[164] Lippitudo contagione spectantium oculos afficit.—Chalin de Vinario, p. 149.

[165] See the Author’s Geschichte der Heilkunde, Vol. II. P. III.
[166] Compare Marx, Origines contagii. Caroliruh. et Bad. 1824. 8.
[167] Cæl. Aurelian. Chron. L. IV. c. 1. p. 497. Ed. Amman. “Sed hi ægrotantem
destituendum magis imperant, quam curandum, quod a se alienum humanitas approbat
medicinæ.”
[168] Geschichte der Heilkunde, Vol. II. p. 248.
[169] Chalin assures us expressly, that many nunneries, by closing their gates, remained
free from the contagion. It is worthy of note, and quite in conformity with the prevailing
notions, that the continuance in a thick, moist atmosphere, was generally esteemed
more advantageous and conservative, on account of its being more impenetrable to the
astral influence, inasmuch as the inferior cause kept off the superior.—Chalin, p. 48.
[170] This was called Affluxus, or Forma specifica, and was compared to the effect of a
magnet on iron, and of amber on chaff.—Chalin de Vinario, p. 23.
[171] Causa universalis agens—causa particularis patiens. To this correspond, in
Chalin, the expressions Causa superior et inferior.
[172] Purging with alöetic pills; bleeding; purification of the air by means of large fires;
the use of treacle; frequent smelling to volatile substances, of which certain “poma,”
were prepared; the internal use of Armenian bole,—a plague-remedy derived from the
Arabians, and, throughout the middle ages, much in vogue, and very improperly used;
and the employment of acescent food, in order to resist putridity. Guy de Chauliac
appears to have recommended flight to many. Loc. citat. p. 115. Compare Chalin, L. II.,
who gives most excellent precepts on this subject.
[173] Auger. de Biterris, loc. cit.
[174] L. I. c. 4. p. 39.
[175] Fol. 32. loc. cit.
[176] Galeacii de Sancta Sophia, Liber de Febribus. Venet. 1514, fol. (Printed together
with Guillelmus Brixiensis, Marsilius de Sancta Sophia, Ricardus Parisiensis. fol. 29.
seq.)
[177] Warmth, cold, dryness and moisture.
[178] The talented Chalin entertains the same conviction, “Obscurum interdum esse
vitium aëris, sub pestis initia et menses primos, hoc est argumento: quod cum nec odore
tetro gravis, nec turpi colore fœdatus fuerit, sed purus, tenuis, frigidus, qualis in
montosis et asperis locis esse solet, et tranquillus, vehementissima sit tamen pestilentia
infestaque,” etc. p. 28. The most recent observers of malaria have stated nothing more
than this.
[179] Compare Enr. di Wolmar, Abhandlung über die Pest. Berlin, 1827. 8vo.
[180] Tractatus de Febribus, fol. 48.
[181] De Peste Liber, pura latinitate donatus a Jacobo Dalechampio. Lugdun. 1552. 16.
p. 40. 188. “Longe tamen plurimi congressu eorum qui fuerunt in locis pestilentibus
periclitantur et gravissime, quoniam e causa duplici, nempe et aëris vitio, et eorum qui
versantur nobiscum, vitio. Hoc itaque modo fit, ut unius accessu in totam modo
familiam, modo civitatem, modo villam, pestis invehatur.” Compare p. 20, “Solæ
privatorum ædes pestem sentiunt, si adeat qui in pestilenti loco versatus est.”—“Nobis
proximi ipsi sumus, nemoque est tanta occœcatus amentia, qui de sua salute potius
quam aliorum sollicitus non sit, maxime in contagione tam cita et rapida.” Rather a

loose principle, which might greatly encourage low sentiments, and much endanger the
honour of the medical profession, but which, in Chalin, who was aware of the
impossibility of avoiding contagion in uncleanly dwellings, is so far excusable, that he
did not apply it to himself.
[182] Morbos omnes pestilentes esse contagiosos, audacter ego equidem pronuntio et
assevero. p. 149.
[183] Vide preceding note, pp. 162, 163.
[184] Ibid. p. 97. 166. “Qualis (vita) esse solet eorum, qui sacerdotiorum et cultus divini
prætextu, genio plus satis indulgent et obsequuntur, ac Christum speciosis titulis
ementientes, Epicurum imitantur.” Certainly a remarkable freedom of sentiment for the
14th century.
[185] Ibid. p. 183. 151.
[186] Ibid. p. 159. 189.
[187] Canonica de Febribus, ad Raynerium Siculum, 1487, s. 1. cap. 10, sine pag.
“Febris pestilentialis est febris contagiosa ex ebullitione putrefactiva in altero quatuor
humorum cordi propinquorum principaliter.”
[188] Valesci de Tharanta, Philonium. Lugduni, 1535. 8. L. VII. c. 18. fol. 401. b. seq.
—Compare Astruc. Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire de la Faculté de Médecine de
Montpellier. Paris, 1767. 4. p. 208.
[189] Chronicon Regiense, Muratori, Tom. XVIII. p. 82.
[190] Adr. Chenot, Hinterlassene Abhandlungen über die ärztlichen und politischen
Anstalten bei der Pestseuche. Wien, 1798, 8vo. p. 146. From this period it was common
in the middle ages to barricade the doors and windows of houses infected with plague,
and to suffer the inhabitants to perish without mercy.—S. Möhsen, loc. cit.
[191] Chron. Reg. loc. cit.
[192] Muratori, Tom. XVI. p. 560.—Compare Chenot, loc. cit. p. 146.
[193] Papon, loc. cit.
[194] Chenot, p. 145.
[195] Le Bret, Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig. Riga, 1775. 4, Part II. Div. 2. p.
752.
[196] Zagata, Cronica di Verona, 1744. 4, III. p. 93.
[197] Le Bret, loc. cit. Compare Hamburger Remarquen of the year 1700, pp. 282 and
305.
[198] Göttinger gelehrte Anzeigen, 1772, p. 22.
[199] The forty days’ duration of the Flood, the forty days’ sojourn of Moses on Mount
Sinai, our Saviour’s fast for the same length of time in the wilderness; lastly, what is
called the Saxon term (Sächsische Frist,) which lasts for forty days, &c. Compare G. W.
Wedel, Centuria Exercitationum Medico-philologicarum. De Quadragesima Medica.
Jenæ, 1701. 4. Dec. IV. p. 16.
[200] We hence perceive with what feelings subterraneous thunders were regarded by
the people.
[201] For the sake of thy Trinity.

[202] An appearance of justice having been given to all later persecutions by these
proceedings, they deserve to be recorded as important historical documents. The
original is in Latin, but we have preferred the German translation in Königshoven’s
Chronicle, p. 1029.

T HE D A N C IN G MA N IA .

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

Dr. Hecker’s account of the “Black Death” having, in its English
translation, met with a favourable reception, I am led to believe that the
“Dancing Mania,” a similar production by the same able writer, will also
prove acceptable. Should this be the case, it is my intention to complete the
series by translating the history of the “Sweating Sickness,” the only
remaining epidemic considered by our author to belong to the Middle Ages.
The mind and the body reciprocally and mysteriously affect each other,
and the maladies which are the subject of these pages, are so intimately
connected with the disordered state of both, that it is often difficult to
determine on which they more essentially depend, or which they more
seriously influence.
The physician will probably be led by their contemplation to admit that
the imagination has a larger share in the production of disease than he
might, without a knowledge of the striking facts here recorded, have
supposed to be within the limits of possibility. He has, no doubt, already
observed, that joy will affect the circulation, grief the digestion; that anger
will heat the frame as perniciously as ardent spirits, and that fear will chill it
as certainly as ice; but he may not have carried his observation to the extent
of perceiving, that not only single and transient effects, but specific diseases
are produced through the agency of mental impressions, and he may
therefore still be surprised to find that the dances of St. John and of St.
Vitus, as they formerly spread by sympathy from city to city, gave rise to
the same deviations from bodily health, in all the individuals whom they
attacked; that Tarantism was the same disease, whether medically or
morally considered, all over Italy; and that the “Lycanthropia,” of the past,
and the “Leaping Ague” of the present times, have each its respective train
of peculiar symptoms.

The moralist will view these records of human frailty in a different light;
he will examine the state of society which favoured the propagation of such
maladies; he will inquire how far they have been the offspring of the ages in
which they appeared, and although he may not be disposed to think with
our author, that they can never return, he will at least deduce from the facts
here laid before him, that they originate in those minds, whether ignorant or
ill-educated, in which the imagination is permitted to usurp the power of
sober sense, and the ideal is allowed to occupy the thoughts to the exclusion
of the substantial.
That such minds are most frequently to be met with in an age of
ignorance, we should naturally suppose, and we are borne out in that
supposition by the fact, that these diseases have been declining in
proportion to the advance of knowledge; but credulity and enthusiasm are
not incompatible with a high degree of civilization: and if, among the
educated classes, the female sex is more sentimental than the male, and the
affluent are more credulous than those who are dependent on their own
exertions for their support, it is to be accounted for by the fact, that they
usually devote more leisure to the pleasurable contemplation of works of
imagination, and are less imperatively called on to improve their judgment
by the dry study of facts, and the experience acquired in the serious
business of life. But there is no class, even in this age of boasted reason,
wholly exempt from the baneful influence of fanaticism; and instances are
not wanting, in our own days, and in this very capital, to prove, that
disorders (how can we more charitably designate them?) much resembling
some of those described in the following pages, may make their appearance
among people who have had all the advantages of an enlightened education,
and every opportunity of enlarging their minds by a free intercourse with
refined society.
I thus venture to hope, that by bestowing a leisure hour on this small
portion of medical history, the physician may enlarge his knowledge of
disease, and the moralist may gather a hint for the intellectual improvement
of his fellow-men. The author has, however, a more extended object in view
—the histories of particular epidemics are with him but the data from which
we are to deduce the general laws that govern human health in the
aggregate. Whether there be such an entity as collective organic life, and
whether, as a consequence, there exist general laws which regulate its

healthy or morbid condition, I do not here undertake to determine; but the
notion is peculiar, and in order that it may be more fully exposed to the
reader, I have translated as an introduction to the present volume[1], an
Appeal which Dr. Hecker has made to the medical profession of his own
country for assistance in his undertaking. If, in the course of the remarks
contained in this address, he has been somewhat severe in his censure of the
neglect, both in this country and in France, of the study of Medical History,
I freely confess myself to be one of those who are more anxious to profit by
his castigation than to dispute its justice.
I have added a few Notes, which I trust will be found not inapplicable.
They consist chiefly of parallel accounts in illustration of what is set forth
in the text; and with the same view, I have thrown together in No. V. of the
Appendix, some Histories of Local Epidemics, and have referred to some
single cases, which seem to me to have a peculiar interest in connexion with
the subject of this work, and to render it, on the whole, more complete.

P R E FA C E .

The diseases which form the subject of the present investigation afford a
deep insight into the workings of the human mind in a state of society. They
are a portion of history, and will never return in the form in which they are
there recorded; but they expose a vulnerable part of man—the instinct of
imitation—and are therefore very nearly connected with human life in the
aggregate. It appeared worth while to describe diseases which are
propagated on the beams of light—on the wings of thought; which convulse
the mind by the excitement of the senses, and wonderfully affect the nerves,
the media of its will and of its feelings. It seemed worth while to attempt to
place these disorders between the epidemics of a less refined origin, which
affect the body more than the soul, and all those passions and emotions
which border on the vast domain of disease, ready at every moment to pass
the boundary. Should we be able to deduce from the grave facts of history
here developed, a convincing proof that the human race, amidst the creation
which surrounds it, moves in body and soul as an individual whole, the
Author might hope that he had approached nearer to his ideal of a grand
comprehension of diseases in time and space, and be encouraged, by the co-
operation of contemporaries, zealous in the search of truth, to proceed along
the path which he has already entered, in prosecuting the investigation.

THE DANCING MANIA.

CHAPTER I.
THE DANCING MANIA IN GERMANY AND THE NETHERLANDS.

Sect. 1.—St. John’s Dance.
The effects of the Black Death had not yet subsided, and the graves of
millions of its victims were scarcely closed, when a strange delusion arose
in Germany, which took possession of the minds of men, and, in spite of the
divinity of our nature, hurried away body and soul into the magic circle of
hellish superstition. It was a convulsion which in the most extraordinary
manner infuriated the human frame, and excited the astonishment of
contemporaries for more than two centuries, since which time it has never
reappeared. It was called the dance of St. John or of St. Vitus, on account of
the Bacchantic leaps by which it was characterized, and which gave to those
affected, whilst performing their wild dance, and screaming and foaming
with fury, all the appearance of persons possessed. It did not remain
confined to particular localities, but was propagated by the sight of the
sufferers, like a demoniacal epidemic, over the whole of Germany and the
neighbouring countries to the north-west, which were already prepared for
its reception by the prevailing opinions of the times.
So early as the year 1374, assemblages of men and women were seen at
Aix-la-Chapelle who had come out of Germany, and who, united by one
common delusion, exhibited to the public both in the streets and in the
churches the following strange spectacle[2]. They formed circles hand in
hand, and appearing to have lost all control over their senses, continued
dancing, regardless of the bystanders, for hours together, in wild delirium,
until at length they fell to the ground in a state of exhaustion. They then
complained of extreme oppression, and groaned as if in the agonies of

death, until they were swathed in cloths bound tightly round their waists,
upon which they again recovered, and remained free from complaint until
the next attack. This practice of swathing was resorted to on account of the
tympany which followed these spasmodic ravings, but the bystanders
frequently relieved patients in a less artificial manner, by thumping and
trampling upon the parts affected. While dancing they neither saw nor
heard, being insensible to external impressions through the senses, but were
haunted by visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits whose names[3] they
shrieked out; and some of them afterwards asserted that they felt as if they
had been immersed in a stream of blood, which obliged them to leap so
high[4]. Others, during the paroxysm, saw the heavens open and the Saviour
enthroned with the Virgin Mary, according as the religious notions of the
age were strangely and variously reflected in their imaginations[5].
Where the disease was completely developed, the attack commenced
with epileptic convulsions[6]. Those affected fell to the ground senseless,
panting and labouring for breath. They foamed at the mouth, and suddenly
springing up began their dance amidst strange contortions. Yet the malady
doubtless made its appearance very variously, and was modified by
temporary or local circumstances, whereof non-medical contemporaries but
imperfectly noted the essential particulars, accustomed as they were to
confound their observation of natural events with their notions of the world
of spirits.
It was but a few months ere this demoniacal disease had spread from Aix-
la-Chapelle, where it appeared in July, over the neighbouring
Netherlands[7]. In Liege, Utrecht, Tongres, and many other towns of
Belgium, the dancers appeared with garlands in their hair, and their waists
girt with cloths, that they might, as soon as the paroxysm was over, receive
immediate relief on the attack of the tympany. This bandage was, by the
insertion of a stick, easily twisted tight: many, however, obtained more
relief from kicks and blows, which they found numbers of persons ready to
administer; for, wherever the dancers appeared, the people assembled in
crowds to gratify their curiosity with the frightful spectacle. At length the
increasing number of the affected excited no less anxiety than the attention
that was paid to them. In towns and villages they took possession of the
religious houses, processions were everywhere instituted on their account,
and masses were said and hymns were sung, while the disease itself, of the

demoniacal origin of which no one entertained the least doubt, excited
everywhere astonishment and horror. In Liege the priests had recourse to
exorcisms, and endeavoured, by every means in their power, to allay an evil
which threatened so much danger to themselves; for the possessed
assembling in multitudes, frequently poured forth imprecations against
them, and menaced their destruction. They intimidated the people also to
such a degree that there was an express ordinance issued that no one should
make any but square-toed shoes, because these fanatics had manifested a
morbid dislike to the pointed shoes which had come into fashion
immediately after the Great Mortality in 1350[8]. They were still more
irritated at the sight of red colours, the influence of which on the disordered
nerves might lead us to imagine an extraordinary accordance between this
spasmodic malady and the condition of infuriated animals; but in the St.
John’s dancers this excitement was probably connected with apparitions
consequent upon their convulsions. There were likewise some of them who
were unable to endure the sight of persons weeping[9]. The clergy seemed to
become daily more and more confirmed in their belief that those who were
affected were a kind of sectarians, and on this account they hastened their
exorcisms as much as possible, in order that the evil might not spread
amongst the higher classes, for hitherto scarcely any but the poor had been
attacked, and the few people of respectability among the laity and clergy
who were to be found among them, were persons whose natural frivolity
was unable to withstand the excitement of novelty, even though it
proceeded from a demoniacal influence. Some of the affected had indeed
themselves declared, when under the influence of priestly forms of
exorcism, that if the demons had been allowed only a few weeks more time,
they would have entered the bodies of the nobility and princes, and through
these have destroyed the clergy. Assertions of this sort, which those
possessed uttered whilst in a state which may be compared with that of
magnetic sleep, obtained general belief, and passed from mouth to mouth
with wonderful additions. The priesthood were, on this account, so much
the more zealous in their endeavours to anticipate every dangerous
excitement of the people, as if the existing order of things could have been
seriously threatened by such incoherent ravings. Their exertions were
effectual, for exorcism was a powerful remedy in the fourteenth century; or
it might perhaps be that this wild infatuation terminated in consequence of
the exhaustion which naturally ensued from it; at all events, in the course of

ten or eleven months the St. John’s dancers were no longer to be found in
any of the cities of Belgium. The evil, however, was too deeply rooted to
give way altogether to such feeble attacks[10].
A few months after this dancing malady had made its appearance at Aix-
la-Chapelle, it broke out at Cologne, where the number of those possessed
amounted to more than five hundred[11], and about the same time at Metz,
the streets of which place are said to have been filled with eleven hundred
dancers[12]. Peasants left their ploughs, mechanics their workshops,
housewives their domestic duties, to join the wild revels, and this rich
commercial city became the scene of the most ruinous disorder. Secret
desires were excited, and but too often found opportunities for wild
enjoyment; and numerous beggars, stimulated by vice and misery, availed
themselves of this new complaint to gain a temporary livelihood. Girls and
boys quitted their parents, and servants their masters, to amuse themselves
at the dances of those possessed, and greedily imbibed the poison of mental
infection. Above a hundred unmarried women were seen raving about in
consecrated and unconsecrated places, and the consequences were soon
perceived[13]. Gangs of idle vagabonds, who understood how to imitate to
the life the gestures and convulsions of those really affected, roved from
place to place seeking maintenance and adventures, and thus, wherever they
went, spreading this disgusting spasmodic disease like a plague; for in
maladies of this kind the susceptible are infected as easily by the
appearance as by the reality. At last it was found necessary to drive away
these mischievous guests, who were equally inaccessible to the exorcisms
of the priests and the remedies of the physicians. It was not, however, until
after four months that the Rhenish cities were able to suppress these
impostures, which had so alarmingly increased the original evil. In the
mean time, when once called into existence, the plague crept on, and found
abundant food in the tone of thought which prevailed in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, and even, though in a minor degree, throughout the
sixteenth and seventeenth, causing a permanent disorder of the mind, and
exhibiting, in those cities to whose inhabitants it was a novelty, scenes as
strange as they were detestable.

Sect. 2.—St. Vitus’s Dance[14].

Strasburg was visited by the “Dancing Plague” in the year 1418, and the
same infatuation existed among the people there, as in the towns of
Belgium and the Lower Rhine[15]. Many who were seized at the sight of
those affected, excited attention at first by their confused and absurd
behaviour, and then by their constantly following the swarms of dancers.
These were seen day and night passing through the streets, accompanied by
musicians playing on bagpipes, and by innumerable spectators attracted by
curiosity, to which were added anxious parents and relations, who came to
look after those among the misguided multitude who belonged to their
respective families. Imposture and profligacy played their part in this city
also, but the morbid delusion itself seems to have predominated. On this
account religion could only bring provisional aid, and therefore the town-
council benevolently took an interest in the afflicted. They divided them
into separate parties, to each of which they appointed responsible
superintendents to protect them from harm, and perhaps also to restrain
their turbulence. They were thus conducted on foot and in carriages to the
chapels of St. Vitus, near Zabern and Rotestein, where priests were in
attendance to work upon their misguided minds by masses and other
religious ceremonies. After divine worship was completed, they were led in
solemn procession to the altar, where they made some small offering of
alms, and where it is probable that many were, through the influence of
devotion and the sanctity of the place, cured of this lamentable aberration. It
is worthy of observation, at all events, that the Dancing Mania did not
recommence at the altars of the saint, and that from him alone assistance
was implored, and through his miraculous interposition a cure was
expected, which was beyond the reach of human skill. The personal history
of St. Vitus is by no means unimportant in this matter. He was a Sicilian
youth, who, together with Modestus and Crescentia, suffered martyrdom at
the time of the persecution of the Christians, under Diocletian, in the year
303[16]. The legends respecting him are obscure, and he would certainly
have been passed over without notice among the innumerable apocryphal
martyrs of the first centuries, had not the transfer of his body to St. Denys,
and thence, in the year 836, to Corvey, raised him to a higher rank. From
this time forth, it may be supposed that many miracles were manifested at
his new sepulchre, which were of essential service in confirming the Roman
faith among the Germans, and St. Vitus was soon ranked among the
fourteen saintly helpers (Nothhelfer or Apotheker[17]). His altars were

multiplied, and the people had recourse to them in all kinds of distresses,
and revered him as a powerful intercessor. As the worship of these saints
was, however, at that time stripped of all historical connexions, which were
purposely obliterated by the priesthood, a legend was invented at the
beginning of the fifteenth century, or perhaps even so early as the
fourteenth, that St. Vitus had, just before he bent his neck to the sword,
prayed to God that he might protect from the Dancing Mania all those who
should solemnize the day of his commemoration, and fast upon its eve, and
that thereupon a voice from heaven was heard, saying, “Vitus, thy prayer is
accepted.”[18] Thus St. Vitus became the patron saint of those afflicted with
the dancing plague, as St. Martin, of Tours, was at one time the succourer of
persons in small-pox; St. Antonius of those suffering under the “hellish
fire,” and as St. Margaret was the Juno Lucina of puerperal women.

Sect. 3.—Causes.
The connexion which John the Baptist had with the dancing mania of the
fourteenth century, was of a totally different character. He was originally far
from being a protecting saint to those who were attacked, or one who would
be likely to give them relief from a malady considered as the work of the
devil. On the contrary, the manner in which he was worshipped afforded an
important and very evident cause for its development. From the remotest
period, perhaps even so far back as the fourth century, St. John’s day was
solemnized with all sorts of strange and rude customs, of which the
originally mystical meaning was variously disfigured among different
nations by superadded relics of heathenism[19]. Thus the Germans
transferred to the festival of St. John’s day an ancient heathen usage, the
kindling of the “Nodfyr,” which was forbidden them by St. Boniface, and
the belief subsists even to the present day that people and animals that have
leaped through these flames, or their smoke, are protected for a whole year
from fevers and other diseases, as if by a kind of baptism by fire[20].
Bacchanalian dances, which have originated in similar causes among all the
rude nations of the earth, and the wild extravagancies of a heated
imagination, were the constant accompaniments of this half-heathen, half-
christian, festival. At the period of which we are treating, however, the
Germans were not the only people who gave way to the ebullitions of
fanaticism in keeping the festival of St. John the Baptist. Similar customs

were also to be found among the nations of Southern Europe and of
Asia[21], and it is more than probable that the Greeks transferred to the
festival of John the Baptist, who is also held in high esteem among the
Mahomedans, a part of their Bacchanalian mysteries, an absurdity of a kind
which is but too frequently met with in human affairs. How far a
remembrance of the history of St. John’s death may have had an influence
on this occasion, we would leave learned theologians to decide. It is only of
importance here to add, that in Abyssinia, a country entirely separated from
Europe, where Christianity has maintained itself in its primeval simplicity
against Mahomedanism, John is to this day worshipped, as protecting saint
of those who are attacked with the dancing malady[22]. In these fragments
of the dominion of mysticism and superstition, historical connexion is not
to be found.
When we observe, however, that the first dancers in Aix-la-Chapelle
appeared in July with St. John’s name in their mouths, the conjecture is
probable that the wild revels of St. John’s day, a. d. 1374, gave rise to this
mental plague, which thenceforth has visited so many thousands with
incurable aberration of mind, and disgusting distortions of body.
This is rendered so much the more probable, because some months
previously the districts in the neighbourhood of the Rhine and the Maine
had met with great disasters. So early as February, both these rivers had
overflowed their banks to a great extent; the walls of the town of Cologne,
on the side next the Rhine, had fallen down, and a great many villages had
been reduced to the utmost distress[23]. To this was added the miserable
condition of Western and Southern Germany. Neither law nor edict could
suppress the incessant feuds of the Barons, and in Franconia especially, the
ancient times of club law appeared to be revived. Security of property there
was none; arbitrary will everywhere prevailed; corruption of morals and
rude power rarely met with even a feeble opposition; whence it arose that
the cruel, but lucrative, persecutions of the Jews, were in many places still
practised through the whole of this century, with their wonted ferocity.
Thus, throughout the western parts of Germany, and especially in the
districts bordering on the Rhine, there was a wretched and oppressed
populace; and if we take into consideration, that among their numerous
bands many wandered about, whose consciences were tormented with the
recollection of the crimes which they had committed during the prevalence

of the black plague, we shall comprehend how their despair sought relief in
the intoxication of an artificial delirium[24]. There is hence good ground for
supposing that the frantic celebration of the festival of St. John, a.d. 1374,
only served to bring to a crisis, a malady which had been long impending;
and if we would further inquire how a hitherto harmless usage, which, like
many others, had but served to keep up superstition, could degenerate into
so serious a disease, we must take into account the unusual excitement of
men’s minds, and the consequences of wretchedness and want. The bowels,
which in many were debilitated by hunger and bad food, were precisely the
parts which in most cases were attacked with excruciating pain, and the
tympanitic state of the intestines, points out to the intelligent physician, an
origin of the disorder which is well worth consideration.

Sect. 4.—More ancient Dancing Plagues.
The dancing mania of the year 1374 was, in fact, no new disease, but a
phenomenon well known in the middle ages, of which many wondrous
stories were traditionally current among the people. In the year 1237,
upwards of a hundred children were said to have been suddenly seized with
this disease at Erfurt, and to have proceeded dancing and jumping along the
road to Arnstadt. When they arrived at that place they fell exhausted to the
ground, and, according to an account of an old chronicle, many of them,
after they were taken home by their parents, died, and the rest remained
affected, to the end of their lives, with a permanent tremor[25]. Another
occurrence was related to have taken place on the Mosel bridge at Utrecht,
on the 17th day of June, a.d. 1278, when two hundred fanatics began to
dance, and would not desist until a priest passed who was carrying the Host
to a person that was sick, upon which, as if in punishment of their crime,
the bridge gave way, and they were all drowned[26]. A similar event also
occurred so early as the year 1027, near the convent church of Kolbig, not
far from Bernburg. According to an oft repeated tradition, eighteen
peasants, some of whose names are still preserved, are said to have
disturbed divine service on Christmas eve, by dancing and brawling in the
churchyard, whereupon the priest, Ruprecht, inflicted a curse upon them,
that they should dance and scream for a whole year without ceasing. This
curse is stated to have been completely fulfilled, so that the unfortunate
sufferers at length sank knee deep into the earth, and remained the whole

time without nourishment, until they were finally released by the
intercession of two pious bishops. It is said, that upon this, they fell into a
deep sleep, which lasted three days, and that four of them died: the rest
continuing to suffer all their lives from a trembling of their limbs[27]. It is
not worth while to separate what may have been true, and what the addition
of crafty priests, in this strangely distorted story. It is sufficient that it was
believed, and related with astonishment and horror throughout the middle
ages; so that when there was any exciting cause for this delirious raving,
and wild rage for dancing, it failed not to produce its effects upon men
whose thoughts were given up to a belief in wonders and apparitions.
This disposition of mind, altogether so peculiar to the middle ages, and
which, happily for mankind, has yielded to an improved state of civilization
and the diffusion of popular instruction, accounts for the origin and long
duration of this extraordinary mental disorder. The good sense of the people
recoiled with horror and aversion from this heavy plague, which, whenever
malevolent persons wished to curse their bitterest enemies and adversaries,
was long after used as a malediction[28]. The indignation also that was felt
by the people at large against the immorality of the age, was proved by their
ascribing this frightful affliction to the inefficacy of baptism by unchaste
priests, as if innocent children were doomed to atone, in after years, for this
desecration of the sacrament administered by unholy hands[29]. We have
already mentioned what perils the priests in the Netherlands incurred from
this belief. They now, indeed, endeavoured to hasten their reconciliation
with the irritated, and at that time very degenerate people[30], by exorcisms,
which, with some, procured them greater respect than ever, because they
thus visibly restored thousands of those who were affected. In general,
however, there prevailed a want of confidence in their efficacy, and then the
sacred rites had as little power in arresting the progress of this deeply rooted
malady, as the prayers and holy services subsequently had at the altars of
the greatly revered martyr St. Vitus. We may therefore ascribe it to accident
merely, and to a certain aversion to this demoniacal disease, which seemed
to lie beyond the reach of human skill, that we meet with but few and
imperfect notices, of the St. Vitus’s dance in the second half of the fifteenth
century. The highly coloured descriptions of the sixteenth century contradict
the notion that this mental plague had in any degree diminished in its
severity, and not a single fact is to be found which supports the opinion, that

any one of the essential symptoms of the disease, not even excepting the
tympany, had disappeared, or that the disorder itself had become milder in
its attacks. The physicians never, as it seems, throughout the whole of the
fifteenth century, undertook the treatment of the dancing mania, which,
according to the prevailing notions, appertained exclusively to the servants
of the church. Against demoniacal disorders they had no remedies, and
though some at first did promulgate the opinion, that the malady had its
origin in natural circumstances, such as a hot temperament, and other
causes named in the phraseology of the schools[31], yet these opinions were
the less examined, as it did not appear worth while to divide with a jealous
priesthood, the care of a host of fanatical vagabonds and beggars.

Sect. 5.—Physicians.
It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that the St. Vitus’s
dance was made the subject of medical research, and stripped of its
unhallowed character as a work of demons. This was effected by
Paracelsus, that mighty, but as yet scarcely comprehended reformer of
medicine, whose aim it was to withdraw diseases from the pale of
miraculous interpositions and saintly influences, and explain their causes
upon principles deduced from his knowledge of the human frame. “We will
not, however, admit that the saints have power to inflict diseases, and that
these ought to be named after them, although many there are who, in their
theology, lay great stress on this supposition, ascribing them rather to God
than to nature, which is but idle talk. We dislike such nonsensical gossip as
is not supported by symptoms, but only by faith, a thing which is not
human, whereon the gods themselves set no value.”
Such were the words which Paracelsus addressed to his contemporaries,
who were as yet incapable of appreciating doctrines of this sort; for the
belief in enchantment still remained everywhere unshaken, and faith in the
world of spirits still held men’s minds in so close a bondage that thousands
were, according to their own conviction, given up as a prey to the devil;
while at the command of religion as well as of law, countless piles were
lighted, by the flames of which human society was to be purified.
Paracelsus divides the St. Vitus’s dance into three kinds. First, that which
arises from imagination (Vitista, Chorea imaginativa, æstimativa), by which
the original dancing plague is to be understood. Secondly, that which arises

from sensual desires, depending on the will (Chorea lasciva). Thirdly, that
which arises from corporeal causes (Chorea naturalis, coacta), which,
according to a strange notion of his own, he explained by maintaining, that
in certain vessels which are susceptible of an internal pruriency, and thence
produce laughter, the blood is set in commotion, in consequence of an
alteration in the vital spirits, whereby involuntary fits of intoxicating joy,
and a propensity to dance, are occasioned[32]. To this notion he was, no
doubt, led from having observed a milder form of St. Vitus’s dance, not
uncommon in his time, which was accompanied by involuntary laughter;
and which bore a resemblance to the hysterical laughter of the moderns,
except that it was characterized by more pleasurable sensations, and by an
extravagant propensity to dance. There was no howling, screaming, and
jumping, as in the severer form; neither was the disposition to dance by any
means insuperable. Patients thus affected, although they had not a complete
control over their understandings, yet were sufficiently self-possessed,
during the attack, to obey the directions which they received. There were
even some among them who did not dance at all, but only felt an
involuntary impulse to allay the internal sense of disquietude, which is the
usual forerunner of an attack of this kind, by laughter, and quick walking
carried to the extent of producing fatigue[33]. This disorder, so different
from the original type, evidently approximates to the modern chorea; or
rather is in perfect accordance with it, even to the less essential symptom of
laughter. A mitigation in the form of the dancing mania had thus clearly
taken place at the commencement of the sixteenth century.
On the communication of the St. Vitus’s dance by sympathy, Paracelsus,
in his peculiar language, expresses himself with great spirit, and shows a
profound knowledge of the nature of sensual impressions, which find their
way to the heart,—the seat of joys and emotions,—which overpower the
opposition of reason; and whilst “all other qualities and natures” are
subdued, incessantly impel the patient, in consequence of his original
compliance, and his all conquering imagination, to imitate what he has
seen. On his treatment of the disease, we cannot bestow any great praise,
but must be content with the remark, that it was in conformity with the
notions of the age in which he lived. For the first kind, which often
originated in passionate excitement, he had a mental remedy, the efficacy of
which is not to be despised, if we estimate its value in connexion with the

prevalent opinions of those times. The patient was to make an image of
himself in wax or resin, and by an effort of thought to concentrate all his
blasphemies and sins in it. “Without the intervention of any other person, to
set his whole mind and thoughts concerning these oaths in the image;” and
when he had succeeded in this, he was to burn the image, so that not a
particle of it should remain[34]. In all this there was no mention made of St.
Vitus, or any of the other mediatory saints, which is accounted for by the
circumstance, that, at this time, an open rebellion against the Romish
Church had begun, and the worship of saints was by many rejected as
idolatrous[35]. For the second kind of St. Vitus’s dance, arising from sensual
irritation, with which women were far more frequently affected than men,
Paracelsus recommended harsh treatment and strict fasting. He directed that
the patients should be deprived of their liberty; placed in solitary
confinement, and made to sit in an uncomfortable place, until their misery
brought them to their senses and to a feeling of penitence. He then
permitted them gradually to return to their accustomed habits. Severe
corporal chastisement was not omitted; but, on the other hand, angry
resistance on the part of the patient was to be sedulously avoided, on the
ground that it might increase his malady, or even destroy him: moreover,
where it seemed proper, Paracelsus allayed the excitement of the nerves by
immersion in cold water. On the treatment of the third kind we shall not
here enlarge. It was to be effected by all sorts of wonderful remedies,
composed of the quintessences; and it would require, to render it
intelligible, a more extended exposition of peculiar principles than suits our
present purpose.

Sect. 6.—Decline and Termination of the Dancing Plague.
About this time the St. Vitus’s dance began to decline, so that milder
forms of it appeared more frequently, while the severer cases became more
rare; and even in these, some of the important symptoms gradually
disappeared. Paracelsus makes no mention of the tympanites as taking place
after the attacks, although it may occasionally have occurred; and Schenck
von Graffenberg, a celebrated physician of the latter half of the sixteenth
century[36], speaks of this disease as having been frequent only in the time
of his forefathers; his descriptions, however, are applicable to the whole of
that century, and to the close of the fifteenth[37]. The St. Vitus’s dance

attacked people of all stations, especially those who led a sedentary life,
such as shoemakers and tailors; but even the most robust peasants
abandoned their labours in the fields, as if they were possessed by evil
spirits; and thus those affected were seen assembling indiscriminately, from
time to time, at certain appointed places, and, unless prevented by the
lookers on, continuing to dance without intermission, until their very last
breath was expended. Their fury and extravagance of demeanour so
completely deprived them of their senses, that many of them dashed their
brains out against the walls and corners of buildings, or rushed headlong
into rapid rivers, where they found a watery grave. Roaring and foaming as
they were, the bystanders could only succeed in restraining them by placing
benches and chairs in their way, so that, by the high leaps they were thus
tempted to take, their strength might be exhausted. As soon as this was the
case, they fell as it were lifeless to the ground, and, by very slow degrees,
again recovered their strength. Many there were, who, even with all this
exertion, had not expended the violence of the tempest which raged within
them, but awoke with newly revived powers, and again and again mixed
with the crowd of dancers, until at length the violent excitement of their
disordered nerves was allayed by the great involuntary exertion of their
limbs; and the mental disorder was calmed by the extreme exhaustion of the
body. Thus the attacks themselves were in these cases, as in their nature
they are in all nervous complaints, necessary crises of an inward morbid
condition, which was transferred from the sensorium to the nerves of
motion, and, at an earlier period, to the abdominal plexus, where a deep-
seated derangement of the system was perceptible from the secretion of
flatus in the intestines.
The cure effected by these stormy attacks was in many cases so perfect,
that some patients returned to the factory or the plough as if nothing had
happened. Others, on the contrary, paid the penalty of their folly by so total
a loss of power, that they could not regain their former health, even by the
employment of the most strengthening remedies. Medical men were
astonished to observe, that women in an advanced state of pregnancy were
capable of going through an attack of the disease, without the slightest
injury to their offspring, which they protected merely by a bandage passed
round the waist. Cases of this kind were not unfrequent so late as Schenck’s
time. That patients should be violently affected by music, and their
paroxysms brought on and increased by it, is natural with such nervous

disorders; where deeper impressions are made through the ear, which is the
most intellectual of all the organs, than through any of the other senses. On
this account the magistrates hired musicians for the purpose of carrying the
St. Vitus’s dancers so much the quicker through the attacks, and directed,
that athletic men should be sent among them in order to complete the
exhaustion, which had been often observed to produce a good effect[38]. At
the same time there was a prohibition against wearing red garments,
because, at the sight of this colour, those affected became so furious, that
they flew at the persons who wore it, and were so bent upon doing them an
injury that they could with difficulty be restrained. They frequently tore
their own clothes whilst in the paroxysm, and were guilty of other
improprieties, so that the more opulent employed confidential attendants to
accompany them, and to take care that they did no harm either to
themselves or others. This extraordinary disease was, however, so greatly
mitigated in Schenck’s time, that the St. Vitus’s dancers had long since
ceased to stroll from town to town; and that physician, like Paracelsus,
makes no mention of the tympanitic inflation of the bowels. Moreover,
most of those affected, were only annually visited by attacks; and the
occasion of them was so manifestly referrible to the prevailing notions of
that period, that if the unqualified belief in the supernatural agency of saints
could have been abolished, they would not have had any return of the
complaint. Throughout the whole of June, prior to the festival of St. John,
patients felt a disquietude and restlessness which they were unable to
overcome. They were dejected, timid, and anxious; wandered about in an
unsettled state, being tormented with twitching pains, which seized them
suddenly in different parts, and eagerly expected the eve of St. John’s day,
in the confident hope, that by dancing at the altars of this saint, or of St.
Vitus, (for in the Breisgau aid was equally sought from both,) they would be
freed from all their sufferings. This hope was not disappointed; and they
remained, for the rest of the year, exempt from any further attack, after
having thus, by dancing and raving for three hours, satisfied an irresistible
demand of nature. There were at that period two chapels in the Breisgau,
visited by the St. Vitus’s dancers; namely, the Chapel of St. Vitus at
Biessen, near Breisach, and that of St. John, near Wasenweiler; and it is
probable that in the south-west of Germany, the disease was still in
existence in the seventeenth century.

However, it grew every year more rare, so that, at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, it was observed only occasionally in its ancient form.
Thus in the spring of the year 1623, G. Horst saw some women who
annually performed a pilgrimage to St. Vitus’s chapel at Drefelhausen, near
Weissenstein, in the territory of Ulm, that they might wait for their dancing
fit there, in the same manner as those in the Breisgau did, according to
Schenck’s account. They were not satisfied, however, with a dance of three
hours’ duration, but continued day and night in a state of mental aberration,
like persons in an ecstacy, until they fell exhausted to the ground; and when
they came to themselves again, they felt relieved from a distressing
uneasiness and painful sensation of weight in their bodies, of which they
had complained for several weeks prior to St. Vitus’s day[39].
After this commotion they remained well for the whole year; and such
was their faith in the protecting power of the saint, that one of them had
visited this shrine at Drefelhausen more than twenty times, and another had
already kept the Saint’s day for the thirty-second time at this sacred station.
The dancing fit itself was excited here, as it probably was in other places,
by music, from the effects of which, the patients were thrown into a state of
convulsion[40]. Many concurrent testimonies serve to show that music
generally contributed much to the continuance of the St. Vitus’s dance,
originated, and increased its paroxysms, and was sometimes the cause of
their mitigation. So early as the fourteenth century, the swarms of St. John’s
dancers were accompanied by minstrels playing upon noisy instruments,
who roused their morbid feelings; and it may readily be supposed that, by
the performance of lively melodies, and the stimulating effects which the
shrill tones of fifes and trumpets would produce, a paroxysm, that was
perhaps but slight in itself, might, in many cases, be increased to the most
outrageous fury, such as in later times, was purposely induced in order that
the force of the disease might be exhausted by the violence of its attack.
Moreover, by means of intoxicating music a kind of demoniacal festival for
the rude multitude was established, which had the effect of spreading this
unhappy malady wider and wider. Soft harmony was, however, employed to
calm the excitement of those affected, and it is mentioned as a character of
the tunes played with this view to the St. Vitus’s dancers, that they
contained transitions from a quick to a slow measure, and passed gradually
from a high to a low key[41]. It is to be regretted that no trace of this music

has reached our times, which is owing partly to the disastrous events of the
seventeenth century, and partly to the circumstance that the disorder was
looked upon as entirely national, and only incidentally considered worthy of
notice by foreign men of learning. If the St. Vitus’s dance was already on
the decline at the commencement of the seventeenth century, the subsequent
events were altogether adverse to its continuance. Wars carried on with
animosity and with various success for thirty years, shook the west of
Europe; and although the unspeakable calamities which they brought upon
Germany, both during their continuance, and in their immediate
consequences, were by no means favourable to the advance of knowledge,
yet, with the vehemence of a purifying fire, they gradually effected the
intellectual regeneration of the Germans; superstition, in her ancient form,
never again appeared, and the belief in the dominion of spirits, which
prevailed in the middle ages, lost for ever its once formidable power.

CHAPTER II.
DANCING MANIA IN ITALY.

Sect. 1.—Tarantism.
It was of the utmost advantage to the St. Vitus’s dancers that they made
choice of a favourite patron saint; for, not to mention that people were
inclined to compare them to the possessed with evil spirits, described in the
Bible, and thence to consider them as innocent victims to the power of
Satan, the name of their great intercessor recommended them to general
commiseration, and a magic boundary was thus set to every harsh feeling
which might otherwise have proved hostile to their safety. Other fanatics
were not so fortunate, being often treated with the most relentless cruelty
whenever the notions of the middle ages either excused or commanded it as
a religious duty[42].
Thus, passing over the innumerable instances of the burning of witches,
who were, after all, only labouring under a delusion, the Teutonic knights in
Prussia not unfrequently condemned those maniacs to the stake who
imagined themselves to be metamorphosed into wolves[43]—an
extraordinary species of insanity, which, having existed in Greece, before
our era, spread, in process of time, over Europe, so that it was
communicated not only to the Romaic, but also to the German and
Sarmatian nations, and descended from the ancients, as a legacy of
affliction to posterity. In modern times, Lycanthropy, such was the name
given to this infatuation, has vanished from the earth, but it is nevertheless
well worthy the consideration of the observer of human aberrations, and a
history of it by some writer who is equally well acquainted with the middle
ages as with antiquity is still a desideratum[44]. We leave it, for the present,
without further notice, and turn to a malady most extraordinary in all its
phenomena, having a close connexion with the St. Vitus’s dance, and, by a
comparison of facts, which are altogether similar, affording us an
instructive subject for contemplation. We allude to the disease called
Tarantism, which made its first appearance in Apulia, and thence spread
over the other provinces of Italy, where, during some centuries, it prevailed

as a great epidemic. In the present times it has vanished, or at least has lost
altogether its original importance, like the St. Vitus’s dance, lycanthropy,
and witchcraft.

Sect. 2.—Most ancient Traces.—Causes.
The learned Nicholas Perotti[45] gives the earliest account of this strange
disorder. Nobody had the least doubt that it was caused by the bite of the
tarantula[46][47], a ground-spider common in Apulia; and the fear of this
insect was so general, that its bite was in all probability much oftener
imagined, or the sting of some other kind of insect mistaken for it, than
actually received. The word tarantula is apparently the same as terrantola,
a name given by the Italians to the stellio of the old Romans, which was a
kind of lizard[48], said to be poisonous, and invested by credulity with such
extraordinary qualities, that, like the serpent of the Mosaic account of the
Creation, it personified, in the imaginations of the vulgar, the notion of
cunning, so that even the jurists designated a cunning fraud by the
appellation of a “stellionatus”[49]. Perotti expressly assures us that this
reptile was called by the Romans tarantula; and since he himself, who was
one of the most distinguished authors of his time, strangely confounds
spiders and lizards together, so that he considers the Apulian tarantula,
which he ranks among the class of spiders, to have the same meaning as the
kind of lizard, called ἀσκαλαβώτης[50], it is the less extraordinary that the
unlearned country people of Apulia should confound the much dreaded
ground-spider with the fabulous star-lizard[51], and appropriate to the one
the name of the other. The derivation of the word tarantula, from the city of
Tarentum, or the river Thara, in Apulia[52], on the banks of which this insect
is said to have been most frequently found, or at least its bite to have had
the most venomous effect, seems not to be supported by authority. So much
for the name of this famous spider, which, unless we are greatly mistaken,
throws no light whatever upon the nature of the disease in question.
Naturalists who, possessing a knowledge of the past, should not misapply
their talents by employing them in establishing the dry distinction of forms,
would find here much that calls for research, and their efforts would clear
up many a perplexing obscurity.

Perotti states that the tarantula, that is, the spider so called, was not met
with in Italy in former times, but that in his day it had become common,
especially in Apulia, as well as in some other districts. He deserves,
however, no great confidence as a naturalist, notwithstanding his having
delivered lectures in Bologna on medicine and other sciences[53]. He at least
has neglected to prove his assertion, which is not borne out by any
analogous phenomenon observed in modern times with regard to the history
of the spider species. It is by no means to be admitted that the tarantula did
not make its appearance in Italy before the disease ascribed to its bite
became remarkable, even though tempests more violent than those
unexampled storms which arose at the time of the Black Death[54] in the
middle of the fourteenth century had set the insect world in motion; for the
spider is little, if at all, susceptible of those cosmical influences which at
times multiply locusts and other winged insects to a wonderful extent, and
compel them to migrate.
The symptoms which Perotti enumerates as consequent on the bite of the
tarantula agree very exactly with those described by later writers. Those
who were bitten, generally fell into a state of melancholy, and appeared to
be stupified, and scarcely in possession of their senses. This condition was,
in many cases, united with so great a sensibility to music, that, at the very
first tones of their favourite melodies, they sprang up, shouting for joy, and
danced on without intermission, until they sank to the ground exhausted and
almost lifeless. In others, the disease did not take this cheerful turn. They
wept constantly, and as if pining away with some unsatisfied desire, spent
their days in the greatest misery and anxiety. Others, again, in morbid fits of
love, cast their longing looks on women, and instances of death are
recorded, which are said to have occurred under a paroxysm of either
laughing or weeping.
From this description, incomplete as it is, we may easily gather that
tarantism, the essential symptoms of which are mentioned in it, could not
have originated in the fifteenth century, to which Perotti’s account refers;
for that author speaks of it as a well known malady, and states that the
omission to notice it by older writers, was to be ascribed solely to the want
of education in Apulia, the only province probably where the disease at that
time prevailed. A nervous disorder that had arrived at so high a degree of

development, must have been long in existence, and doubtless had required
an elaborate preparation by the concurrence of general causes.
The symptoms which followed the bite of venomous spiders were well
known to the ancients, and had excited the attention of their best observers,
who agree in their descriptions of them. It is probable that among the
numerous species of their phalangium[55], the Apulian tarantula is included,
but it is difficult to determine this point with certainty, more especially,
because in Italy the tarantula was not the only insect which caused this
nervous affection, similar results being likewise attributed to the bite of the
scorpion. Lividity of the whole body as well as of the countenance,
difficulty of speech, tremor of the limbs, icy coldness, pale urine,
depression of spirits, headache, a flow of tears, nausea, vomiting, sexual
excitement, flatulence, syncope, dysuria, watchfulness, lethargy, even death
itself, were cited by them as the consequences of being bitten by venomous
spiders, and they made little distinction as to their kinds. To these symptoms
we may add the strange rumour, repeated throughout the middle ages, that
persons who were bitten, ejected by the bowels and kidneys, and even by
vomiting, substances resembling a spider’s web.
Nowhere, however, do we find any mention made that those affected felt
an irresistible propensity to dancing, or that they were accidentally cured by
it. Even Constantine of Africa, who lived 500 years after Aëtius, and as the
most learned physician of the school of Salerno, would certainly not have
passed over so acceptable a subject of remark, knows nothing of such a
memorable course of this disease arising from poison, and merely repeats
the observations of his Greek predecessors[56]. Gariopontus[57], a Salernian
physician of the eleventh century, was the first to describe a kind of
insanity, the remote affinity of which to the tarantula disease is rendered
apparent by a very striking symptom. The patients in their sudden attacks
behaved like maniacs, sprang up, throwing their arms about with wild
movements, and, if perchance a sword was at hand, they wounded
themselves and others, so that it became necessary carefully to secure them.
They imagined that they heard voices, and various kinds of sounds, and if,
during this state of illusion, the tones of a favourite instrument happened to
catch their ear, they commenced a spasmodic dance, or ran with the utmost
energy which they could muster until they were totally exhausted. These
dangerous maniacs, who, it would seem, appeared in considerable numbers,

were looked upon as a legion of devils, but on the causes of their malady
this obscure writer adds nothing further than that he believes (oddly
enough) that it may sometimes be excited by the bite of a mad dog. He calls
the disease Anteneasmus, by which is meant no doubt the Enthusiasmus of
the Greek physicians[58]. We cite this phenomenon as an important
forerunner of Tarantism, under the conviction that we have thus added to
the evidence that the development of this latter must have been founded on
circumstances which existed from the twelfth to the end of the fourteenth
century; for the origin of Tarantism itself is referrible, with the utmost
probability, to a period between the middle and the end of this century, and
is consequently contemporaneous with that of the St. Vitus’s dance (1374).
The influence of the Roman Catholic religion, connected as this was, in the
middle ages, with the pomp of processions, with public exercises of
penance, and with innumerable practices which strongly excited the
imaginations of its votaries, certainly brought the mind to a very favourable
state for the reception of a nervous disorder. Accordingly, so long as the
doctrines of Christianity were blended with so much mysticism, these
unhallowed disorders prevailed to an important extent, and even in our own
days we find them propagated with the greatest facility where the existence
of superstition produces the same effect in more limited districts, as it once
did among whole nations. But this is not all. Every country in Europe, and
Italy perhaps more than any other, was visited during the middle ages by
frightful plagues, which followed each other in such quick succession, that
they gave the exhausted people scarcely any time for recovery. The oriental
bubo-plague ravaged Italy[59] sixteen times between the years 1119 and
1340. Small-pox and measles were still more destructive than in modern
times, and recurred as frequently. St. Anthony’s fire was the dread of town
and country; and that disgusting disease, the leprosy, which, in consequence
of the crusades, spread its insinuating poison in all directions, snatched
from the paternal hearth innumerable victims who, banished from human
society, pined away in lonely huts, whither they were accompanied only by
the pity of the benevolent and their own despair. All these calamities, of
which the moderns have scarcely retained any recollection, were heightened
to an incredible degree by the Black Death[60], which spread boundless
devastation and misery over Italy. Men’s minds were everywhere morbidly
sensitive; and as it happens with individuals whose senses, when they are
suffering under anxiety, become more irritable, so that trifles are magnified

into objects of great alarm, and slight shocks, which would scarcely affect
the spirits when in health, give rise in them to severe diseases, so was it
with this whole nation, at all times so alive to emotions, and at that period
so sorely pressed with the horrors of death.
The bite of venomous spiders, or rather the unreasonable fear of its
consequences, excited at such a juncture, though it could not have done so
at an earlier period, a violent nervous disorder, which, like St. Vitus’s dance
in Germany, spread by sympathy, increasing in severity as it took a wider
range, and still further extending its ravages from its long continuance.
Thus, from the middle of the fourteenth century, the furies of the Dance
brandished their scourge over afflicted mortals; and music, for which the
inhabitants of Italy, now probably for the first time, manifested
susceptibility and talent, became capable of exciting ecstatic attacks in
those affected, and then furnished the magical means of exorcising their
melancholy.

Sect. 3.—Increase.
At the close of the fifteenth century we find that Tarantism had spread
beyond the boundaries of Apulia, and that the fear of being bitten by
venomous spiders had increased. Nothing short of death itself was expected
from the wound which these insects inflicted, and if those who were bitten
escaped with their lives, they were said to be seen pining away in a
desponding state of lassitude. Many became weak-sighted or hard of
hearing, some lost the power of speech, and all were insensible to ordinary
causes of excitement. Nothing but the flute or the cithern afforded them
relief[61]. At the sound of these instruments they awoke as it were by
enchantment, opened their eyes, and moving slowly at first, according to
the measure of the music, were, as the time quickened, gradually hurried on
to the most passionate dance. It was generally observable that country
people, who were rude, and ignorant of music, evinced on these occasions
an unusual degree of grace, as if they had been well practised in elegant
movements of the body; for it is a peculiarity in nervous disorders of this
kind, that the organs of motion are in an altered condition, and are
completely under the control of the over-strained spirits. Cities and villages
alike resounded throughout the summer season with the notes of fifes,
clarinets, and Turkish drums; and patients were everywhere to be met with

who looked to dancing as their only remedy. Alexander ab Alexandro[62],
who gives this account, saw a young man in a remote village who was
seized with a violent attack of Tarantism. He listened with eagerness and a
fixed stare to the sound of a drum, and his graceful movements gradually
became more and more violent, until his dancing was converted into a
succession of frantic leaps, which required the utmost exertion of his whole
strength. In the midst of this over-strained exertion of mind and body the
music suddenly ceased, and he immediately fell powerless to the ground,
where he lay senseless and motionless until its magical effect again aroused
him to a renewal of his impassioned performances.
At the period of which we are treating there was a general conviction,
that by music and dancing the poison of the Tarantula was distributed over
the whole body, and expelled through the skin, but that if there remained the
slightest vestige of it in the vessels, this became a permanent germ of the
disorder, so that the dancing fits might again and again be excited ad
infinitum by music. This belief, which resembled the delusion of those
insane persons who, being by artful management freed from the imagined
causes of their sufferings, are but for a short time released from their false
notions, was attended with the most injurious effects: for in consequence of
it those affected necessarily became by degrees convinced of the incurable
nature of their disorder. They expected relief, indeed, but not a cure, from
music; and when the heat of summer awakened a recollection of the dances
of the preceding year, they, like the St. Vitus’s dancers of the same period
before St. Vitus’s day, again grew dejected and misanthropic, until, by
music and dancing, they dispelled the melancholy which had become with
them a kind of sensual enjoyment.
Under such favourable circumstances it is clear that Tarantism must
every year have made further progress. The number of those affected by it
increased beyond all belief, for whoever had either actually been, or even
fancied that he had been, once bitten by a poisonous spider or scorpion,
made his appearance annually wherever the merry notes of the Tarantella
resounded. Inquisitive females joined the throng and caught the disease, not
indeed from the poison of the spider, but from the mental poison which they
eagerly received through the eye; and thus the cure of the Tarantati
gradually became established as a regular festival of the populace, which
was anticipated with impatient delight.

Without attributing more to deception and fraud than to the peculiar
nature of a progressive mental malady, it may readily be conceived that the
cases of this strange disorder now grew more frequent. The celebrated
Matthioli[63], who is worthy of entire confidence, gives his account as an
eye-witness. He saw the same extraordinary effects produced by music as
Alexandro, for, however tortured with pain, however hopeless of relief the
patients appeared, as they lay stretched on the couch of sickness, at the very
first sounds of those melodies which made an impression on them—but this
was the case only with the Tarantellas composed expressly for the purpose
—they sprang up as if inspired with new life and spirit, and, unmindful of
their disorder, began to move in measured gestures, dancing for hours
together without fatigue, until, covered with a kindly perspiration, they felt
a salutary degree of lassitude, which relieved them for a time at least,
perhaps even for a whole year, from their dejection and oppressive feeling
of general indisposition. Alexandro’s experience of the injurious effects
resulting from a sudden cessation of the music was generally confirmed by
Matthioli. If the clarinets and drums ceased for a single moment, which, as
the most skilful players were tired out by the patients, could not but happen
occasionally, they suffered their limbs to fall listless, again sank exhausted
to the ground, and could find no solace but in a renewal of the dance. On
this account care was taken to continue the music until exhaustion was
produced; for it was better to pay a few extra musicians, who might relieve
each other, than to permit the patient, in the midst of this curative exercise,
to relapse into so deplorable a state of suffering. The attack consequent
upon the bite of the Tarantula, Matthioli describes as varying much in its
manner. Some became morbidly exhilarated, so that they remained for a
long while without sleep, laughing, dancing, and singing in a state of the
greatest excitement. Others, on the contrary, were drowsy. The generality
felt nausea and suffered from vomiting, and some had constant tremors.
Complete mania was no uncommon occurrence, not to mention the usual
dejection of spirits and other subordinate symptoms.

Sect. 4.—Idiosyncracies.—Music.
Unaccountable emotions, strange desires and morbid sensual irritations
of all kinds, were as prevalent as in the St. Vitus’s dance and similar great
nervous maladies. So late as the sixteenth century patients were seen armed
with glittering swords which, during the attack, they brandished with wild

gestures, as if they were going to engage in a fencing match[64]. Even
women scorned all female delicacy[65] and, adopting this impassioned
demeanour, did the same; and this phenomenon, as well as the excitement
which the Tarantula dancers felt at the sight of any thing with metallic
lustre, was quite common up to the period when, in modern times, the
disease disappeared[66].
The abhorrence of certain colours and the agreeable sensations produced
by others, were much more marked among the excitable Italians than was
the case in the St. Vitus’s dance with the more phlegmatic Germans. Red
colours, which the St. Vitus’s dancers detested, they generally liked, so that
a patient was seldom seen who did not carry a red handkerchief for his
gratification, or greedily feast his eyes on any articles of red clothing worn
by the bystanders. Some preferred yellow, others black colours, of which an
explanation was sought, according to the prevailing notions of the times, in
the difference of temperaments[67]. Others again were enraptured with
green; and eye-witnesses describe this rage for colours as so extraordinary,
that they can scarcely find words with which to express their astonishment.
No sooner did the patients obtain a sight of the favourite colour than, new
as the impression was, they rushed like infuriated animals towards the
object, devoured it with their eager looks, kissed and caressed it in every
possible way, and gradually resigning themselves to softer sensations,
adopted the languishing expression of enamoured lovers, and embraced the
handkerchief, or whatever other article it might be, which was presented to
them, with the most intense ardour, while the tears streamed from their eyes
as if they were completely overwhelmed by the inebriating impression on
their senses.
The dancing fits of a certain Capuchin friar in Tarentum excited so much
curiosity, that Cardinal Cajetano proceeded to the monastery, that he might
see with his own eyes what was going on. As soon as the monk, who was in
the midst of his dance, perceived the spiritual prince clothed in his red
garments, he no longer listened to the Tarantella of the musicians, but with
strange gestures endeavoured to approach the Cardinal, as if he wished to
count the very threads of his scarlet robe, and to allay his intense longing by
its odour. The interference of the spectators, and his own respect, prevented
his touching it, and thus the irritation of his senses not being appeased, he
fell into a state of such anguish and disquietude, that he presently sank

down in a swoon, from which he did not recover until the Cardinal
compassionately gave him his cape. This he immediately seized in the
greatest ecstacy, and pressed now to his breast, now to his forehead and
cheeks, and then again commenced his dance as if in the frenzy of a love
fit[68].
At the sight of colours which they disliked, patients flew into the most
violent rage, and, like the St. Vitus’s dancers when they saw red objects,
could scarcely be restrained from tearing the clothes of those spectators
who raised in them such disagreeable sensations[69].
Another no less extraordinary symptom was the ardent longing for the
sea which the patients evinced. As the St. John’s dancers of the fourteenth
century saw, in the spirit, the heavens open and display all the splendour of
the saints, so did those who were suffering under the bite of the Tarantula
feel themselves attracted to the boundless expanse of the blue ocean, and
lost themselves in its contemplation. Some songs, which are still preserved,
marked this peculiar longing, which was moreover expressed by significant
music, and was excited even by the bare mention of the sea[70]. Some, in
whom this susceptibility was carried to the greatest pitch, cast themselves
with blind fury into the blue waves[71], as the St. Vitus’s dancers
occasionally did into rapid rivers. This condition, so opposite to the
frightful state of hydrophobia, betrayed itself in others only in the pleasure
afforded them by the sight of clear water in glasses. These they bore in their
hands while dancing, exhibiting at the same time strange movements, and
giving way to the most extravagant expressions of their feelings. They were
delighted also when, in the midst of the space allotted for this exercise,
more ample vessels, filled with water, and surrounded by rushes and water
plants, were placed, in which they bathed their heads and arms with evident
pleasure[72]. Others there were who rolled about on the ground, and were,
by their own desire, buried up to the neck in the earth, in order to alleviate
the misery of their condition, not to mention an endless variety of other
symptoms which showed the perverted action of the nerves.
All these modes of relief, however, were as nothing in comparison with
the irresistible charms of musical sound. Attempts had indeed been made in
ancient times to mitigate the pain of sciatica[73], or the paroxysms of
mania[74], by the soft melody of the flute, and, what is still more applicable

to the present purpose, to remove the danger arising from the bite of
vipers[75] by the same means. This, however, was tried only to a very small
extent. But after being bitten by the Tarantula, there was, according to
popular opinion, no way of saving life except by music, and it was hardly
considered as an exception to the general rule, that every now and then the
bad effects of a wound were prevented by placing a ligature on the bitten
limb, or by internal medicine, or that strong persons occasionally withstood
the effects of the poison, without the employment of any remedies at all[76].
It was much more common, and is quite in accordance with the nature of so
exquisite a nervous disease, to hear accounts of many, who, when bitten by
the Tarantula, perished miserably because the Tarantella, which would have
afforded them deliverance, was not played to them[77]. It was customary,
therefore, so early as the commencement of the seventeenth century, for
whole bands of musicians to traverse Italy during the summer months, and,
what is quite unexampled either in ancient or modern times, the cure of the
Tarantati in the different towns and villages was undertaken on a grand
scale. This season of dancing and music was called “the women’s little
carnival,”[78] for it was women more especially who conducted the
arrangements; so that throughout the whole country they saved up their
spare money, for the purpose of rewarding the welcome musicians, and
many of them neglected their household employments to participate in this
festival of the sick. Mention is even made of one benevolent lady (Mita
Lupa) who had expended her whole fortune on this object[79].
The music itself was of a kind perfectly adapted to the nature of the
malady, and it made so deep an impression on the Italians, that even to the
present time, long since the extinction of the disorder, they have retained
the Tarantella, as a particular species of music employed for quick lively
dancing. The different kinds of Tarantella were distinguished, very
significantly, by particular names, which had reference to the moods
observed in the patients. Whence it appears that they aimed at representing
by these tunes, even the idiosyncracies of the mind as expressed in the
countenance. Thus there was one kind of Tarantella which was called
“Panno rosso,” a very lively impassioned style of music, to which wild
dithyrambic songs were adapted; another, called “Panno verde,” which was
suited to the milder excitement of the senses, caused by green colours, and
set to Idyllian songs of verdant fields and shady groves. A third was named

“Cinque tempi:” a fourth “Moresca,” which was played to a Moorish dance;
a fifth, “Catena” and a sixth, with a very appropriate designation,
“Spallata,” as if it were only fit to be played to dancers who were lame in
the shoulder. This was the slowest and least in vogue of all[80]. For those
who loved water they took care to select love songs, which were sung to
corresponding music, and such persons delighted in hearing of gushing
springs and rushing cascades and streams[81]. It is to be regretted that on
this subject we are unable to give any further information, for only small
fragments of songs, and a very few Tarantellas, have been preserved, which
belong to a period so remote as the beginning of the seventeenth, or at
furthest the end of the sixteenth century[82].
The music was almost wholly in the Turkish style (aria Turchesca), and
the ancient songs of the peasantry of Apulia, which increased in number
annually, were well suited to the abrupt and lively notes of the Turkish
drum and the shepherd’s pipe. These two instruments were the favourites in
the country, but others of all kinds were played in towns and villages, as an
accompaniment to the dances of the patients and the songs of the spectators.
If any particular melody was disliked by those affected, they indicated their
displeasure by violent gestures expressive of aversion. They could not
endure false notes, and it is remarkable that uneducated boors, who had
never in their lives manifested any perception of the enchanting power of
harmony, acquired, in this respect, an extremely refined sense of hearing, as
if they had been initiated into the profoundest secrets of the musical art[83].
It was a matter of every day’s experience, that patients showed a
predilection for certain Tarantellas, in preference to others, which gave rise
to the composition of a great variety of these dances. They were likewise
very capricious in their partialities for particular instruments; so that some
longed for the shrill notes of the trumpet, others for the softest music
produced by the vibration of strings[84].
Tarantism was at its greatest height in Italy in the seventeenth century,
long after the St. Vitus’s Dance of Germany had disappeared. It was not the
natives of the country only who were attacked by this complaint. Foreigners
of every colour and of every race, negroes, gipsies, Spaniards, Albanians,
were in like manner affected by it[85]. Against the effects produced by the
Tarantula’s bite, or by the sight of the sufferers, neither youth nor age
afforded any protection; so that even old men of ninety threw aside their

crutches at the sound of the Tarantella, and, as if some magic potion,
restorative of youth and vigour, were flowing through their veins, joined the
most extravagant dancers[86]. Ferdinando saw a boy five years old seized
with the dancing mania[87], in consequence of the bite of a tarantula, and,
what is almost past belief, were it not supported by the testimony of so
credible an eye-witness, even deaf people were not exempt from this
disorder, so potent in its effect was the very sight of those affected, even
without the exhilarating emotions caused by music[88].
Subordinate nervous attacks were much more frequent during this
century than at any former period, and an extraordinary icy coldness was
observed in those who were the subjects of them; so that they did not
recover their natural heat until they had engaged in violent dancing[89].
Their anguish and sense of oppression forced from them a cold perspiration;
the secretion from the kidneys was pale[90], and they had so great a dislike
to every thing cold, that when water was offered them they pushed it away
with abhorrence. Wine, on the contrary, they all drank willingly, without
being heated by it, or in the slightest degree intoxicated[91]. During the
whole period of the attack they suffered from spasms in the stomach, and
felt a disinclination to take food of any kind. They used to abstain some
time before the expected seizures from meat and from snails, which they
thought rendered them more severe[92], and their great thirst for wine may,
therefore, in some measure, be attributable to the want of a more nutritious
diet; yet the disorder of the nerves was evidently its chief cause, and the
loss of appetite, as well as the necessity for support by wine, were its
effects. Loss of voice, occasional blindness[93], vertigo, complete insanity,
with sleeplessness, frequent weeping without any ostensible cause, were all
usual symptoms. Many patients found relief from being placed in swings or
rocked in cradles[94]; others required to be roused from their state of
suffering by severe blows on the soles of their feet; others beat themselves,
without any intention of making a display, but solely for the purpose of
allaying the intense nervous irritation which they felt; and a considerable
number were seen with their bellies swollen[95], like those of the St. John’s
dancers, while the violence of the intestinal disorder was indicated in others
by obstinate constipation or diarrhœa and vomiting[96]. These pitiable
objects gradually lost their strength and their colour, and creeping about

with injected eyes, jaundiced complexions, and inflated bowels, soon fell
into a state of profound melancholy, which found food and solace in the
solemn tolling of the funeral bell, and in an abode among the tombs of
cemeteries, as is related of the Lycanthropes of former times.
The persuasion of the inevitable consequences of being bitten by the
Tarantula, exercised a dominion over men’s minds which even the
healthiest and strongest could not shake off. So late as the middle of the
sixteenth century, the celebrated Fracastoro found the robust bailiff of his
landed estate groaning, and, with the aspect of a person in the extremity of
despair, suffering the very agonies of death, from a sting in the neck,
inflicted by an insect which was believed to be a Tarantula. He kindly
administered without delay, a potion of vinegar and Armenian bole, the
great remedy of those days for the plague and all kinds of animal poisons,
and the dying man was, as if by a miracle, restored to life and the power of
speech[97]. Now, since it is quite out of the question that the bole could have
any thing to do with the result in this case, notwithstanding Fracastoro’s
belief in its virtues, we can only account for the cure by supposing, that a
confidence in so great a physician prevailed over this fatal disease of the
imagination, which would otherwise have yielded to scarcely any other
remedy except the Tarantella. Ferdinando was acquainted with women who,
for thirty years in succession, had overcome the attacks of this disorder by a
renewal of their annual dance—so long did they maintain their belief in the
yet undestroyed poison of the Tarantula’s bite, and so long did that mental
affection continue to exist, after it had ceased to depend on any corporeal
excitement[98].
Wherever we turn we find that this morbid state of mind prevailed, and
was so supported by the opinions of the age, that it needed only a stimulus
in the bite of the Tarantula, and the supposed certainty of its very disastrous
consequences, to originate this violent nervous disorder. Even in
Ferdinando’s time there were many who altogether denied the poisonous
effects of the Tarantula’s bite, whilst they considered the disorder, which
annually set Italy in commotion, to be a melancholy depending on the
imagination[99]. They dearly expiated this scepticism, however, when they
were led, with an inconsiderate hardihood, to test their opinions by
experiment; for many of them became the subjects of severe Tarantism, and
even a distinguished prelate, Jo. Baptist Quinzato, Bishop of Foligno,

having allowed himself, by way of a joke, to be bitten by a Tarantula, could
obtain a cure in no other way than by being, through the influence of the
Tarentella, compelled to dance[100]. Others among the clergy, who wished to
shut their ears against music, because they considered dancing derogatory
to their station, fell into a dangerous state of illness by thus delaying the
crisis of the malady, and were obliged at last to save themselves from a
miserable death by submitting to the unwelcome but sole means of
cure[101]. Thus it appears that the age was so little favourable to freedom of
thought, that even the most decided sceptics, incapable of guarding
themselves against the recollection of what had been presented to the eye,
were subdued by a poison, the powers of which they had ridiculed, and
which was in itself inert in its effect.

Sect. 5.—Hysteria.
Different characteristics of morbidly excited vitality having been
rendered prominent by Tarantism in different individuals, it could not but
happen that other derangements of the nerves would assume the form of
this, whenever circumstances favoured such a transition. This was more
especially the case with hysteria, that proteiform and mutable disorder, in
which the imaginations, the superstitions and the follies of all ages have
been evidently reflected. The “Carnevaletto delle Donne” appeared most
opportunely for those who were hysterical. Their disease received from it,
as it had at other times from other extraordinary customs, a peculiar
direction; so that whether bitten by the tarantula or not, they felt compelled
to participate in the dances of those affected, and to make their appearance
at this popular festival, where they had an opportunity of triumphantly
exhibiting their sufferings. Let us here pause to consider the kind of life
which the women in Italy led. Lonely, and deprived by cruel custom of
social intercourse, that fairest of all enjoyments, they dragged on a
miserable existence. Cheerfulness and an inclination to sensual pleasures
passed into compulsory idleness, and, in many, into black despondency[102].
Their imaginations became disordered—a pallid countenance and oppressed
respiration bore testimony to their profound sufferings. How could they do
otherwise, sunk as they were in such extreme misery, than seize the
occasion to burst forth from their prisons, and alleviate their miseries by
taking part in the delights of music. Nor should we here pass unnoticed a

circumstance which illustrates, in a remarkable degree, the psychological
nature of hysterical sufferings, namely, that many chlorotic females, by
joining the dancers at the Carnevaletto, were freed from their spasms and
oppression of breathing for the whole year, although the corporeal cause of
their malady was not removed[103]. After such a result, no one could call
their self-deception a mere imposture, and unconditionally condemn it as
such.
This numerous class of patients certainly contributed not a little to the
maintenance of the evil, for their fantastic sufferings, in which
dissimulation and reality could scarcely be distinguished even by
themselves, much less by their physicians, were imitated, in the same way
as the distortions of the St. Vitus’s dancers, by the impostors of that period.
It was certainly by these persons also that the number of subordinate
symptoms was increased to an endless extent, as may be conceived from the
daily observation of hysterical patients, who, from a morbid desire to render
themselves remarkable, deviate from the laws of moral propriety. Powerful
sexual excitement had often the most decided influence over their
condition. Many of them exposed themselves in the most indecent manner,
tore their hair out by the roots, with howling and gnashing of their teeth;
and when, as was sometimes the case, their unsatisfied passion hurried them
on to a state of frenzy, they closed their existence by self-destruction; it
being common at that time for these unfortunate beings to precipitate
themselves into the wells[104].
It might hence seem that, owing to the conduct of patients of this
description, so much of fraud and falsehood would be mixed up with the
original disorder, that having passed into another complaint, it must have
been itself destroyed. This, however, did not happen in the first half of the
seventeenth century; for as a clear proof that Tarantism remained
substantially the same and quite unaffected by Hysteria, there were in many
places, and in particular at Messapia, fewer women affected than men, who
in their turn were, in no small proportion, led into temptation by sexual
excitement[105]. In other places, as for example at Brindisi, the case was
reversed, which may, as in other complaints, be in some measure
attributable to local causes. Upon the whole it appears, from concurrent
accounts, that women by no means enjoyed the distinction of being attacked
by Tarantism more frequently than men.

It is said that the cicatrix of the tarantula bite, on the yearly or half-yearly
return of the fit, became discoloured[106], but on this point the distinct
testimony of good observers is wanting to deprive the assertion of its utter
improbability.
It is not out of place to remark here, that about the same time that
Tarantism attained its greatest height in Italy, the bite of venomous spiders
was more feared in distant parts of Asia likewise, than it had ever been
within the memory of man. There was this difference, however, that the
symptoms supervening on the occurrence of this accident were not
accompanied by the Apulian nervous disorder, which, as has been shown in
the foregoing pages, had its origin rather in the melancholic temperament of
the inhabitants of the south of Italy, than in the nature of the tarantula
poison itself. This poison is therefore doubtless to be considered only as a
remote cause of the complaint, which, but for that temperament, would be
inadequate to its production. The Persians employed a very rough means of
counteracting the bad consequences of a poison of this sort. They drenched
the wounded person with milk, and then, by violent rotatory motion in a
suspended box, compelled him to vomit[107].

Sect. 6.—Decrease.
The Dancing Mania, arising from the tarantula bite, continued, with all
those additions of self-deception, and of the dissimulation which is such a
constant attendant on nervous disorders of this kind, through the whole
course of the seventeenth century. It was indeed gradually on the decline,
but up to the termination of this period, showed such extraordinary
symptoms, that Baglivi, one of the best physicians of that time, thought he
did a service to science by making them the subject of a dissertation[108]. He
repeats all the observations of Ferdinando, and supports his own assertions
by the experience of his father, a physician at Lecce, whose testimony, as an
eye-witness, may be admitted as unexceptionable[109].
The immediate consequences of the tarantula bite, the supervening
nervous disorder, and the aberrations and fits of those who suffered from
Hysteria, he describes in a masterly style, nor does he ever suffer his
credulity to diminish the authenticity of his account, of which he has been
unjustly accused by later writers.

Finally, Tarantism has declined more and more in modern times, and is
now limited to single cases. How could it possibly have maintained itself
unchanged in the eighteenth century, when all the links which connected it
with the middle ages had long since been snapped asunder? Imposture[110]
grew more frequent, and wherever the disease still appeared in its genuine
form, its chief cause, namely, a peculiar cast of melancholy, which formerly
had been the temperament of thousands, was now possessed only
occasionally by unfortunate individuals. It might therefore not unreasonably
be maintained, that the Tarantism of modern times bears nearly the same
relation to the original malady, as the St. Vitus’s dance which still exists,
and certainly has all along existed, bears, in certain cases, to the original
dancing mania of the dancers of St. John.
To conclude. Tarantism, as a real disease, has been denied in toto, and
stigmatized as an imposition, by most physicians and naturalists, who in
this controversy have shown the narrowness of their views and their utter
ignorance of history. In order to support their opinion they have instituted
some experiments, apparently favourable to it, but under circumstances
altogether inapplicable, since, for the most part, they selected, as the
subjects of them, none but healthy men, who were totally uninfluenced by a
belief in this once so dreaded disease. From individual instances of fraud
and dissimulation, such as are found in connexion with most nervous
affections without rendering their reality a matter of any doubt, they drew a
too hasty conclusion respecting the general phenomenon, of which they
appeared not to know, that it had continued for nearly four hundred years,
having originated in the remotest periods of the middle ages. The most
learned and the most acute among these sceptics is Serao the
Neapolitan[111]. His reasonings amount to this, that he considers the disease
to be a very marked form of melancholia, and compares the effect of the
tarantula bite upon it to stimulating, with spurs, a horse which is already
running. The reality of that effect he thus admits, and therefore directly
confirms what in appearance only he denies[112]. By shaking the already
vacillating belief in this disorder he is said to have actually succeeded in
rendering it less frequent, and in setting bounds to imposture[113]; but this
no more disproves the reality of its existence, than the oft-repeated
detection of imposition has been able, in modern times, to banish magnetic
sleep from the circle of natural phenomena, though such detection has, on

its side, rendered more rare the incontestible effects of animal magnetism.
Other physicians and naturalists[114] have delivered their sentiments on
Tarantism, but as they have not possessed an enlarged knowledge of its
history, their views do not merit particular exposition. It is sufficient for the
comprehension of every one, that we have presented the facts freed from all
extraneous speculation.

CHAPTER III.
DANCING MANIA IN ABYSSINIA.

Sect. 1.—Tigretier.
Both the St. Vitus’s dance and Tarantism belonged to the ages in which
they appeared. They could not have existed under the same latitude at any
other epoch, for at no other period were the circumstances which prepared
the way for them combined in a similar relation to each other, and the
mental as well as corporeal temperaments of nations, which depend on
causes such as have been stated, are as little capable of renewal as the
different stages of life in individuals. This gives so much the more
importance to a disease but cursorily alluded to in the foregoing pages,
which exists in Abyssinia, and which nearly resembles the original mania of
the St. John’s dancers, inasmuch as it exhibits a perfectly similar ecstacy,
with the same violent effect on the nerves of motion. It occurs most
frequently in the Tigrè country, being thence called Tigretier, and is
probably the same malady which is called in the Æthiopian language
Astarāgaza[115]. On this subject we will introduce the testimony of
Nathaniel Pearce[116], an eye-witness, who resided nine years in Abyssinia.
“The Tigretier,” says he, “is more common among the women than among
the men. It seizes the body as if with a violent fever, and from that turns to a
lingering sickness, which reduces the patients to skeletons, and often kills
them, if the relations cannot procure the proper remedy. During this
sickness their speech is changed to a kind of stuttering, which no one can
understand but those afflicted with the same disorder. When the relations
find the malady to be the real tigretier, they join together to defray the
expenses of curing it; the first remedy they in general attempt, is to procure
the assistance of a learned Dofter, who reads the Gospel of St. John[117], and
drenches the patient with cold water daily for the space of seven days—an
application that very often proves fatal. The most effectual cure, though far
more expensive than the former, is as follows:—The relations hire, for a
certain sum of money, a band of trumpeters, drummers and fifers, and buy a
quantity of liquor; then all the young men and women of the place assemble

at the patient’s house, to perform the following most extraordinary
ceremony.
“I was once called in by a neighbour to see his wife, a very young
woman, who had the misfortune to be afflicted with this disorder; and the
man being an old acquaintance of mine, and always a close comrade in the
camp, I went every day when at home to see her, but I could not be of any
service to her, though she never refused my medicines. At this time, I could
not understand a word she said, although she talked very freely, nor could
any of her relations understand her. She could not bear the sight of a book
or a priest, for at the sight of either, she struggled, and was apparently
seized with acute agony, and a flood of tears, like blood mingled with water,
would pour down her face from her eyes. She had lain three months in this
lingering state, living upon so little that it seemed not enough to keep a
human body alive; at last, her husband agreed to employ the usual remedy,
and, after preparing for the maintenance of the band, during the time it
would take to effect the cure, he borrowed from all his neighbours their
silver ornaments, and loaded her legs, arms, and neck with them.
“The evening that the band began to play, I seated myself close by her
side as she lay upon the couch, and about two minutes after the trumpets
had begun to sound, I observed her shoulders begin to move, and soon
afterwards her head and breast, and in less than a quarter of an hour, she sat
upon her couch. The wild look she had, though sometimes she smiled, made
me draw off to a greater distance, being almost alarmed to see one nearly a
skeleton move with such strength: her head, neck, shoulders, hands and
feet, all made a strong motion to the sound of the music, and in this manner
she went on by degrees, until she stood up on her legs upon the floor.
Afterwards she began to dance, and at times to jump about, and at last, as
the music and noise of the singers increased, she often sprang three feet
from the ground. When the music slackened, she would appear quite out of
temper, but when it became louder, she would smile and be delighted.
During this exercise, she never showed the least symptom of being tired,
though the musicians were thoroughly exhausted; and when they stopped to
refresh themselves by drinking and resting a little, she would discover signs
of discontent.
“Next day, according to the custom in the cure of this disorder, she was
taken into the market-place, where several jars of maize or tsug were set in

order by the relations, to give drink to the musicians and dancers. When the
crowd had assembled and the music was ready, she was brought forth and
began to dance and throw herself into the maddest postures imaginable, and
in this manner she kept on the whole day. Towards evening, she began to let
fall her silver ornaments from her neck, arms, and legs, one at a time, so
that, in the course of three hours, she was stripped of every article. A
relation continually kept going after her as she danced, to pick up the
ornaments, and afterwards delivered them to the owners from whom they
were borrowed. As the sun went down, she made a start with such
swiftness, that the fastest runner could not come up with her, and when at
the distance of about two hundred yards, she dropped on a sudden, as if
shot. Soon afterwards, a young man, on coming up with her, fired a
matchlock over her body, and struck her upon the back with the broad side
of his large knife, and asked her name, to which she answered as when in
her common senses—a sure proof of her being cured; for, during the time of
this malady, those afflicted with it never answer to their Christian names.
She was now taken up in a very weak condition and carried home, and a
priest came and baptized her again in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, which ceremony concluded her cure. Some are taken in this manner
to the market-place for many days before they can be cured, and it
sometimes happens that they cannot be cured at all. I have seen them in
these fits dance with a bruly, or bottle of maize, upon their heads, without
spilling the liquor, or letting the bottle fall, although they have put
themselves into the most extravagant postures.
“I could not have ventured to write this from hearsay, nor could I
conceive it possible, until I was obliged to put this remedy in practice upon
my own wife[118], who was seized with the same disorder, and then I was
compelled to have a still nearer view of this strange disorder. I at first
thought that a whip would be of some service, and one day attempted a few
strokes when unnoticed by any person, we being by ourselves, and I having
a strong suspicion that this ailment sprang from the weak minds of women,
who were encouraged in it for the sake of the grandeur, rich dress, and
music which accompany the cure. But how much was I surprised, the
moment I struck a light blow, thinking to do good, to find that she became
like a corpse, and even the joints of her fingers became so stiff that I could
not straighten them; indeed, I really thought that she was dead, and
immediately made it known to the people in the house that she had fainted,

but did not tell them the cause, upon which they immediately brought
music, which I had for many days denied them, and which soon revived
her; and I then left the house to her relations to cure her at my expense, in
the manner I have before mentioned, though it took a much longer time to
cure my wife than the woman I have just given an account of. One day I
went privately, with a companion, to see my wife dance, and kept at a short
distance, as I was ashamed to go near the crowd. On looking stedfastly
upon her, while dancing or jumping more like a deer than a human being, I
said that it certainly was not my wife; at which my companion burst into a
fit of laughter, from which he could scarcely refrain all the way home. Men
are sometimes afflicted with this dreadful disorder, but not frequently.
Among the Amhara and Galla it is not so common.”
Such is the account of Pearce, who is every way worthy of credit, and
whose lively description renders the traditions of former times respecting
the St. Vitus’s dance and Tarantism intelligible even to those who are
sceptical respecting the existence of a morbid state of the mind and body of
the kind described, because, in the present advanced state of civilization
among the nations of Europe, opportunities for its development no longer
occur. The credibility of this energetic, but by no means ambitious man, is
not liable to the slightest suspicion, for, owing to his want of education, he
had no knowledge of the phenomenon in question, and his work evinces
throughout his attractive and unpretending impartiality.
Comparison is the mother of observation, and may here elucidate one
phenomena by another—the past by that which still exists. Oppression,
insecurity, and the influence of a very rude priestcraft, are the powerful
causes which operated on the Germans and Italians of the middle ages, as
they now continue to operate on the Abyssinians of the present day.
However these people may differ from us in their descent, their manners
and their customs, the effects of the above-mentioned causes are the same
in Africa as they were in Europe, for they operate on man himself
independently of the particular locality in which he may be planted; and the
condition of the Abyssinians of modern times is, in regard to superstition, a
mirror of the condition of the European nations in the middle ages. Should
this appear a bold assertion, it will be strengthened by the fact, that in
Abyssinia, two examples of superstitions occur, which are completely in
accordance with occurrences of the middle ages that took place

contemporarily with the dancing mania. The Abyssinians have their
Christian flagellants, and there exists among them a belief in a
Zoomorphism, which presents a lively image of the lycanthropy of the
middle ages. Their flagellants are called Zackarys. They are united into a
separate Christian fraternity, and make their processions through the towns
and villages with great noise and tumult, scourging themselves till they
draw blood, and wounding themselves with knives[119]. They boast that they
are descendants of St. George. It is precisely in Tigrè, the country of the
Abyssinian dancing mania, where they are found in the greatest numbers,
and where they have, in the neighbourhood of Axum, a church of their own,
dedicated to their patron saint Oun Arvel. Here there is an ever-burning
lamp, and they contrive to impress a belief that this is kept alight by
supernatural means. They also here keep a holy water, which is said to be a
cure for those who are affected by the dancing mania.
The Abyssinian Zoomorphism is a no less important phenomenon, and
shows itself in a manner quite peculiar. The blacksmiths and potters form,
among the Abyssinians, a society, or caste called in Tigrè Tebbib, and in
Amhara Buda, which is held in some degree of contempt, and excluded
from the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, because it is believed that they
can change themselves into hyænas and other beasts of prey, on which
account they are feared by every body, and regarded with horror. They
artfully contrive to keep up this superstition, because by this separation they
preserve a monopoly of their lucrative trades, and as in other respects they
are good Christians, (but few Jews or Mahomedans live among them,) they
seem to attach no great consequence to their excommunication. As a badge
of distinction, they wear a golden earring, which is frequently found in the
ears of hyænas that are killed, without its having ever been discovered how
they catch these animals, so as to decorate them with this strange ornament,
and this removes, in the minds of the people, all doubt as to the supernatural
powers of the smiths and potters[120]. To the budas is also ascribed the gift
of enchantment, especially that of the influence of the evil eye[121]. They
nevertheless live unmolested, and are not condemned to the flames by
fanatical priests, as the lycanthropes were in the middle ages.

CHAPTER IV.
SYMPATHY.

Imitation—compassion—sympathy, these are imperfect designations for a
common bond of union among human beings—for an instinct which
connects individuals with the general body, which embraces with equal
force, reason and folly, good and evil, and diminishes the praise of virtue as
well as the criminality of vice. In this impulse there are degrees, but no
essential differences, from the first intellectual efforts of the infant mind,
which are in a great measure based on imitation, to that morbid condition of
the soul in which the sensible impression of a nervous malady fetters the
mind, and finds its way, through the eye, directly to the diseased texture, as
the electric shock is propagated by contact from body to body. To this
instinct of imitation, when it exists in its highest degree, is united a loss of
all power over the will, which occurs as soon as the impression on the
senses has become firmly established, producing a condition like that of
small animals when they are fascinated by the look of a serpent. By this
mental bondage, morbid sympathy is clearly and definitely distinguished
from all subordinate degrees of this instinct, however closely allied the
imitation of a disorder may seem to be to that of a mere folly, of an absurd
fashion, of an awkward habit in speech and manner, or even of a confusion
of ideas. Even these latter imitations, however, directed as they are to
foolish and pernicious objects, place the self-independence of the greater
portion of mankind in a very doubtful light, and account for their union into
a social whole. Still more nearly allied to morbid sympathy than the
imitation of enticing folly, although often with a considerable admixture of
the latter, is the diffusion of violent excitements, especially those of a
religious or political character, which have so powerfully agitated the
nations of ancient and modern times, and which may, after an incipient
compliance[122], pass into a total loss of power over the will, and an actual
disease of the mind. Far be it from us to attempt to awaken all the various
tones of this chord, whose vibrations reveal the profound secrets which lie
hid in the inmost recesses of the soul. We might well want powers adequate
to so vast an undertaking. Our business here is only with that morbid

sympathy, by the aid of which the dancing mania of the middle ages grew
into a real epidemic. In order to make this apparent by comparison, it may
not be out of place, at the close of this inquiry, to introduce a few striking
examples:—
1. “At a cotton manufactory at Hodden Bridge, in Lancashire, a girl, on
the fifteenth of February 1787, put a mouse into the bosom of another girl,
who had a great dread of mice. The girl was immediately thrown into a fit,
and continued in it, with the most violent convulsions, for twenty-four
hours. On the following day, three more girls were seized in the same
manner; and on the 17th, six more. By this time, the alarm was so great, that
the whole work, in which 200 or 300 were employed, was totally stopped,
and an idea prevailed that a particular disease had been introduced by a bag
of cotton opened in the house. On Sunday the 18th, Dr. St. Clare was sent
for from Preston; before he arrived three more were seized, and during that
night and the morning of the 19th, eleven more, making in all twenty-four.
Of these, twenty-one were young women, two were girls of about ten years
of age, and one man, who had been much fatigued with holding the girls.
Three of the number lived about two miles from the place where the
disorder first broke out, and three at another factory at Clitheroe, about five
miles distant, which last and two more were infected entirely from report,
not having seen the other patients, but, like them and the rest of the country,
strongly impressed with the idea of the plague being caught from the cotton.
The symptoms were anxiety, strangulation, and very strong convulsions;
and these were so violent as to last without any intermission from a quarter
of an hour to twenty-four hours, and to require four or five persons to
prevent the patients from tearing their hair and dashing their heads against
the floor or walls. Dr. St. Clare had taken with him a portable electrical
machine, and by electric shocks the patients were universally relieved
without exception. As soon as the patients and the country were assured that
the complaint was merely nervous, easily cured, and not introduced by the
cotton, no fresh person was affected. To dissipate their apprehensions still
further, the best effects were obtained by causing them to take a cheerful
glass and join in a dance. On Tuesday the 20th, they danced, and the next
day were all at work, except two or three, who were much weakened by
their fits.”[123]

The occurrence here described is remarkable on this account, that there
was no important predisposing cause for convulsions in these young
women, unless we consider as such their miserable and confined life in the
work-rooms of a spinning manufactory. It did not arise from enthusiasm,
nor is it stated that the patients had been the subjects of any other nervous
disorders. In another perfectly analogous case, those attacked were all
suffering from nervous complaints, which roused a morbid sympathy in
them at the sight of a person seized with convulsions. This, together with
the supervention of hysterical fits, may aptly enough be compared to
Tarantism.
2. “A young woman of the lowest order, twenty-one years of age, and of
a strong frame, came on the 13th of January, 1801, to visit a patient in the
Charité hospital at Berlin, where she had herself been previously under
treatment for an inflammation of the chest with tetanic spasms, and
immediately on entering the ward, fell down in strong convulsions. At the
sight of her violent contortions, six other female patients immediately
became affected in the same way, and by degrees eight more were in like
manner attacked with strong convulsions. All these patients were from
sixteen to twenty-five years of age, and suffered without exception, one
from spasms in the stomach, another from palsy, a third from lethargy, a
fourth from fits with consciousness, a fifth from catalepsy, a sixth from
syncope, &c. The convulsions, which alternate in various ways with tonic
spasms, were accompanied by loss of sensibility, and were invariably
preceded by languor with heavy sleep, which was followed by the fits in the
course of a minute or two; and it is remarkable, that in all these patients
their former nervous disorders, not excepting paralysis, disappeared,
returning, however, after the subsequent removal of their new complaint.
The treatment, during the course of which two of the nurses, who were
young women, suffered similar attacks, was continued for four months. It
was finally successful, and consisted principally in the administration of
opium, at that time the favourite remedy[124].”
Now, every species of enthusiasm, every strong affection, every violent
passion, may lead to convulsions—to mental disorders—to a concussion of
the nerves, from the sensorium to the very finest extremities of the spinal
chord. The whole world is full of examples of this afflicting state of
turmoil, which, when the mind is carried away by the force of a sensual

impression that destroys its freedom, is irresistibly propagated by imitation.
Those who are thus infected do not spare even their own lives, but, as a
hunted flock of sheep will follow their leader and rush over a precipice, so
will whole hosts of enthusiasts, deluded by their infatuation, hurry on to a
self-inflicted death. Such has ever been the case, from the days of the
Milesian virgins to the modern associations for self-destruction[125]. Of all
enthusiastic infatuations, however, that of religion is the most fertile in
disorders of the mind as well as of the body, and both spread with the
greatest facility by sympathy. The history of the church furnishes
innumerable proofs of this, but we need go no further than the most recent
times.
3. In a Methodist chapel at Redruth, a man during divine service, cried
out with a loud voice, “What shall I do to be saved?” at the same time
manifesting the greatest uneasiness and solicitude respecting the condition
of his soul. Some other members of the congregation, following his
example, cried out in the same form of words, and seemed shortly after to
suffer the most excruciating bodily pain. This strange occurrence was soon
publicly known, and hundreds of people, who had come thither, either
attracted by curiosity, or a desire, from other motives, to see the sufferers,
fell into the same state. The chapel remained open for some days and
nights, and from that point the new disorder spread itself, with the rapidity
of lightning, over the neighbouring towns of Camborne, Helston, Truro,
Penryn, and Falmouth, as well as over the villages in the vicinity. Whilst
thus advancing, it decreased in some measure at the place where it had first
appeared, and it confined itself throughout to the Methodist chapels. It was
only by the words which have been mentioned that it was excited, and it
seized none but people of the lowest education. Those who were attacked
betrayed the greatest anguish, and fell into convulsions; others cried out,
like persons possessed, that the Almighty would straightway pour out his
wrath upon them, that the wailings of tormented spirits rang in their ears,
and that they saw hell open to receive them. The clergy, when in the course
of their sermons, they perceived that persons were thus seized, earnestly
exhorted them to confess their sins, and zealously endeavoured to convince
them that they were by nature enemies to Christ; that the anger of God had
therefore fallen upon them; and that if death should surprise them in the
midst of their sins, the eternal torments of hell would be their portion. The
over-excited congregation upon this repeated their words, which naturally

must have increased the fury of their convulsive attacks. When the
discourse had produced its full effect, the preacher changed his subject;
reminded those who were suffering, of the power of the Saviour, as well as
of the grace of God, and represented to them in glowing colours the joys of
heaven. Upon this a remarkable reaction sooner or later took place. Those
who were in convulsions felt themselves raised from the lowest depths of
misery and despair to the most exalted bliss, and triumphantly shouted out
that their bonds were loosed, their sins were forgiven, and that they were
translated to the wonderful freedom of the children of God. In the mean
time, their convulsions continued, and they remained, during this condition,
so abstracted from every earthly thought, that they staid two and sometimes
three days and nights together in the chapels, agitated all the time by
spasmodic movements, and taking neither repose nor nourishment.
According to a moderate computation, 4000 people were, within a very
short time, affected with this convulsive malady.
The course and symptoms of the attacks were in general as follows:—
There came on at first a feeling of faintness, with rigour and a sense of
weight at the pit of the stomach, soon after which the patient cried out, as if
in the agonies of death or the pains of labour. The convulsions then began,
first showing themselves in the muscles of the eyelids, though the eyes
themselves were fixed and staring. The most frightful contortions of the
countenance followed, and the convulsions now took their course
downwards, so that the muscles of the neck and trunk were affected,
causing a sobbing respiration, which was performed with great effort.
Tremors and agitation ensued, and the patients screamed out violently, and
tossed their heads about from side to side. As the complaint increased, it
seized the arms, and its victims beat their breasts, clasped their hands, and
made all sorts of strange gestures. The observer who gives this account
remarked that the lower extremities were in no instance affected. In some
cases, exhaustion came on in a very few minutes, but the attack usually
lasted much longer, and there were even cases in which it was known to
continue for sixty or seventy hours. Many of those who happened to be
seated when the attack commenced, bent their bodies rapidly backwards
and forwards during its continuance, making a corresponding motion with
their arms, like persons sawing wood. Others shouted aloud, leaped about,
and threw their bodies into every possible posture, until they had exhausted
their strength. Yawning took place at the commencement in all cases, but as

the violence of the disorder increased, the circulation and respiration
became accelerated, so that the countenance assumed a swollen and puffed
appearance. When exhaustion came on, patients usually fainted, and
remained in a stiff and motionless state until their recovery. The disorder
completely resembled the St. Vitus’s dance, but the fits sometimes went on
to an extraordinarily violent extent, so that the author of the account once
saw a woman, who was seized with these convulsions, resist the endeavours
of four or five strong men to restrain her. Those patients who did not lose
their consciousness were in general made more furious by every attempt to
quiet them by force, on which account they were in general suffered to
continue unmolested until nature herself brought on exhaustion. Those
affected complained, more or less, of debility after the attacks, and cases
sometimes occurred in which they passed into other disorders: thus some
fell into a state of melancholy, which, however, in consequence of their
religious ecstacy, was distinguished by the absence of fear and despair; and
in one patient inflammation of the brain is said to have taken place. No sex
or age was exempt from this epidemic malady. Children five years old and
octogenarians were alike affected by it, and even men of the most powerful
frame were subject to its influence. Girls and young women, however, were
its most frequent victims[126].
4. For the last hundred years a nervous affection of a perfectly similar
kind has existed in the Shetland Islands, which furnishes a striking example,
perhaps the only one now existing, of the very lasting propagation by
sympathy of this species of disorders. The origin of the malady was very
insignificant. An epileptic woman had a fit in church, and whether it was
that the minds of the congregation were excited by devotion, or that, being
overcome at the sight of the strong convulsions, their sympathy was called
forth, certain it is, that many adult women, and even children, some of
whom were of the male sex, and not more than six years old, began to
complain forthwith of palpitation, followed by faintness, which passed into
a motionless and apparently cataleptic condition. These symptoms lasted
more than an hour, and probably recurred frequently. In the course of time,
however, this malady is said to have undergone a modification, such as it
exhibits at the present day. Women whom it has attacked will suddenly fall
down, toss their arms about, writhe their bodies into various shapes, move
their heads suddenly from side to side, and with eyes fixed and staring, utter
the most dismal cries. If the fit happen on any occasion of public diversion,

they will, as soon as it has ceased, mix with their companions and continue
their amusement as if nothing had happened. Paroxysms of this kind used to
prevail most during the warm months of summer, and about fifty years ago
there was scarcely a Sabbath in which they did not occur. Strong passions
of the mind, induced by religious enthusiasm, are also exciting causes of
these fits, but like all such false tokens of divine workings, they are easily
encountered by producing in the patient a different frame of mind, and
especially by exciting a sense of shame: thus those affected are under the
control of any sensible preacher, who knows how to “administer to a mind
diseased,” and to expose the folly of voluntarily yielding to a sympathy so
easily resisted, or of inviting such attacks by affectation. An intelligent and
pious minister of Shetland informed the physician, who gives an account of
this disorder as an eye-witness, that being considerably annoyed, on his first
introduction into the country, by these paroxysms, whereby the devotions of
the church were much impeded, he obviated their repetition by assuring his
parishioners, that no treatment was more effectual than immersion in cold
water; and as his kirk was fortunately contiguous to a freshwater lake, he
gave notice that attendants should be at hand, during divine service, to
ensure the proper means of cure. The sequel need scarcely be told. The fear
of being carried out of the church, and into the water, acted like a charm;
not a single Naiad was made, and the worthy minister, for many years, had
reason to boast of one of the best regulated congregations in Shetland. As
the physician above alluded to was attending divine service in the kirk of
Baliasta, on the Isle of Unst, a female shriek, the indication of a convulsion
fit, was heard; the minister, Mr. Ingram, of Fetlar, very properly stopped his
discourse, until the disturber was removed; and, after advising all those who
thought they might be similarly affected, to leave the church, he gave out, in
the meantime, a psalm. The congregation was thus preserved from further
interruption; yet the effect of sympathy was not prevented, for as the
narrator of the account was leaving the church, he saw several females
writhing and tossing about their arms on the green grass, who durst not, for
fear of a censure from the pulpit, exhibit themselves after this manner
within the sacred walls of the kirk[127].
In the production of this disorder, which no doubt still exists, fanaticism
certainly had a smaller share than the irritable state of women out of health,
who only needed excitement, no matter of what kind, to throw them into the
prevailing nervous paroxysms. When, however, that powerful cause of

nervous disorders takes the lead, we find far more remarkable symptoms
developed, and it then depends on the mental condition of the people among
whom they appear, whether in their spread, they shall take a narrow or an
extended range—whether confined to some small knot of zealots they are to
vanish without a trace, or whether they are to attain even historical
importance.
5. The appearance of the Convulsionnaires in France, whose inhabitants,
from the greater mobility of their blood, have in general been the less liable
to fanaticism, is, in this respect, instructive and worthy of attention. In the
year 1727 there died, in the capital of that country, the Deacon Pâris, a
zealous opposer of the Ultramontanists, division having arisen in the French
church on account of the bull “Unigenitus.” People made frequent visits to
his tomb, in the cemetery of St. Medard, and four years afterwards, (in
September, 1731,) a rumour was spread, that miracles took place there.
Patients were seized with convulsions and tetanic spasms, rolled upon the
ground like persons possessed, were thrown into violent contortions of their
heads and limbs, and suffered the greatest oppression, accompanied by
quickness and irregularity of pulse. This novel occurrence excited the
greatest sensation all over Paris, and an immense concourse of people
resorted daily to the above named cemetery, in order to see so wonderful a
spectacle, which the Ultramontanists immediately interpreted as a work of
Satan, while their opponents ascribed it to a divine influence. The disorder
soon increased, until it produced, in nervous women, clairvoyance,
(Schlafwachen,) a phenomenon till then unknown; for one female especially
attracted attention, who blindfold, and, as it was believed, by means of the
sense of smell, read every writing that was placed before her, and
distinguished the characters of unknown persons. The very earth taken from
the grave of the Deacon, was soon thought to possess miraculous power. It
was sent to numerous sick persons at a distance, whereby they were said to
have been cured, and thus this nervous disorder spread far beyond the limits
of the capital, so that at one time it was computed that there were more than
eight hundred decided Convulsionnaires, who would hardly have increased
so much in numbers, had not Louis XV. directed that the cemetery should
be closed[128]. The disorder itself assumed various forms, and augmented,
by its attacks, the general excitement. Many persons, besides suffering from
the convulsions, became the subjects of violent pain, which required the
assistance of their brethren of the faith. On this account they, as well as

those who afforded them aid, were called by the common title of Secourists.
The modes of relief adopted were remarkably in accordance with those
which were administered to the St. John’s dancers and the Tarantati, and
they were in general very rough; for the sufferers were beaten and goaded
in various parts of the body with stones, hammers, swords, clubs, &c., of
which treatment the defenders of this extraordinary sect relate the most
astonishing examples, in proof that severe pain is imperatively demanded
by nature in this disorder, as an effectual counter-irritant. The Secourists
used wooden clubs, in the same manner as paviors use their mallets, and it
is stated that some Convulsionnaires have borne daily from six to eight
thousand blows, thus inflicted, without danger[129]. One Secourist
administered to a young woman, who was suffering under spasm of the
stomach, the most violent blows on that part, not to mention other similar
cases, which occurred everywhere in great numbers. Sometimes the patients
bounded from the ground, impelled by the convulsions, like fish when out
of water; and this was so frequently imitated at a later period, that the
women and girls, when they expected such violent contortions, not wishing
to appear indecent, put on gowns, made like sacks, closed at the feet. If they
received any bruises by falling down, they were healed with earth from the
grave of the uncanonized saint. They usually, however, showed great agility
in this respect, and it is scarcely necessary to remark that the female sex
especially was distinguished by all kinds of leaping, and almost
inconceivable contortions of body. Some spun round on their feet with
incredible rapidity, as is related of the dervishes; others ran their heads
against walls, or curved their bodies like rope-dancers, so that their heels
touched their shoulders.
All this degenerated at length into decided insanity. A certain
Convulsionnaire, at Vernon, who had formerly led rather a loose course of
life, employed herself in confessing the other sex; in other places women of
this sect were seen imposing exercises of penance on priests, during which
these were compelled to kneel before them. Others played with children’s
rattles, or drew about small carts, and gave to these childish acts symbolical
significations[130]. One Convulsionnaire even made believe to shave her
chin, and gave religious instruction at the same time, in order to imitate
Pâris, the worker of miracles, who, during this operation, and whilst at
table, was in the habit of preaching. Some had a board placed across their

bodies, upon which a whole row of men stood; and as, in this unnatural
state of mind, a kind of pleasure is derived from excruciating pain, some too
were seen who caused their bosoms to be pinched with tongs, while others,
with gowns closed at the feet, stood upon their heads, and remained in that
position longer than would have been possible had they been in health.
Pinault, the advocate, who belonged to this sect, barked like a dog some
hours every day, and even this found imitation among the believers.
The insanity of the Convulsionnaires lasted, without interruption, until
the year 1790, and during these fifty-nine years, called forth more
lamentable phenomena than the enlightened spirits of the eighteenth century
would be willing to allow. The grossest immorality found, in the secret
meetings of the believers, a sure sanctuary, and, in their bewildering
devotional exercises, a convenient cloak. It was of no avail that, in the year
1762, the Grands Secours was forbidden by act of parliament; for
thenceforth this work was carried on in secrecy, and with greater zeal than
ever; it was in vain, too, that some physicians, and, among the rest, the
austere, pious Hecquet[131], and after him Lorry[132], attributed the conduct
of the Convulsionnaires to natural causes. Men of distinction among the
upper classes, as, for instance, Montgeron the deputy, and Lambert an
ecclesiastic (obt. 1813), stood forth as the defenders of this sect; and the
numerous writings[133] which were exchanged on the subject, served, by the
importance which they thus attached to it, to give it stability. The
revolution, finally, shook the structure of this pernicious mysticism. It was
not, however, destroyed; for, even during the period of the greatest
excitement, the secret meetings were still kept up; prophetic books, by
Convulsionnaires of various denominations, have appeared even in the most
recent times, and only a few years ago (in 1828) this once celebrated sect
still existed, although without the convulsions and the extraordinarily rude
aid of the brethren of the faith, which, amidst the boasted pre-eminence of
French intellectual advancement, remind us most forcibly of the dark ages
of the St. John’s dancers[134].
6. Similar fanatical sects exhibit among all nations[135] of ancient and
modern times the same phenomena. An over-strained bigotry is, in itself,
and considered in a medical point of view, a destructive irritation of the
senses, which draws men away from the efficiency of mental freedom, and
peculiarly favours the most injurious emotions. Sensual ebullitions, with

strong convulsions of the nerves, appear sooner or later[136], and insanity,
suicidal disgust of life, and incurable nervous disorders[137], are but too
frequently the consequences of a perverse, and, indeed, hypocritical zeal,
which has ever prevailed, as well in the assemblies of the Mænades and
Corybantes of antiquity, as under the semblance of religion among the
Christians and Mahomedans.
There are some denominations of English Methodists which surpass, if
possible, the French Convulsionnaires; and we may here mention, in
particular, the Jumpers, among whom it is still more difficult, than in the
example given above, to draw the line between religious ecstacy and a
perfect disorder of the nerves; sympathy, however, operates perhaps more
perniciously on them than on other fanatical assemblies. The sect of
Jumpers was founded in the year 1760, in the county of Cornwall, by two
fanatics[138], who were, even at that time, able to collect together a
considerable party. Their general doctrine is that of the Methodists, and
claims our consideration here, only in so far as it enjoins them, during their
devotional exercises, to fall into convulsions, which they are able to effect
in the strangest manner imaginable. By the use of certain unmeaning words,
they work themselves up into a state of religious frenzy, in which they seem
to have scarcely any control over their senses. They then begin to jump with
strange gestures, repeating this exercise with all their might, until they are
exhausted, so that it not unfrequently happens that women, who, like the
Mænades, practise these religious exercises, are carried away from the
midst of them in a state of syncope, whilst the remaining members of the
congregations, for miles together, on their way home, terrify those whom
they meet by the sight of such demoniacal ravings. There are never more
than a few ecstatics, who, by their example, excite the rest to jump, and
these are followed by the greatest part of the meeting, so that these
assemblages of the Jumpers resemble, for hours together, the wildest orgies,
rather than congregations met for Christian edification[139].
In the United States of North America, communities of Methodists have
existed for the last sixty years. The reports of credible witnesses of their
assemblages for divine service in the open-air (camp meetings)[140], to
which many thousands flock from great distances[141], surpass, indeed, all
belief; for not only do they there repeat all the insane acts of the French
Convulsionnaires and of the English Jumpers, but the disorder of their

minds and of their nerves attains, at these meetings, a still greater height.
Women have been seen to miscarry whilst suffering under the state of
ecstacy and violent spasms into which they are thrown, and others have
publicly stripped themselves and jumped into the rivers. They have
swooned away[142] by hundreds, worn out with ravings and fits; and of the
Barkers, who appeared among the Convulsionnaires only here and there, in
single cases of complete aberration of intellect, whole bands are seen
running on all fours, and growling[143] as if they wished to indicate, even by
their outward form, the shocking degradation of their human nature. At
these camp-meetings the children are witnesses of this mad infatuation, and
as their weak nerves are, with the greatest facility, affected by sympathy,
they, together with their parents, fall into violent fits, though they know
nothing of their import, and many of them retain for life some severe
nervous disorder, which, having arisen from fright and excessive
excitement, will not afterwards yield to any medical treatment[144].
But enough of these extravagances, which, even in our own days,
embitter the lives of so many thousands, and exhibit to the world, in the
nineteenth century, the same terrific form of mental disturbance as the St.
Vitus’s dance once did to the benighted nations of the middle ages.

APPENDIX.

I.
Petri de Herentals, Prioris Floreffiensis Vita Gregorii XI., in Stephan.
Baluzii Vitæ Paparum Avenionensium. T. I. Paris, 1693. 4to. p. 483.
Ejus tempore, videlicet A. D. MCCCLXXV., mira secta tam virorum quam
mulierum venit Aquisgrani de partibus Alamanniæ, et ascendit usque
Hanoniam seu Franciam, cujus talis fuit conditio. Nam homines utriusque
sexus illudebantur a dæmonio, taliter quod tam in domibus quam in plateis
et in Ecclesiis se invicem manibus tenentes chorizabant et in altum
saltabant, ac quædam nomina dæmoniorum nominabant, videlicet Friskes et
similia, nullam cognitionem in hujusmodi chorizatione nec verecundiam sui
propter astantes populos habentes. Et in fine hujus chorizationis in tantum
circa pectoralia torquebantur, quod nisi mappulis lineis a suis amicis per
medium ventris fortiter stringerentur, quasi furiose clamabant se mori. Hi
vero in Leodio per conjurationes sumptas de illis quæ in catechismo ante
baptismum fiunt, a dæmonio liberabantur, et sanati dicebant, quod videbatur
eis quod in hora hujus chorizationis erant in fluvio sanguinis, et propterea
sic in altum saltabant. Vulgus autem apud Leodium dicebat quod
hujusmodi plaga populo contigisset eo, quod populus male baptizatus erat,
maxime a Presbyteribus suas tenentibus concubinas. Et propter hoc
proposuerat vulgus insurgere in clerum, eos occidendo et bona eorum
diripiendo, nisi Deus de remedio providisset per conjurationes prædictas.
Quo viso cessavit tempestas vulgi taliter quod clerus multo plus a populo
fuit honoratus. De ista autem chorizatione seu secta talia extant rigmata:

Oritur in seculo nova quædam secta
In gestis aut in speculo visa plus nec lecta.
Populus tripudiat nimium saltando.
Se unus alteri sociat leviter clamando.
Frisch friskes cum gaudio clamat uterque sexus.
Cunctus manutergio et baculo connexus.
Capite fert pelleum desuper sertum.
Cernit Mariæ filium et cœlum apertum.
Deorsum prosternitur. Dudum fit ululatus.
Calcato ventre cernitur statim liberatus.
Vagatur loca varia pompose vivendo.
Mendicat necessaria propriis parcendo.
Spernit videre rubea et personam flentem.
Ad fidei contraria crigit hic gens mentem.
Noctis sub umbraculo ista perpetravit.
Cum naturali baculo subtus se calcavit.
Clerum habet odio. Non curat sacramenta.
Post sunt Leodio remedia inventa,
Hanc nam fraudem qua suggessit sathan est convictus.
Conjuratus evanescit. Hinc sit Christus benedictus.

II.
Jo. Pistorii Rerum familiarumque Belgicarum Cbronicon magnum.
Francof. 1654. fol. p. 319. De chorisantibus.
Item Anno. Dn. MCCCLXXIV. tempore pontificates venerabilis Domini
Joannis de Arckel Episcopi Leodiensis, in mense Julio in crastino divisionis
Apostolorum visi sunt dansatores scilicet chorisantes, qui postea venerunt
Trajectum, Leodium, Tungrim et alia loca istarum partium in mense
Septembri. Et cœpit hæc dæmoniaca pestis vexare in dictis locis et
circumvicinis masculos et fœminas maxime pauperes et levis opinionis ad
magnum omnium terrorem; pauci clericorum vel divitum sunt vexati. Serta
in capitibus gestabant, circa ventrem mappa cum baculo se stringebant circa
umbilicum, ubi post saltationem cadentes nimium torquebantur, et ne
creparentur pedibus conculcabantur, vel contra creporem cum baculo ad
mappam duriter se ligabant, vel cum pugno se trudi faciebant, rostra
calceorum aliqui clamabant se abhorrere, unde in Leodio fieri tunc
vetabantur. Ecclesias chorisando occupabant, et crescebant numerose de
mense Septembri et Octobri, processiones fiebant ubique, litaniæ et missæ

speciales. Leodii apud Sanctam crucem scholaris servitor in vesperis
dedicationis, cœpit ludere cum thuribulo, et post vesperas fortiter saltare.
Evocatus a pluribus, ut diceret Pater noster, noluit, et Credo respondit in
diabolum. Quod videns capellanus, allata stola conjuravit cum per
exorcismum baptizandorum, et statim dixit: Ecce inquit, scholaris recedit
cum parva toga et calceis rostratis. Dic, tunc inquit, Pater noster et Credo.
At ille utrumque dixit perfecte et curatus est. Apud Harstallium uno mane
ante omnium Sanctorum, multi eorum ibi congregati consilium habuerunt,
ut pariter venientes omnes canonicos, presbyteres et clericos Leodienses
occiderent. Canonicus quidam parvæ mensæ minister Simon in claustro
Leodiensi apud capellam Beatæ virginis, in Deo confortatus, scalam
projecit in collum unius, dicens Evangelium: In principio erat verbum,
super caput ejus, et per hoc fuit liberatus, et pro miraculo statim fuit
pulsatum. Apud S. Bartolomæum Leodii, præsentibus multis, cuidam alii
exorcisanti respondit dæmon: Ego exibo libenter. Expecta, inquit presbyter,
volo tibi loqui. Et postquam aliquos alios curasset, dixit illi, loquere tu
personaliter et responde mihi. Tum solus respondit dæmon: Nos eramus
duo, sed socius meus nequior me, ante me exivit, habui tot pati in hoc
corpore, si essem extra, nunquam intrarem in corpus Christianum. Cui
presbyter: Quare intrasti corpora talium personarum? Respondit: Clerici et
presbyteres dicunt tot pulchra verba et tot orationes, ut non possemus
intrare corpora ipsorum. Si adhuc fuisset expectatum per quindenam vel
mensem, nos intrassemus corpora divitum, et postea principum, et sic per
eos destruxissemus clerum. Et hæc fuerunt ibi a multis audita et postea a
multis narrata. Hæc pestis intra annum satis invaluit, sed postea per tres aut
quatuor annos omnino cessavit.

III[145].
Die Limburger Chronik, herausgegeben von C. D. Vogel. Marburg, 1828,
8vo. s. 71.
Anno 1374 zu mitten im Sommer, da erhub sich ein wunderlich Ding auff
Erdreich, und sonderlich in Teutschen Landen, auff dem Rhein und auff der
Mosel, also dass Leute anhuben zu tantzen und zu rasen, und stunden je

zwey gegen ein, und tantzeten auff einer Stätte einen halben Tag, und in
dem Tantz da fielen sie etwan offt nieder, und liessen sich mit Füssen tretten
auff ihren Leib. Davon nahmen sie sich an, dass sie genesen wären. Und
lieffen von einer Stadt zu der andern, und von einer Kirchen zu der andern,
und huben Geld auff von den Leuten, wo es ihnen mocht gewerden. Und
wurd des Dings also viel, dass man zu Cölln in der Stadt mehr dann fünff
hundert Täntzer fand. Und fand man, dass es eine Ketzerey war, und
geschahe um Golds willen, das ihr ein Theil Frau und Mann in
Unkeuschheit mochten kommen, und die vollbringen. Und fand man da zu
Cölln mehr dann hundert Frauen und Dienstmägde, die nicht eheliche
Männer hatten. Die wurden alle in der Täntzerey Kinder-tragend, und wann
dass sie tantzeten, so bunden und knebelten sie sich hart um den Leib, dass
sie desto geringer wären. Hierauff sprachen ein Theils Meister, sonderlich
der guten Artzt, das ein Theil wurden tantzend, die von heisser Natur wären,
und von andern gebrechlichen natürlichen Sachen. Dann deren war wenig,
denen das geschahe. Die Meister von der heiligen Schrift, die beschwohren
der Täntzer ein Theil, die meynten, dass sie besessen wären von dem bösen
Geist. Also nahm es ein betrogen End, und währete wohl sechszehn Wochen
in diesen Landen oder in der Mass. Auch nahmen die vorgenannten Täntzer
Mann und Frauen sich an, dass sie kein roth sehen möchten. Und war ein
eitel Teuscherey, und ist verbottschaft gewesen an Christum nach meinem
Bedünken.

IV.
Die Chronica van der hilliger Stat van Coellen. A. D. MCCCLXXIV. fol.
277. Coellen, 1499. fol.
In dem seluen iair stonde eyn groisse kranckheit vp vnder den mynschen,
ind was doch niet vill me gesyen dese selue kranckheit vur off nae ind quam
van natuerlichen ursachen as die meyster schrijnen, ind noemen Sij
maniam, dat is raserie off unsynnicheit. Ind vill lude beyde man ind
frauwen junck ind alt hadden die kranckheit. Ind gyngen vyss huyss ind
hoff, dat deden ouch junge meyde, die verliessen yr alderen, vrunde ind
maege ind lantschaff. Disse vurss mynschen zo etzlichen tzijden as Sij die

kranckheit anstiesse, so hadden Sij eyn wonderlich bewegung yrre
lychamen. Sij gauen vyss kryschende vnd grusame stymme, ind mit dem
wurpen Sij sich haestlich up die erden, vnd gyngen liggen up yren rugge,
ind beyde man ind vrauwen moist men vmb yren buych ind vmp lenden
gurdelen vnd kneuelen mit twelen vnd mit starcken breyden benden, asso
stijff vnd harte als men mochte.
Item asso gegurt mit den twelen dantzten Sij in kyrchen ind in clusen ind
vp allen gewijeden steden. As Sij dantzten, so sprungen Sij allit vp ind
rieffen, Here sent Johan, so so, vrisch ind vro here sent Johan.
Item die ghene die die kranckheit hadden wurden gemeynlichen gesunt
bynnen. VV. dagen. Zom lesten geschiede vill bouerie vnd droch dae mit.
Eyndeyll naemen sich an dat Sij kranck weren. vp dat Sij mochten gelt dae
durch bedelen. Die anderen vinsden sich kranck vp dat Sij mochten
vnkuyschheit bedrijuen mit den vrauwen. jnd gyngen durch alle lant ind
dreuen vill bouerie. Doch zo lesten brach idt vyss ind wurden verdreuen
vyss den landen. Die selue dentzer quamen ouch zo Coellen tusschen tzwen
vnser lieuen frauwen missen Assumptionis ind Natiuitatis.

V.
In the third volume of the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, p.
434, there is an account of “some convulsive diseases in certain parts of
Scotland, which is taken from Sir J. Sinclair’s statistical account, and from
which I have thought it illustrative of our author’s subject to make some
extracts; the first that is noticed is peculiar to a part of Forfarshire, and is
called the leaping ague, which bears so close an analogy to the original St.
Vitus’s Dance, or to Tarantism, that it seems to want only the “foul fiend,”
or the dreaded bite, as a cause, and a Scotch reel or strathspey as a cure, to
render the resemblance quite complete. “Those affected with it first
complain of a pain in the head, or lower part of the back, to which succeed
convulsive fits, or fits of dancing, at certain periods. During the paroxysm
they have all the appearance of madness, distorting their bodies in various
ways, and leaping and springing in a surprising manner, whence the disease
has derived its vulgar name. Sometimes they run with astonishing velocity,

and often over dangerous passes, to some place out of doors, which they
have fixed on in their own minds, or, perhaps, even mentioned to those in
company with them, and then drop down quite exhausted. At other times,
especially when confined to the house, they climb in the most singular
manner. In cottages, for example, they leap from the floor to what is called
the baulks, or those beams by which the rafters are joined together,
springing from one to another with the agility of a cat, or whirling round
one of them, with a motion resembling the fly of a jack. Cold bathing is
found to be the most effectual remedy; but when the fit of dancing, leaping,
or running comes on, nothing tends so much to abate the violence of the
disease, as allowing them free scope to exercise themselves, till nature be
exhausted. No mention is made of its being peculiar to any age, sex, or
condition of life, although I am informed by a gentleman from Brechin, that
it is most common before puberty. In some families it seems to be
hereditary; and I have heard of one, in which a horse was always kept ready
saddled, to follow the young ladies belonging to it, when they were seized
with a fit of running. It was first observed in the parish of Kenmuir, and has
prevailed occasionally in that and the neighbouring parishes, for about
seventy years: but it is not now nearly so frequent as it was about thirty
years ago. The history of this singular affection is still extremely imperfect:
and it is only from some of the medical practitioners in that part of the
country where it prevails, that a complete description can be expected.”
Our author has already noticed the convulsive disease prevalent in the
Shetland Islands, and has quoted Hibbert’s account of it. The following,
however, from a very valuable manuscript account of the Orkney and
Shetland Islands, drawn up about 1774, by George Low, with notes, by Mr.
Pennant, is given in the journal already cited, and will be read with interest.
The facts were communicated to Mr. Low by the Rev. Wm. Archibald,
parochial clergyman of Unst, the most northerly of the Shetlands.
“There is a most shocking distemper, which has of late years prevailed
very much, especially among young women, and was hardly known thirty
or forty years ago. About that period only one person was subject to it. The
inhabitants give it the name of convulsion fits; and indeed, in appearance it
something resembles epilepsy. In its first rise, it began with a palpitation of
the heart, of which they complained for a considerable time; it at length
produced swooning fits, in which people seized with it would lie motionless

upwards of an hour. At length, as the distemper gathered strength, when any
violent passion seized, or on a sudden surprise, they would all at once fall
down, toss their arms about, with their bodies, into many odd shapes, crying
out all the while most dismally, throwing their heads about from side to
side, with their eyes fixed and staring. At first this distemper obtained in a
private way, with one female, but she being seized in a public way, at
church, the disease was communicated to others; but, whether by the
influence of fear or sympathy, is not easy to determine. However this was,
our public assemblies, especially at church, became greatly disturbed by
their outcries. This distemper always prevails most violently during the
summer time, in which season, for many years, we are hardly one sabbath
free. In these few years past, it has not prevailed so extensively, and upon
the whole, seems on the decline. One thing remarkable in this distemper is,
that as soon as the fit is over, the persons affected with it are generally as
lively and brisk as before; and if it happens at any of their public diversions,
as soon as they revive, they mix with their companions, and continue their
amusement as vigorously as if nothing had happened. Few men are troubled
with this distemper, which seems more confined to women; but there are
instances of its seizing men, and girls of six years of age. With respect to
the nature of this disease, people who have made enquiry about it differ, but
most imagine it hysterical; however, this seems not entirely the case, as men
and children are subject to it; however, it is a new disease in Shetland, but
whence imported, none can imagine.
“When the statistical account of this parish was published, this awful and
afflicting disease was becoming daily less common. In the parishes of
Aithsting, Sandsting, and Northmaven, in which it was once very frequent,
it was now totally extinct. In the last of these the cure is said to have been
effected by a very singular remedy, which, if true, and there seems no
reason to doubt it, shows the influence of moral causes in removing, as well
as in inducing convulsive disorders.” The cure is attributed to a rough
fellow of a kirk officer, who tossed a woman in that state, with whom he
had been frequently troubled, into a ditch of water. She was never known to
have the disease afterwards, and others dreaded the same treatment.
“It, however, still prevails in some of the northern parishes, particularly
in Delting, although, according to the description given of it, with some
alteration in its symptoms.

“Convulsion fits of a very extraordinary kind seem peculiar to this
country. The patient is first seized with something like fainting, and
immediately after utters wild cries and shrieks, the sound of which, at
whatever distance, immediately puts all who are subject to the disorder in
the same situation. It most commonly attacks them when the church is
crowded, and often interrupts the service in this and many other churches in
the country. On a sacramental occasion, fifty or sixty are sometimes carried
out of the church, and laid in the churchyard, where they struggle and roar
with all their strength, for five or ten minutes, and then rise up without
recollecting a single circumstance that happened to them, or being in the
least hurt or fatigued with the violent exertions they had made during the
fit. One observation occurs on this disorder, that, during the late scarce
years it was very uncommon, and, during the two last years of plenty
(1791), it has appeared more frequently.
“Similar instances of epidemical convulsions are already upon record;
but the history of that which occurred in Anglesea, North Wales, is the most
remarkable, as its progress was, in all probability, checked by the judicious
precautions recommended by Dr. Haygarth.
“In 1796, on the estates of the Earl of Uxbridge and Holland Griffith,
Esq., 23 females, from 10 to 25, and one boy, of about 17 years of age, who
had all intercourse with each other, were seized with an unusual kind of
convulsions, affecting only the upper extremities. It began with pain of the
head, and sometimes of the stomach and side, not very violent; after which
there came on violent twitchings or convulsions of the upper extremities,
continuing with little intermission, and causing the shoulders almost to meet
by the exertion. In bed the disorder was not so violent: but, in some cases at
least, it continued even during sleep. Their pulse was moderate, the body
costive, and the general health not much impaired. In general they had a
hiccough; and, when the convulsions were most violent, giddiness came on,
with the loss of hearing and recollection. During their convalescence, and
they all recovered, the least fright or sudden alarm brought on a slight
paroxysm.
“Dr. Haygarth, who was consulted on the means of relieving these
unfortunate people, successfully recommended the use of antispasmodics;
that all girls and young women should be prevented from having any

communication with persons affected with those convulsions; and that those
who were ill should be kept separate as much as possible.”
The same paper from which the above extracts have been taken, quotes a
remarkable instance in which religious enthusiasm was the exciting cause
of a convulsive disease analogous to those already noticed. The account is
given by the Rev. Dr. Meik, at great length. It appears, that in January,
1742, about 90 persons in the parish of Cambuslang, in Lanarkshire, were
induced to subscribe a petition to the minister, urging him to give them a
weekly lecture, to which he readily assented. Nothing particular occurred at
the first two lectures, but, at the third, to which the hearers had been very
attentive, when the minister in his last prayer expressed himself thus, “Lord,
who hath believed our report; and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
—where are the fruits of my poor labours among this people?” several
persons in the congregation cried out publicly, and about fifty men and
women came to the minister’s house, expressing strong convictions of sin,
and alarming fears of punishment. After this period, so many people from
the neighbourhood resorted to Cambuslang, that the minister thought
himself obliged to provide them with daily sermons or exhortations, and
actually did so for seven or eight months. The way in which the converts
were affected, for it seems they were affected much in the same way,
though in very different degrees, is thus described. “They were seized, all at
once, commonly by something said in the sermons or prayers, with the most
dreadful apprehensions concerning the state of their souls, insomuch that
many of them could not abstain from crying out, in the most public and
frightful manner, ‘bewailing their lost and undone condition by nature;
calling themselves enemies to God, and despisers of precious Christ;
declaring that they were unworthy to live on the face of the earth; that they
saw the mouth of hell open to receive them, and that they heard the shrieks
of the damned;’ but the universal cry was, ‘What shall we do to be saved?’
The agony under which they laboured was expressed, not only by words,
but also by violent agitations of body; by clapping their hands and beating
their breasts; by shaking and trembling; by faintings and convulsions; and
sometimes by excessive bleeding at the nose. While they were in this
distress, the minister often called out to them, not to stifle or smother their
convictions, but to encourage them: and, after sermon was ended, he retired
with them to the manse, and frequently spent the best part of the night with
them in exhortations and prayers. Next day, before sermon began, they were

brought out, and, having napkins tied round their heads, were placed all
together on seats before the tents, where they remained sobbing, weeping,
and often crying aloud, till the service was over. Some of those who fell
under conviction were never converted; but most of those who fell under it
were converted in a few days, and sometimes in a few hours. In most cases
their conversion was as sudden and unexpected as their conviction. They
were raised all at once from the lowest depth of sorrow and distress, to the
highest pitch of joy and happiness; crying out with triumph and exultation,
‘that they had overcome the wicked one; that they had gotten hold of Christ,
and would never let him go; that the black cloud which had hitherto
concealed him from their view was now dispelled; and that they saw him,
with a pen in his hand, blotting out their sins.’ Under these delightful
impressions, some began to pray, and exhort publicly, and others desired the
congregation to join with them in singing a particular psalm, which they
said God had commanded them to sing. From the time of their conviction to
their conversion, many had no appetite for food, or inclination to sleep, and
all complained of their sufferings during that interval.”
The following account, which closes the paper whence the above
quotations have been extracted, is taken from an Inaugural Essay on Chorea
Sancti Viti, by Felix Robertson of Tennessee, 8vo. Philadelph. 1805.
“The Chorea, which is more particularly the subject of this dissertation,
made its appearance during the summer of 1803, in the neighbourhood of
Maryville, (Tennessee,) in the form of an epidemic. Previously to entering
on its history, I think it necessary to premise a few cursory remarks on the
mode of life of those amongst whom it originated, for some time before the
appearance of the disease.
“I suppose there are but few individuals in the United States, who have
not at least heard of the unparalleled blaze of enthusiastic religion which
burst forth in the western country, about the year 1800; but it is, perhaps,
impossible to have a competent idea of its effects, without personal
observation. This religious enthusiasm travelled like electricity, with
astonishing velocity, and was felt, almost instantaneously, in every part of
the states of Tennessee and Kentucky. It often proved so powerful a
stimulus, that every other entirely lost its effect, or was but feebly felt.
Hence that general neglect of earthly things, which was observed, and the
almost perpetual attendance at places of public worship. Their churches are,

in general, small and every way uncomfortable; the concourse of people, on
days of worship, particularly of extraordinary meetings, was very
numerous, and hundreds who lived at too great a distance to return home
every evening, came supplied with provisions, tents, &c., for their
sustenance and accommodation, during the continuance of the meeting,
which commonly lasted from three to five days. They, as well as many
others, remained on the spot day and night, the whole or greater part of this
time, worshipping their Maker almost incessantly. The outward expressions
of their worship consisted chiefly in alternate crying, laughing, singing, and
shouting, and, at the same time, performing that variety of gesticulation,
which the muscular system is capable of producing. It was under these
circumstances that some found themselves unable, by voluntary efforts, to
suppress the contraction of their muscles; and, to their own astonishment,
and the diversion of many of the spectators, they continued to act from
necessity, the curious character which they had commenced from choice.
“The disease no sooner appeared, than it spread with rapidity through the
medium of the principle of imitation; thus it was not uncommon for an
affected person to communicate it to the greater part of a crowd, who, from
curiosity or other motives, had collected around him. It is at this time, in
almost every part of Tennessee and Kentucky, and in various parts of
Virginia, but is said not to be contagious (or readily communicated) as at its
commencement. It attacks both sexes, and every constitution, but evidently
more readily those who are enthusiasts in religion, such as those above
described, and females; children of six years of age, and adults of sixty,
have been known to have it, but a great majority of those affected are from
fifteen to twenty-five. The muscles generally affected are those of the trunk,
particularly of the neck, sometimes those of the superior extremities, but
very rarely, if ever, those of the inferior. The contractions are sudden and
violent, such as are denominated convulsive, being sometimes so powerful,
when in the muscles of the back, that the patient is thrown on the ground,
where, for some time, his motions more resemble those of a live fish, when
thrown on land, than any thing else to which I can compare them.
“This, however, does not often occur, and never, I believe, except at the
commencement of the disease. The patients, in general, are capable of
standing and walking, and many, after it has continued a short time, can
attend to their business, provided it is not of a nature requiring much

steadiness of body. They are incapable of conversing with any degree of
satisfaction to themselves or company, being continually interrupted by
those irregular contractions of their muscles, each causing a grunt, or
forcible expiration; but the organs of speech do not appear to be affected,
nor has it the least influence on the mind. They have no command over their
actions by any effort of volition, nor does their lying in bed prevent them,
but they always cease during sleep. This disease has remissions and
exacerbations, which, however, observe no regularity in their occurrence or
duration. During the intermission a paroxysm is often excited at the sight of
a person affected, but more frequently by the common salute of shaking
hands. The sensations of the patients in a paroxysm are generally agreeable,
which the enthusiastic class often endeavour to express, by laughing,
shouting, dancing, &c.
“Fatigue is almost always complained of after violent paroxysms, and
sometimes a general soreness is experienced. The heart and arteries appear
to be no further affected by the disease, than what arises from the exercise
of the body; nor does any change take place in any of the secretions or
excretions. It has not proved mortal in a single instance within my
knowledge, but becomes lighter by degrees, and finally disappears. In some
cases, however, of long continuance, it is attended with some degree of
melancholia, which seems to arise entirely from the patient’s reflections,
and not directly from the disease.
“The state of the atmosphere has no influence over it, as it rages with
equal violence in summer and in winter; in moist and in dry air.”
In the above examples, nervous disorders bearing a strong resemblance to
those of the middle ages, are shown to exist in an epidemic form, both in
Europe and America, at the present time; but in these instances some
general cause of mental excitement—and none is more powerful than
religious enthusiasm—seems to have been requisite for their propagation.
Their appearance, however, in single cases, is occasionally independent of
any such origin, which leads to a belief, not without support in the
experiments of modern physiologists, that they occasionally proceed from
physical causes, and that it is therefore not necessary to consider them in all
cases as the offspring of a disordered imagination.

A well marked case of a disease approximating to the original Dancing
Mania, is related by Mr. Kinder Wood, in the 7th volume of the Medico-
Chirurgical Transactions, p. 237. The patient, a young married woman, is
described to have suffered from headache and sickness, together with
involuntary motions of the eyelids, and most extraordinary contortions of
the trunk and extremities, for several days, when the more remarkable
symptoms began to manifest themselves, which are thus recorded:—
“February 26. Slight motions of the limbs came on in bed. She arose at
nine o’clock, after which they increased, and became unusually severe. She
was hurled from side to side of the couch-chair upon which she sat, for a
considerable time, without intermission; was sometimes instantaneously
and forcibly thrown upon her feet, when she jumped and stamped violently.
She had headache; the eyelids were frequently affected, and she had often a
sudden propensity to spring or leap upwards. The affection ceased about
eleven o’clock in the forenoon, the patient being very much fatigued; but it
returned about noon, and a third time in the afternoon, when she was
impelled into every corner of the room, and began to strike the furniture and
doors violently with the hand, as she passed near them, the sound of which
afforded her great satisfaction. The fourth attack was at night; was very
violent, and ended with sickness and vomiting. She went to bed at half-past
eleven. Her nights were invariably good. The last three attacks were more
violent than the former ones, but they continued only half an hour each.
“February 27. The attack commenced in bed, and was violent, but of
short duration. When she arose about ten, she had a second attack,
continuing an hour, except an interval of five minutes. She now struck the
furniture more violently and more repeatedly. Kneeling on one knee, with
the hands upon the back, she often sprang up suddenly and struck the top of
the room with the palm of the hand. To do this, she rose fifteen inches from
the floor, so that the family were under the necessity of drawing all the nails
and hooks from the ceiling. She frequently danced upon one leg, holding
the other with the hand, and occasionally changing the legs. In the evening,
the family observed the blows upon the furniture to be more continuous,
and to assume the regular time and measure of a musical air. As a strain or
series of strokes was concluded, she ended with a more violent stroke or a
more violent spring or jump. Several of her friends also at this time noticed
the regular measure of the strokes, and the greater regularity the disease was

assuming; the motions being evidently affected, or in some measure
modified by the strokes upon the surrounding bodies. She chiefly struck a
small slender door, the top of a chest of drawers, the clock, a table, or a
wooden screen placed near the door. The affection ceased about nine
o’clock, when the patient went to bed.
“February 28. She arose very well at eight. At half-past nine the motions
recommenced; they were now of a more pleasant nature; the involuntary
actions, instead of possessing their former irregularity and violence, being
changed into a measured step over the room, connected with an air, or series
of strokes, and she beat upon the adjacent bodies as she passed them. In the
commencement of the attack, the lips moved as if words were articulated,
but no sound could be distinguished at this period. It was curious indeed to
observe the patient at this time, moving around the room with all the
vivacity of the country dance, or the graver step of the minuet, the arms
frequently carried, not merely with ease, but with elegance. Occasionally all
the steps were so directed as to place the foot constantly where the stone
flags joined to form the floor, particularly when she looked downwards.
When she looked upwards, there was an irresistible impulse to spring up to
touch little spots or holes in the top of the ceiling; when she looked around,
she had a similar propensity to dart the forefinger into little holes in the
furniture, &c. One hole in the wooden screen received the point of the
forefinger many hundred times, which was suddenly and involuntarily
darted into it with an amazing rapidity and precision. There was one
particular part of the wall to which she frequently danced, and there placing
herself with the back to it, stood two or three minutes. This by the family
was called ‘the measuring place.’
“In the afternoon the motions returned, and proceeded much as in the
morning. At this time a person present, surprised at the manner in which she
beat upon the doors, &c., and thinking he recognised the air, without further
ceremony began to sing the tune; the moment this struck her ears, she
turned suddenly to the man, and dancing directly up to him, continued
doing so till he was out of breath. The man now ceased a short time, when
commencing again, he continued till the attack stopped. The night before
this, her father had mentioned his wish to procure a drum, associating this
dance of his daughter with some ideas of music. The avidity with which she
danced to the tune when sung as above stated, confirmed this wish, and

accordingly a drum and fife were procured in the evening. After two hours
of rest, the motions again reappeared, when the drum and fife began to play
the air to which she had danced before, viz. the ‘Protestant Boys,’ a
favourite popular air in this neighbourhood. In whatever part of the room
she happened to be, she immediately turned and danced up to the drum, and
as close as possible to it, and there she danced till she missed the step, when
the involuntary motions instantly ceased. The first time she missed the step
in five minutes; but again rose, and danced to the drum two minutes and a
half by her father’s watch, when, missing the step, the motions instantly
ceased. She rose a third time, and missing the step in half a minute, the
motions immediately ceased. After this, the drum and fife commenced as
the involuntary actions were coming on, and before she rose from her seat;
and four times they completely checked the progress of the attack, so that
she did not rise upon the floor to dance. At this period the affection ceased
for the evening.
“March 1. She arose very well at half-past seven. Upon my visit this
morning, the circumstances of the preceding afternoon being stated, it
appeared clear to me, that the attacks had been shortened. Slow as I had
seen the effects of medicine in the comparatively trifling disease of young
females, I was very willing that the family should pursue the experiment,
whilst the medical means were continued.
“As I wished to see the effect of the instrument over the disease, I was
sent for at noon, when I found her dancing to the drum, which she
continued to do for half an hour without missing the step, owing to the
slowness of the movement. As I sat counting the pulse, which I found to be
120, in the short intervals of an attack, I noticed motions of the lips,
previous to the commencement of the dance, and placing my ear near the
mouth I distinguished a tune. After the attack of which this was the
beginning, she informed me, in answer to my inquiry, that there always was
a tune dwelling upon her mind, which at times becoming more pressing,
irresistibly impelled her to commence the involuntary motions. The motions
ceased at four o’clock.
“At half-past seven the motions commenced again, when I was sent for.
There were two drummers present, and an unbraced drum was beaten till
the other was braced. She danced regularly to the unbraced drum, but the
moment the other commenced she instantly ceased. As missing the time

stopped the affections, I wished the measure to be changed during the
dance, which stopped the attack. It also ceased upon increasing the rapidity
of the beat, till she could no longer keep time; and it was truly surprising to
see the rapidity and violence of the muscular exertion, in order to keep time
with the increasing movement of the instrument. Five times I saw her sit
down the same evening, at the instant that she was unable to keep the
measure; and in consequence of this I desired the drummers to beat one
continued roll, instead of a regular movement. She arose and danced five
minutes, when both drums beat a continued roll: the motions instantly
stopped, and the patient sat down. In a few minutes the motions
commencing again, she was suffered to dance five minutes, when the drums
again began to roll, the effect of which was instantaneous; the motions
ceased, and the patient sat down. In a few minutes the same was repeated
with the same effect. It appeared certain that the attacks could now be
stopped in an instant, and I was desirous of arresting them entirely, and
breaking the chain of irregular associations which constituted the disease.
As the motions at this period always commenced in the fingers, and
propagated themselves along the upper extremities to the trunk, I desired
the drummers, when the patient arose to dance, to watch the
commencement of the attack, and roll the drums before she arose from the
chair. Six times successively the patient was hindered from rising, by
attending to the commencement of the affection; and before leaving the
house, I desired the family to attend to the commencement of the attacks,
and use the drum early.
“March 2. She arose at seven o’clock, and the motions commenced at
ten; she danced twice before the drummer was prepared, after which she
attempted to dance again four several times; but one roll of a well-braced
drum hindered the patient from leaving her seat, after which the attacks did
not recur. She was left weakly and fatigued by the disease, but with a good
appetite. In the evening of this day an eruption appeared, particularly about
the elbows, in diffused patches of a bright red colour, which went off on the
third day.”
Other cases might be adduced, (see 23d vol. of the Edinburgh Medical
and Surgical Journal, p. 261; 31st vol. of ditto, p. 299; 5th vol. of the
Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, pp. 1 to 23, &c.,) but as there is none

more striking than this, they would unnecessarily swell this number of the
Appendix, which has already extended to an undue length.

VI.
MUSIC FOR THE DANCE OF THE TARANTATI,
FROM

ATHAN. KIRCHER.

Magness. de Arte magnetica. Rom. 1654. fol. p. 591.—Repeated in Sam.
Hafenreffer, Nosodochium, in quo cutis affectus traduntur. Ulm. 1660.
8vo. p. 485.

I. Primus modus Tarantella.

[Listen]

II. Secundus modus.

[Listen]

III. Tertius modus.

[Listen]

IV. Antidotum Tarantulæ.

[Listen]

V.

[Listen]

Stu pettu è fattu Cimbalu d’Amuri:
Tasti li sensi mobili, e accorti:
Cordi li chianti, sospiri, e duluri:
Rosa è lu Cori miu feritu à morti:
Strali è lu ferru, chiai so li miei arduri:
Marteddu è lu pensieri, e la mia sorti:
Mastra è la Donna mia, ch’à tutti l’huri
Cantando canta leta la mia morti.

Some strophes, which are no longer extant, were usually sung between
these and the following lines:—

Allu mari mi portati,
Se voleti che mi sanati.
Allu mari, alla via:
Cosi m’ama la Donna mia.
Allu mari, allu mari:
Mentre campo, t’aggio amari.

VI. Tarantella.

[Listen]

Ritornello.

VII. Tono hypodorio.

[Listen]

VIII. Alia clausula.

[Listen]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] By this term the reader is now to understand the “Epidemics of the Middle Ages.”
This work not having been published, as a whole, in the original, there is no general
preface by the Author. His Address to the Physicians of Germany is therefore prefixed
as an appropriate substitute.
[2] Odor. Raynald. Annal. Ecclesiastic. A. 1374. Lucæ, 1752. fol. Tom. VII. p. 252.
[3] Joh. Wier’s ample Catalogue of Spirits gives no information on this point.
Pseudomonarchia dæmonum. Opera omnia, Amstelod. 1660. 4to. p. 649.—Raynald
mentions the word Frisckes as the name of a spirit; but this mistake is easily accounted
for by his ignorance of the language; for, according to the Chronicle of Cologne, the St.
John’s dancers sang during their paroxysm: “Here Sent Johan. so so, vrisch ind vro,
here Sent Johan.” St. John so, so, brisk and cheerful, St. John. Die Cronica van der
hilliger Stat van Coellen, fol. 277. Coellen, 1499. fol.
[4] Cyr. Spangenberg, Adels-Spiegel—Mirror of Nobility, a detailed historical account
of what nobility is, &c. Schmalkalden, 1591. fol. Fol. 403. b.
[5] Petr. de Herentals, Appendix, No. I.
[6] Jo. Trithem. Chronic. Sponheimense, A. 1374. Opera historic. Francof. 1601. fol. p.
332. Also: Abrah. Bzovii Annal. Ecclesiastic. Tom. XIV. Colon. Agripp. 1625. fol. Ann.
1374. (Maniaca passio. S. Johannis chorea.)
[7] Jo. Pistorii Rerum Familiarumque Belgicarum Chronicon magnum. Francof. 1654.
fol. p. 319. Here the persons affected are called dansatores, chorisantes. See the whole
passage in the Appendix, No. II. Compare Incerti auctoris vetus chronicon Belgicum,
Matthæi veteris ævi Analecta. Hag. com. 1738. 4to. Tom. I. p. 51. “Anno
MCCCLXXIV. the dansers appeared. Gens impacata cadit, dudum cruciata salvat.”
This should be salivat; a quotation from a Latin poem not now extant.
[8] The Limburg Chronicle, published by C. D. Vogel, Marburg, 1828. 8vo. p. 27. This
singular phenomenon cannot but remind us of the “Demon of Fashion,” of the middle
ages. Extravagant as the love of dress was after the middle of the fourteenth century, the
opposition of the enemies of fashion was equally great, and they let slip no opportunity
of crying down every change or innovation as the work of the devil. Hence it is
extremely probable that the fanatic penitential sermons of zealous priests excited this
singular aversion of the St. Vitus dancers. In later times also, signs and wonders took
place, on account of things equally insignificant, and the fury of the possessed was
directed against the fashions. Compare Möhsen’s History of the Sciences in the Mark of
Brandenburg, p. 498. f.
[9] Petr. de Herentals. Appendix, No. I.
[10] Respecting the exorcisms used, see E. G. Förstemann, the Christian Societies of
Flagellants. Halle, 1828. 8vo. p. 232.
[11] Limburg Chronicle, p. 71. Cologne Chronicle, loc. cit. See Appendix, Nos. III. and
IV.
[12] Dans la ville y eut des dansans, tant grands que petits, onze cents. Journal de Paris,
1785.
[13] Schenk. v. Grafenberg. loc. cit.
[14] “Chorus Sancti Viti, or St. Vitus’ Dance; the lascivious dance, Paracelsus calls it,
because they that are taken with it, can do nothing but dance till they be dead, or cured.
It is so called for that the parties so troubled were wont to go to St. Vitus for help; and,
after they had danced there awhile, they were certainly freed. ’Tis strange to hear how

long they will dance, and in what manner, over stools, forms, tables; even great bellied
women sometimes (and yet never hurt their children) will dance so long that they can
stir neither hand nor foot, but seem to be quite dead. One in red clothes they cannot
abide. Musick above all things they love; and therefore magistrates in Germany will
hire musicians to play to them, and some lusty, sturdy companions to dance with them.
This disease hath been very common in Germany, as appears by those relations of
Schenkius, and Paracelsus in his book of madness, who brags how many several
persons he hath cured of it. Felix Platerus (de Mentis Alienat. cap. 3.) reports of a
woman in Basle whom he saw, that danced a whole month together. The Arabians call it
a kind of palsie. Bodine, in his fifth book, de Repub. cap. 1. speaks of this infirmity;
Monavius, in his last epistle to Scoltizius, and in another to Dudithus, where you may
read more of it.”—Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, Vol. I. p. 15.—Transl. note.
[15]
J. of Köningshoven, the oldest German Chronicle in existence. The contents are general,
but devoted more exclusively to Alsace and Strasburg, published by Schiltern,
Strasburg, 1698. 4to. Observat. 21, of St. Vitus’s Dance, p. 1085. f.
“Viel hundert fingen zu Strassburg an
Zu tanzen und springen Frau und Mann,
Am offnen Markt, Gassen und Strassen
Tag und Nacht ihrer viel nicht assen.
Bis ihn das Wüthen wieder gelag.
St. Vits Tanz ward genannt die Plag.”
“Many hundreds of men and women began to dance and jump in the public market-
place, the lanes, and the streets of Strasburg. Many of them ate nothing for days and
nights, until their mania again subsided. The plague was called St. Vitus’s Dance.”
[16] Cæs. Baron. Annales ecclesiastic. Tom. II. p. 819. Colon. Agripp. 1609. fol. See
the more ample Acta Sanctorum Junii (The 15th of June is St. Vitus’s day) Tom. II. p.
1013. Antwerp. 1698. fol. From which we shall merely add that Mazara, in Sicily, is
supposed to have been the birth-place of our Saint, and that his father’s name was
Hylas; that he went from thence with Crescentia (probably his nurse) and Modestus to
Lucania, with both of whom he suffered martyrdom under Diocletian. They are all said
to have been buried at Florence, and it was not long before the miraculous powers of St.
Vitus, which had already manifested themselves in his life-time, were acknowledged
throughout Italy. The most celebrated of his chapels were situated on the Promontory of
Sicily (called by his name), in Rome and in Polignano, whither many pilgrimages were
made by the sick. Persons who had been bitten by mad dogs believed that they would
find an infallible cure at his altars, though the power of the Saint in curing wounds of
this kind was afterwards disputed by the followers of St. Hubertus, the Saint of the
Chase. In 672, his body was with much pomp moved to Apulia, but soon after the
priests of many churches and chapels in Italy, gave out that they were in possession of
portions of the saint’s body which worked miracles. In the eighth century the veneration
of this youthful martyr extended itself to France, and the honour of possessing his body
was conferred on the church of St. Denys. By command of the Pope it was solemnly
delivered on the 19th of March, 836, by the Abbot Hilduwinus, of St. Denys, to the
Abbot Warinus, of Corvey, (founded in 822). On its way thither, which occupied three
months (to the 13th of June), many miracles were performed, and the subsequent
Abbots of Corvey were able for centuries to maintain the popular belief in the
miraculous healing power of their relics, which had indiscriminate influence on all

diseases, more especially on those of a demoniacal kind. See Monachi anonymi
Historia translationis S. Viti. In G. H. Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ Historica. Tom. II.
Hannov. 1828. fol. p. 576. As a proof of the great veneration for St. Vitus in the
fourteenth century, we may further mention that Charles IV. dedicated to him the
Cathedral of Prague, of which he had laid the foundation, and caused him to be
proclaimed Patron Saint of Bohemia, and a nominal body of the holy martyr was, for
this purpose, brought from Parma. Act. Sanctor. loc. cit.
[17] Probably a corruption of Apotropæi. The expression is constantly met with; for
example, in Agricola, Proverbs, No. 497. These are the θεοὶ ἀλεξικάκοι, the dii
averrunci of the antients. The fourteen saints, to whose churches (between Bamberg and
Coburg) thousands still annually make pilgrimages, are the following: 1. Georgius. 2.
Blasius. 3. Erasmus. 4. Vitus. 5. Pantaleon. 6. Christophorus. 7. Dionysius. 8. Cyriacus.
9. Achatius. 10. Eustachius. 11. Ægidius. 12. Margaretha. 13. Catharina. 14. Barbara.
[18] J. Agricola. Sybenhundert und fünffzig Teutscher Sprichwörter. No. 497. Seven
hundred and fifty German Proverbs. Hagenau, 1537. 8vo. fol. 248.
[19] St. Augustine had already warned the people against committing excesses and
singing profane songs at the festival of St. John: “Nec permittamus solemnitatem
sanctam cantica luxuriosa proferendo polluere.”—St. Augusti Denkwürdigkeiten aus der
Christlichen Archäologie. Vol. III. p. 166. Leipzig. 1820. 8vo. Memorabilia of Christian
Archæology.
[20] Wirthwein. Series chronologic. Epistolarum S. Bonifacii ab ann. 716–755. LVII.
Concil. Liptinens. p. 131. XV. De igne fricato de ligno, id est, Nodfyr. See Joh. Reiskii.
Untersuchung des bei den Alten Teutschen gebräuchlichen heidnischen Nodfyrs,
imgleichen des Oster-und Johannis-Feuers. Enquiry respecting the heathen Nodfyrs
customary among the ancient Germans, and also the Easter and St. John’s fires.
Frankfort, 1696. 8vo.
[21] The Bishop Theodoret of Cyrus in Syria, states, that at the festival of St. John,
large fires were annually kindled in several towns, through which men, women and
children jumped; and that young children were carried through by their mothers. He
considered this custom as an ancient Asiatic ceremony of purification, similar to that
recorded of Ahaz, in 2 Kings, xvi. 3. (Quæstiones in IV. Libr. Regum. Interrogat. 47, p.
352. Beati Theodoreti, Episcop. Cyri Opera omnia, Ed. Jac. Sirmondi, Lùt. Paris. 1642.
fol. T. I.) Zonaras, Balsamon and Photius speak of the St. John’s fires in
Constantinople, and the first looks upon it as the remains of an old Grecian custom. See
Reiske, loc. cit. p. 81. That such different nations should have had the same idea of
fixing the purification by fire on St. John’s day, is a remarkable coincidence, which
perhaps can be accounted for only by its analogy to baptism.
[22] The Life and Adventures of Nathaniel Pearce, written by himself, during a
residence in Abyssinia from the year 1810 to 1819. Edited by J. J. Halls. 2 Vols. 8vo.
London, 1831. chap. ix. p. 290.
[23] Joann. Trithem. Annal. Hirsaugiens. Oper. Tom. II. Hirsaug. 1690. fol. p. 263. A.
1374. See the before-mentioned Chronicle of Cologne, fol. 276. b., wherein it is said
that the people passed in boats and rafts over the city walls.
[24] What took place at the St. John’s fires in the middle ages (about 1280) we learn by
a communication from the Bishop Guil. Durantes of Aquitania (Rationale divinorum
officiorum. L. VII. c. 26. In Reiske, loc. cit. p. 77.) Bones, horns, and other rubbish,
were heaped together to be consumed in smoke, while persons of all ages danced round

the flames as if they had been possessed, in the same way as at the Palilia, an ancient
Roman lustration by fire, whereat those who took part in them, sprang through a fire
made of straw. (Ovid. Met. XIV. 774. Fast. IV. 721.) Others seized burning flambeaux,
and made a circuit of the fields, in the supposition that they thereby screened them from
danger, while others, again, turned a cart wheel, to represent the retrograde movement
of the sun.
[25] J. Chr. Beckmann, Historia des Fürstenthums Anhalt. Zerbst. History of the
Principality of Anhalt. Zerbst. 1710. fol. Part III. book 4. chap. 4. § 3. p. 467.
[26] Martini Minoritæ Flores temporum, in Jo. Georg. Eccard, Corpus historiæ medii
ævi. Lips. 1723. fol. Tom. I. p. 1632.
[27] Beckmann, loc. cit. § 1. f. p. 465, where many other observations are made on this
well known circumstance. The priest named, is the same who is still known in the
nursery tales of children as the Knecht Ruprecht.
[28] “Das dich Sanct Veitstanz ankomme.” May you be seized with St. Vitus’s Dance.
Joh. Agricola, Sybenhundert und fünffzig Teutscher Sprichwörter. Hagenau, 1537, 8.
No. 497. p. 268.
[29] Spangenberg (Adels-Spiegel. Mirror of Nobility, loc. cit.) in his own forcible
manner, thus expresses himself on this subject: “It was afterwards pointed out by some,
that these people could not have been properly baptized, or at all events, that their
baptism was ineffectual, because they had received it from priests who shamelessly
lived in open cohabitation with unchaste harlots. Upon this the lower classes rose in
rebellion, and would have killed all the priests.” Compare Appendix, No. I.
[30] Bzovii Annal. ecclesiastic. loc. cit. 1468.
[31] See Appendix, Nos. III. and IV.
[32] Theophrasti Bombast von Hohenheym, 7 Buch in der Artzney. Von den
Krankheiten, die der Vernunft berauben. 7th Book on Medicine. Of the diseases which
produce insanity. Tract I. chap. 3, p. 491. Tract II. chap. 3, p. 501. Opera. Strassburg,
1616. fol. Tom. I.
[33] Chorea procursiva of the moderns. Bernt, Monographia Choreæ Sti. Viti. Prag.
1810. p. 25.
[34]
This proceeding was, however, no invention of his, but an imitation of a usual mode of
enchantment by means of wax figures (peri cunculas). The witches made a wax image
of the person who was to be bewitched; and in order to torment him, they stuck it full of
pins, or melted it before the fire. The books on magic, of the middle ages, are full of
such things; though the reader who may wish to obtain information on this subject, need
not go so far back. Only eighty years since, the learned and celebrated Storch, of the
school of Stahl, published a treatise on witchcraft, worthy of the fourteenth century.
“Abhandlung von Kinderkrankheiten.” Treatise on the Diseases of Children. Vol. IV. p.
228. Eisenach, 1751–8.
The ancients were in the habit of employing wax in incantations.
Thus Simoetha in Theocritus:
Ὡς τοῦτον τὸν καρὸν ἐγὼ σὺν δαίμονι τάκω,
Ὡς τάκοιθ’ ὑπ’ ἔρωτος ὁ Μύνδιος αὐτίκα Δέλφις.
See Potter’s Antiquities, Vol. II. p. 251.

and Horace—
“Lanea et effigies erat, altera cerea.”
Lib. 1. Sat. 8. l. 30.
Transl. note.
[35] See Agricola, loc. cit. p. 269. No. 498.
[36] Johann Schenck von Graffenberg, born 1530, took his degree at Tübingen, in 1554.
He passed the greater part of his life as physician to the corporation of Freiburg in the
Breisgau, and died in 1598.
[37] J. Schenkii a Graffenberg Observationum medicarum, rariarum, &c. Libri VII.
Lugdun. 1643. fol. L. I. Obs. VIII. p. 136.
[38] It is related by Felix Plater (born 1536, died 1614) that he remembered in his
youth the authorities of Basle having commissioned several powerful men to dance
with a girl who had the dancing mania, till she recovered from her disorder. They
successively relieved each other; and this singular mode of cure lasted above four
weeks, when the patient fell down exhausted, and being quite unable to stand, was
carried to an hospital, where she recovered. She had remained in her clothes all the
time, and, entirely regardless of the pain of her lacerated feet, she had merely sat down
occasionally to take some nourishment, or to slumber, during which the hopping
movement of her body continued. Felic. Plateri Praxeos medicæ opus. L. I. ch. 3. p. 88.
Tom. I. Basil. 1656. 4to. Ejusd. Observation. Basil. 1641. 8. p. 92.
[39] The 15th of June. Here therefore they did not wait till the Festival of St. John.
[40] Gregor. Horstii Observationum medicinalium singularium Libri IV. priores. His
accessit Epistolarum et Consultationum medicar. Lib. I. Ulm. 1628. 4to. Epistol. p. 374.
[41] Jo. Bodin. Method. historic. Amstelod. 1650. 12mo, Ch. V. p. 99.—Idem, de
Republica. Francofurt. 1591. 8vo. Lib. V. Ch. I. p. 789.
[42]
A very remarkable case, illustrative in part of this observation, where, however, not the
person who was supposed to be the subject of the demoniacal malady, but its alleged
authors, were punished, is thus reported by Dr. Watt of Glasgow:—“It occurred at
Bargarran, in Renfrewshire, in 1696. The patient’s name was Christian Shaw, a girl of
eleven years of age. She is described as having had violent fits of leaping, dancing,
running, crying, fainting, &c., but the whole narrative is mixed up with so much
credulity and superstition, that it is impossible to separate truth from fiction. These
strange fits continued from August, 1696, till the end of March in the year following,
when the patient recovered.” An account of the whole was published at Edinburgh, in
1698, entitled, “A true Narrative of the Sufferings of a Young Girl, who was strangely
molested by evil spirits, and their instruments, in the West, collected from authentic
testimonies.”
The whole being ascribed to witchcraft, the clergy were most active on the occasion.
Besides occasional days of humiliation, two solemn fasts were observed throughout the
whole bounds of the Presbytery, and a number of clergymen and elders were appointed
in rotation, to be constantly on the spot. So far the matter was well enough. But such
was the superstition of the age, that a memorial was presented to his Majesty’s most
honourable Privy Council, and on the 19th of January, 1697, a warrant was issued,
setting forth “that there were pregnant grounds of suspicion of witchcraft in
Renfrewshire, especially from the afflicted and extraordinary condition of Christian

Shaw, daughter of John Shaw, of Bargarran.” A commission was therefore granted to
Alexander Lord Blantyre, Sir John Maxwell, Sir John Shaw, and five others, together
with the sheriff of the county, to inquire into the matter, and report. This commission is
signed by eleven privy councillors, consisting of some of the first noblemen and
gentlemen in the kingdom.
The report of the commissioners having fully confirmed the suspicions respecting the
existence of witchcraft, another warrant was issued on the 5th of April, 1697, to Lord
Hallcraig, Sir John Houston, and four others, “to try the persons accused of witchcraft,
and to sentence the guilty to be burned, or otherwise executed to death, as the
commission should incline.”
The commissioners, thus empowered, were not remiss in the discharge of their duty.
After twenty hours were spent in the examination of witnesses, and counsel heard on
both sides, the counsel for the prosecution “exhorted the jury to beware of condemning
the innocent; but at the same time, should they acquit the prisoners in opposition to
legal evidence, they would be accessory to all the blasphemies, apostacies, murders,
tortures, and seductions, whereof these enemies of heaven and earth should hereafter be
guilty.” After the jury had spent six hours in deliberation, seven of the miserable
wretches, three men and four women, were condemned to the flames, and the sentence
faithfully executed at Paisley, on the 10th of June, 1697.—Medico-Chirurg. Trans. Vol.
V. p. 20, et seq.—Transl. note.
[43] Compare Olaus Magnus, de gentibus septentrionalibus. Lib. XVIII. Ch. 45–47. p.
642, seq. Rom. 1555. fol.
[44]
Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, has the following observations, which, with the
ample references by which they are accompanied, will furnish materials for such a
history.
“Lycanthropia, which Avicenna calls cucubuth, others lupinam insaniam, or wolf-
madness, when men run howling about graves and fields in the night, and will not be
persuaded but that they are wolves, or some such beasts. Aëtius (Lib. 6. cap. 11.) and
Paulus (Lib. 3. cap. 16.) call it a kind of melancholy; but I should rather refer it to
madness, as most do. Some make a doubt of it, whether there be any such disease.
Donat. ab Altomari (Cap. 9. Art. Med.) saith, that he saw two of them in his time:
Wierus (De Præstig. Demonum, 1. 3. cap. 21.) tells a story of such a one at Padua, 1541,
that would not believe to the contrary, but that he was a wolf. He hath another instance
of a Spaniard, who thought himself a bear. Forestus (Observat. lib. 10. de Morbis
Cerebri, c. 15.) confirms as much by many examples; one, among the rest, of which he
was an eye-witness, at Alcmaer in Holland.—A poor husbandman that still hunted
about graves, and kept in churchyards, of a pale, black, ugly, and fearful look. Such,
belike, or little better, were king Prœtus’ daughters, (Hippocrates lib. de insaniâ,) that
thought themselves kine: and Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel, as some interpreters hold,
was only troubled with this kind of madness. This disease, perhaps, gave occasion to
that bold assertion of Pliny, (Lib. 8. cap. 22. homines interdum lupos fieri; et contra,)
some men were turned into wolves in his time, and from wolves to men again; and to
that fable of Pausanias, of a man that was ten years a wolf, and afterwards turned to his
former shape; to Ovid’s (Met. lib. 1.) tale of Lycaon, &c. He that is desirous to hear of
this disease, or more examples, let him read Austin in his eighteenth book, de Civitate
Dei, cap. 5; Mizaldus, cent. 5. 77; Schenkius, lib. 1. Hildesheim, Spicil. 2. de maniâ;
Forestus, lib. 10. de morbis cerebri; Olaus Magnus; Vicentius Bellavicensis, spec. met.

lib. 31. c. 122; Pierius, Bodine, Zuinger, Zeilgur, Peucer, Wierus, Spranger, &c. This
malady, saith Avicenna, troubleth men most in February, and is now-a-days frequent in
Bohemia and Hungary, according to Heurnius. (Cap. de Man.) Schernitzius will have it
common in Livonia. They lie hid, most part, all day, and go abroad in the night,
barking, howling, at graves and deserts; they have usually hollow eyes, scabbed legs
and thighs, very dry and pale, (Ulcerata crura; sitis ipsis adest immodica; pallidi; lingua
sicca,) saith Altomarus: he gives a reason there of all the symptoms, and sets down a
brief cure of them.”—Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. Tenth Edit.: 8vo. 1804. Vol. 1.
Page 13, et seq.
It is surprising that so learned a writer as Burton should not have alluded to Oribasius,
who flourished 140 years before Aëtius, and of whom Freind says, “In auctore hoc miri
cujusdam morbi prima mentio est; is Λυκάνθρωπος sive Λυκανθρωπία dicitur, estque
melancholiæ, aut insaniæ, species quænam ita ab illo descripta: ‘Quos hoc malum
infestos habet, nocturno tempore domo egressi, Lupos in omnibus rebus imitantur, et ad
diem usque circa tumulos vagantur mortuorum. Hos ita cognosce: pallidi sunt, oculos
hebetes et siccos, non illachrymantes, eosque concavos habent: lingua siccissima est,
nulla penitus in ore saliva conspicitur, siti enecti; crura vero, quia noctu sæpe offendunt,
sine remedio exulcerata.’—‘Quod ad morbum ipsum attinet, si peregrinantibus fides
adhibenda est, fuit olim in quibusdam regionibus, ut in Livonia, Hibernia, et aliis locis
visi non infrequens,’” &c.—J. Freind. Opera omnia Med. fol. London. 1733.
De hujus morbi antiquitatibus vide elegantem Böttigeri disputationem in Sprengelii
Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Med. 11. p. 1–45. Blancard. Lexic. Med. Edit. noviss. 8vo. Lipsiæ,
1822.—Transl. note.
[45] Born 1430, died 1480. Cornucopiæ latinæ linguæ. Basil. 1536. fol. Comment. in
primum Martialis Epigramma, p. 51, 52. “Est et alius stellio ex araneorum genere, qui,
simili modo, ascalabotes a Græcis dicitur, et colotes et galeotes, lentiginosus in
cavernulis dehiscentibus, per æstum terræ habitans. Hic majorum nostrorum temporibus
in Italia visus non fuit, nunc frequens in Apulia visitur. Aliquando etiam in Tarquinensi
et Corniculano agro, et vulgo similiter tarantula vocatur. Morsus ejus perraro interemit
hominem, semistupidum tamen facit, et varie afficit, tarantulam vulgo appellant.
Quidam cantu audito, aut sono, ita excitantur, ut pleni lætitia et semper ridentes saltent,
nec nisi defatigati et semineces desistant. Alii semper flentes, quasi desiderio suorum
miserabilem vitam agant. Alii visa muliere, libidinis statim ardore incensi, veluti
furentes in eam prosiliant. Quidam ridendo, quidam flendo moriantur.”
[46] Lycosa Tarantula.
[47]
The Aranea Tarantula of Linnæus, who, after the technical description, says, “Habitat in
Europa australi, potissimum Apulia, in Barbaria, in Tauria, Russiæque, australis
desertis, in Astracania ad montes Sibiriæ Altaicos usque, in Persia et reliquo Oriente, in
solo præsertim argillaceo in antris, morsu quamvis interdum dolente, olimque famosum
tarantismum musica sanandum excitare credito, vix unquam periculoso, cinerascens,
oculis duobus prioribus rubris, thorace in areas nigras diviso in centrum concurrentes,
abdomine supra fasciis maxillisque nigris.”—Systema Naturæ. Tom. I. pars v. p. 2956.
For particulars regarding the habits of the Lycosæ, see Griffith’s Transl. of Cuvier’s
Animal Kingdom. Vol. XIII. p. 427 and p. 480. et seq. The author states that M.
Chabrier has published (Soc. Acad. de Lille 4e cahier) some curious observations on
the Lycosa tarantula of the south of France.—Transl. note.

[48] Matthiol. Commentar. in Dioscorid. L. II. ch. 59. p. 363. Ed. Venet. 1565. fol.
[49] Perotti, loc. cit.
[50] Probably Lacerto Gecko, as also the synonymes, κωλώτης and γαλεώτης quoted by
him.
[51] Lacerta Stellio. It need scarcely be observed that the venomous nature of this
harmless creature was a pure invention of Roman superstition.
[52] See Athan. Kircher. loc. cit.
[53] From 1451–1458. Tiraboschi. VI. 11. p. 356.
[54] See p. 12. et seq.
[55] Aëtius, who wrote at the end of the sixth century, mentions six which occur in the
older works. 1. ῥάγιον, 2. λύκος, 3. μυρμήκειον 4. κρανοκολάπτης, by others,
κεφαλοκρούστης, 5. σκληροκέφαλον, and 6. σκωλήκιον. Tetrabl. IV. Serm. I. ch. 18. in
Hen. Steph. Compare Dioscorid. Lib. VI. ch. 42. Matthiol. Commentar. in Dioscorid. p.
1447. Nicand. Theriac. V. 8. 715. 755. 654.
[56] Aranearum multæ species sunt. Quæ ubi mordent, faciunt multum dolorem,
ruborem, frigidum sudorem, et citrinum colorem. Aliquando quasi stranguriæ in urina
duritiem, et virgæ extensionem, intra inguina, et genua, tetinositatem in stomacho.
Linguæ extensionem, ut eorum sermo non possit discerni. Vomunt humiditatem quasi
araneæ telam, et ventris emollitionem similiter, &c. De communibus medico cognitu
necessariis locis. Lib. VIII. cap. 22. p. 235. Basil. 1539. fol.
[57] He lived in the middle of the eleventh century, and was a junior contemporary with
Constantine of Africa. J. Chr. Gottl. Ackermann, Regimen sanitatis Salerni sive Scholæ
Salernitanæ de conservanda bona valetudine præcepta. Stendal. 1790. 8vo. p. 38.
[58] The passage is as follows: “Anteneasmon est species maniæ periculosa nimium.
Irritantur tanquam maniaci, et in se manus injiciunt. Hi subito arripiuntur, cum
saltatione manuum et pedum, quia intra aurium cavernas quasi voces diversas sonare
falso audiunt, ut sunt diversorum instrumentorum musicæ soni; quibus delectantur, ut
statim saltent, aut cursum velocem arripiant; subito arripientes gladium percutiunt se
aut alios: morsibus se et alios attrectare non dubitant. Hos Latini percussores, alii dicunt
dæmonis legiones esse, ut dum eos arripiunt, vexent et vulnerent. Diligentia eis
imponenda est, quando istos sonos audierint, includantur, et post accessionis horas
phlebotomentur, et venter eis moveatur. Cibos leves accipiant cum calida aqua, ut
omnis ventositas, quæ in cerebro sonum facit, egeratur. In ipsa accessione silentium
habeant. Quod si spumam per os ejecerint, vel ex canis rabidi morsu causa fuerit, intra
septem dies moriuntur.” Garioponti, medici vetustissimi, de morborum causis,
accidentibus et curationibus. Libri VIII. Basil. 1536. 8vo. L. I. ch. 2. p. 27.
[59] J. P. Papon. De la peste, ou les époques mémorables de ce fléau. Paris, an 8. 8vo.
Tome II. page 270. (1119. 1126. 1135. 1193. 1225. 1227. 1231. 1234. 1243. 1254. 1288.
1301. 1311. 1316. 1335. 1340.)
[60] 1347 to 1350.
[61] Athanasius Kircher gives a full account of the instruments then in use, which
differed very slightly from those of our days. Musurgia universalis, sive Ars magna
consoni et dissoni. Romæ, 1650, fol. Tom. I. p. 477.
[62] Genialium dierum Libri VI. Lugdun. Bat. 1673. 8vo. Lib. II. ch. 17. p. 398. Alex.
ab Alexandro, a distinguished Neapolitan lawyer, lived from 1461 to 1523. The

historian Gaudentius Merula, who became celebrated about 1536, makes only a very
slight mention of the Tarantism. Memorabilium Gaud. Merulæ Novariensis opus, &c.
Lugdun. 1656. 8vo. L. III. ch. 69. p. 251.
[63] Petr. And. Matthioli Commentarii in Dioscorid. Venet. 1565. fol. Lib. II ch. 57. p.
362.
[64] Athanas. Kircher. Magnes sive de Arte magnetica Opus. Rom. 1654. fol. p. 589.
[65] Joann. Juvenis de antiquitate et varia Tarentinorum fortuna Lib. VIII. Neapol.
1589. fol. Lib. II. ch. 17. p. 107. With the exception of the statement quoted, Juvenis
has borrowed almost every thing from Matthioli.
[66] Simon. Alloys. Tudecius, physician to Queen Christine, saw a case of this kind in
July, 1656. Bonet. Medicina septentrionalis collatit. Genev. 1684. fol.
[67] Epiphan. Ferdinand. Centum historiæ seu observationes et casus medici. Venet.
1621. fol. Hist. LXXXI. p. 259. Ferdinando, a physician in Messapia at the
commencement of the seventeenth century, has collected, with much diligence, the
various statements respecting the Tarantism of his time. He “was himself an eye witness
of it,” (p. 265.) and is by far the most copious of all the old writers on this subject.
[68] Kircher, loc. cit. pp. 588, 589.
[69] Ferdinand. p. 259.
[70]
For example:—
“Allu mari mi portati
Se voleti che mi sanati.
Allu mari, alla via:
Cosi m’ama la donna mia.
Allu mari allu mari:
Mentre campo, t’aggio amari.”
Kircher, loc. cit. p. 592.—Appendix, No. V.
[71] Ferdinand. loc. cit. p. 257.
[72] Kircher, p. 589.
[73] Plin. Hist. Nat. Lib. XXVIII. ch. 2. p. 447. Ed. Hard.
[74] Cael. Aurelian. Chron. Lib. I. ch. 5. p. 335. Ed. Amman.
[75] Democritus and Theophrastus made mention of it. See Gell. Noct. Attic. Lib. IV.
ch. 13.
[76] Ferdinand. p. 260.
[77] Bagliv. loc. cit. p. 618. From more decided statements, however, we learn, that of
those who had been bitten only one or two in a thousand died. Ferdinand. p. 255.
[78] Il carnevaletto delle donne. Bagliv. p. 617.
[79] Ferdinand. pp. 254. 260.
[80] Ferdinand. p. 259. Slow music made the Tarantel dancers feel as if they were
crushed: spezzati, minuzzati, p. 260.
[81] A. Kircher, loc. cit.
[82] See Appendix, No. V.

[83] Bagliv. loc. cit. p. 623.
[84] A. Kircher, loc. cit.
[85] Ferdinand. p. 262.
[86] This is said of an old man of Avetrano, who was ninety-four years of age. pp. 254.
257.
[87] Idem, p. 261.
[88] Ferdinando saw a man who was hard of hearing listen with great eagerness during
the dance, and endeavour to approach the drums and fifes as nearly as possible. p. 258.
[89] Idem, p. 260.
[90] Idem, p. 256.
[91] Idem, p. 260.
[92] Idem, p. 261.
[93] Ferdinand. p. 256.
[94] Idem, p. 258.
[95] Idem, p. 257.
[96] Idem, p. 256.
[97] De Contag. Lib. III. ch. 2. p. 212. Opera Lugdun. 1591. 8vo.
[98] De Contag. p. 254.
[99] Idem, ibid.
[100] Idem, p. 262.
[101] Idem, p. 261.
[102]
“The imaginations of women are always more excitable than those of men, and they are
therefore susceptible of every folly when they lead a life of strict seclusion, and their
thoughts are constantly turned inwards upon themselves. Hence in orphan asylums,
hospitals, and convents, the nervous disorder of one female so easily and quickly
becomes the disorder of all. I have read in a good medical work that a nun, in a very
large convent in France, began to mew like a cat; shortly afterwards other nuns also
mewed. At last all the nuns mewed together every day at a certain time for several hours
together. The whole surrounding Christian neighbourhood heard, with equal chagrin
and astonishment, this daily cat-concert, which did not cease until all the nuns were
informed that a company of soldiers were placed by the police before the entrance of
the convent, and that they were provided with rods, and would continue whipping them
until they promised not to mew any more.
“But of all the epidemics of females which I myself have seen in Germany, or of which
the history is known to me, the most remarkable is the celebrated Convent-epidemic of
the fifteenth century, which Cardan describes, and which peculiarly proves what I
would here enforce. A nun in a German nunnery fell to biting all her companions. In the
course of a short time all the nuns of this convent began biting each other. The news of
this infatuation among the nuns soon spread, and it now passed from convent to
convent, throughout a great part of Germany, principally Saxony and Brandenburg. It
afterwards visited the nunneries of Holland, and at last the nuns had the biting mania
even as far as Rome.”—Zimmermann on Solitude, Vol. II. Leipsig. 1784.—Transl. note.

[103] Georg. Baglivi, Diss. de Anatome, morsu et effectibus Tarantulæ. pp. 616, 617.
Opp. Lugdun. 1710. 4to.
[104] Ferdinando, p. 257.
[105] Idem, pp. 256, 257, 258.
[106] Ferdinando, p. 258.
[107] Adam Olearius. Vermehrte Moscowitische und Persianische Reisebeschreibung.
Travels in Muscovy and Persia. Schleswig, 1663. fol. Book IV. p. 496.
[108] Geor. Baglivi, Dissertatio VI. de Anatome, morsu et effectibus Tarantulæ. (written
in 1595.) Opera omnia, Lugdun. 1710. 4to. p. 599.
[109] This physician once saw three patients, who were evidently suffering from a
malignant fever, and whose illness was attributed by the bystanders to the bite of the
tarantula, forced to dance by having music played to them. One of them died on the
spot, and the two others very shortly after. Ch. 7. p. 616.
[110]
Among the instances in which imposture successfully taxes popular credulity, perhaps
there is none more remarkable at the present day than that afforded by the Psylli of
Egypt, a country which furnishes another illustration of our author’s remark at the
commencement of the next chapter. This sect, according to the testimony of modern
writers, continues to exhibit the same strange spectacles as the ancient serpent-eaters of
Cyrene, described by Strabo, 17 Dio. 51. c. 14. Lucan, 9. v. 894. 937. Herodot. 4. c.
173. Paus. 9. c. 28. Savary states that he witnessed a procession at Rosetta, where a
band of these seeming madmen, with bare arms and wild demeanour, held enormous
serpents in their hands which writhed round their bodies and endeavoured to make their
escape. These Psylli, grasping them by the neck, tore them with their teeth and ate them
up alive, the blood streaming down from their polluted mouths. Others of the Psylli
were striving to wrest their prey from them, so that it seemed a struggle among them
who should devour a serpent. The populace followed them with amazement, and
believed their performance to be miraculous. Accordingly they pass for persons
inspired, and possessed by a spirit who destroys the effect of the serpent.
Sonnini, though not so fortunate as to witness a public exhibition of such performances,
yet gives the following interesting account of what he justly calls a remarkable
specimen of the extravagance of man. After adverting to the superstitious origin of the
sect, he goes on to say that a Saadi, or serpent-eater, came to his apartment
accompanied by a priest of his sect. The priest carried in his bosom a large serpent of a
dusky green and copper colour, which he was continually handling; and after having
recited a prayer, he delivered it to the Saadi. The narrative proceeds:—“With a vigorous
hand the Saadi seized the serpent, which twisted itself round his naked arm. He began
to appear agitated; his countenance was discomposed; his eyes rolled; he uttered terrible
cries, bit the animal in the head, and tore off a morsel, which we saw him chew and
swallow. On this his agitation became convulsive; his howlings were redoubled, his
limbs writhed, his countenance assumed the features of madness, and his mouth,
extended by terrible grimaces, was all in a foam. Every now and then he devoured a
fresh morsel of the reptile. Three men endeavoured to hold him, but he dragged them all
three round the chamber. His arms were thrown about with violence on all sides, and
struck every thing within their reach. Eager to avoid him, M. Forneti and I were obliged
sometimes to cling to the wall, to let him pass and escape his blows. We could have
wished the madman far away. At length the priest took the serpent from him, but his

madness and convulsions did not cease immediately; he bit his hands, and his fury
continued. The priest then grasped him in his arms, passed his hand gently down his
back, lifted him from the ground, and recited some prayers. By degrees his agitation
diminished, and subsided into a state of complete lassitude, in which he remained a few
moments.
“The Turks who were present at this ridiculous and disgusting ceremony were firmly
persuaded of the reality of this religious fury; and it is very certain that, whether it were
reality or imposture, it is impossible to see the transports of rage and madness exhibited
in a more striking manner, or have before your eyes a man more calculated to inspire
terror.”—Hunter’s Translation of Sonnini’s Travels, 8vo. 1799.—Transl. note.
[111] Franc. Serao, della Tarantola o vero Falangio di Puglia. Napol. 1742.—See
Thom. Fasani, De vita, muniis et scriptis Franc. Serai, &c. Commentarius. Neapol.
1784. 8vo. p. 76. et seq.
[112] Thom. Fasani, De vita, muniis et scriptis Franc. Serai, &c. Commentarius, p. 88.
[113] Idem, p. 89.
[114] H. Mercurialis, de Venenis et Morbis Venenosis, (Venet. 1601. 4to. Lib. II. ch. 6.
p. 39.) repeats the silly tale, that those who were bitten continued, during their
paroxysm, to be occupied with whatever they had been engaged in at the time they
received the bite, and proves, by a fact which had been communicated to him, that
already, in the sixteenth century, they were able to distinguish impostors from those
who had been really bitten. H. Cardani, de Subtilitate Libri XXI. Basil. 1560. 8vo. Lib.
IX. p. 635. The baneful effect of the venom of the tarantula was obviated, not so much
by music as by the great exertion used in dancing. Compare J. Cæs. Scaliger. Exoteric.
Exercitt. Libri XV. de Subtilitate, Francof. 1612. 8vo. Ex. 185. p. 610.—J. M. Fehr,
Anchora sacra vel Scorzonera. Jen. 1666. 8vo. p. 127. From Alexander ab Alexandro,
and several later writers.—Stalpart van der Wiel, Observatt. rarior. Lugdun. Bat. 1687.
8vo. Cent. 1. Obs. C. p. 424. According to Kircher.—Rod. a Castro, Medicus politicus.
Hamburg, 1614. 4to. Lib. IV. ch. 16. p. 275. According to Matthioli.—D. Cirillo, Some
account of the Tarantula, Philosoph. Trans. Vol. LX. 1770, describes Tarantism as a
common imposture. So also does J. A. Unzer, The Physician, Vol. II. pp. 473. 640, Vol.
III. pp. 466, 526, 528, 529, 530, 533, 553; likewise A. F. Büsching, Eigene Gedanken
und gesammelte Nachrichten von der Tarantel, welche zur gänzlichen Vertilgung des
Vorurtheils von der Schädlichkeit ihres Bisses, und der Heilung desselben durch Musik,
dienlich und hinlänglich sind. Observations and statements respecting the Tarantula,
which suffice entirely to set aside the prejudice respecting the venom of its bite, as also
its cure by music. Berlin, 1772. 8vo. A very shallow criticism.—P. Forest. Observatt. et
Curatt. medicinal. Libri 30, 31 et 32. Francof. 1509. fol. Ob. XII. p. 41. diligently
compiled from his predecessors.—Phil. Camerar. Operæ horarum subcisivarum.
Francof. 1658. 4to. Cent. II. cap. 81. p. 317.—R. Mead, a mechanical account of
poisons: London, 1747. 8vo. p. 99. contends for the reality of Tarantism with R. Boyle.
An essay of the great effects of even languid and unheeded motion, &c. London, 1685.
ch. VI.—So also J. F. Cartheuser, Fundamenta pathologiæ et therapiæ. Francof. a. V.
1758. 8vo. Tom. I. p. 334. Th. Willis de morbis convulsivis. cap. VII. p. 492. Opp.
Lugdun. 1681. 4to. According to Gassendi, Ferdinando, Kircher and others.—L.
Valetta, de Phalangio Apulo opusculum. Neapol. 1706.—Thom. Cornelio (professor at
Naples in the middle of the seventeenth century). Letter to J. Dodington concerning
some observations made of persons pretending to be stung by Tarantulas. Phil.
Transactions, No. 83. p. 4066. 1672. considers Tarantism to be St. Vitus’s dance.—Jos.

Lanzoni, de Venenis, cap. 57. p. 140. Opp. Lausann. 1738. 4to. Tom. I. mostly from
Baglivi.—J. Schenk, a Grafenberg. Observatt. Medicar. Lib. VII. Obs. 122. p. 792.
Tom. II. Ed. Francof. 1600. 8vo. was himself an eye-witness.—Wolfg. Senguerd,
Tractatus physicus de Tarantula. Ludg. Bat. 1668. 12mo.—Herm. Grube, De ictu
Tarantulæ et vi musices in eius curatione conjecturæ physico-medicæ. Francof. 1679.
8vo—Athan. Kircher, Musurgia universalis. Rom. 1650. fol. Tom. II. IX. ch. 4. p. 218.
—M. Köhler, in den Svenska Vetenskaps Academiens Handlingar. 1758. p. 29.
Transactions of the Swedish Academy of Sciences—Berlin Collection for the
Furtherance of the Science of Medicine. Vol. V. Pt. I. p. 53. 1772.—Burserii
Institutiones medic. pract. tom. III. p. 1. cap. 7. § 219. p. 159. ed. Hecker.—J. S. Halle,
Gifthistorie. History of Poisons, Berlin, 1786. 8vo.—Blumenbach, Naturgeschichte,
Natural History, p. 412.—E. F. Leonhardt, Diss. de Tarantismo, Berol. 1827. 8vo. and
many others.
[115] This may, however, be considered merely as a conjecture, founded upon the
following passage in Ludolf’s Lexicon Æthiopic. Ed. 2da. Francof. 1699. fol. p. 142.
Astarāgaza, de vexatione quadam diabolica accipitur. Marc. i. 26. ix. 18. Luc. ix. 39.
Græcus habet σπαράττειν, vellicare, discerpere. Sed Æthiopes, teste Gregorio, pro
morbo quodam accipiunt, quo quis perpetuo pedes agitare et quasi calcitrare cogitur.
Fortassis est Saltatio S. Viti, vulgo St. Veitstanz.
[116] The Life and Adventures of Nathaniel Pearce, written by himself, during a
residence in Abyssinia, from the year 1810 to 1819. London, 1831. 8vo. Vol. I. ch. ix. p.
290.
[117] The Evangelist and St. John the Baptist have been at all times, and among all
nations, confounded with each other, so that the relation of the latter to one and the
same phenomenon in such different ages and climates is very probable.
[118] She was a native Greek.
[119] Pearce, p. 289. Compare p. 34.—E. G. Förstemann, Die christlichen
Geisslergesellschaften. The Christian Societies of Flagellants. Halle, 1828. 8vo.
[120] Idem, loc. cit.
[121] Among the ancient Greeks βασκήσις. This superstition is more or less developed
among all the nations of the earth, and has not yet entirely disappeared from Europe.
[122] Paracelsus.
[123] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1787, March, p. 268.—F. B. Osiander, Ueber die
Entwickelungskrankheiten in den Blüthenjahren des weiblichen Geschlechts. On the
disorders of young women, &c. Tübingen, 1820, Vol. I. p. 10.
[124] This account is given by Fritze. Hufeland’s Journal der practischen Heilkunde,
Vol. XII. 1801. Part I. p. 110. Hufeland’s Journal of Practical Medicine.
[125] Compare J. G. Zimmermann, Ueber die Einsamkeit. Leipsig, 1784. 8vo. Vol. II.
ch. 6. p. 77. On Solitude.—J. P. Falret, De l’hypochondrie et du suicide. Paris, 1822.
8vo. and others.
[126] This statement is made by J. Cornish. See Fothergill and Want’s Medical and
Physical Journal, vol. xxxi. 1814. pp. 373–379.
[127] Samuel Hibbert, Description of the Shetland Islands, comprising an account of
their geology, scenery, antiquities, and superstitions. Edinburgh, 1822. 4to. p. 399.
[128]

About this time the following couplet was circulated:—
“De par le Roi, défense à Dieu
De faire miracle dans ce lieu.”
[129] This kind of assistance was called the “Grands Secours.” Boursier, Mémoire
Théologique sur ce qu’on appelle les Secours violens dans les Convulsions. Paris, 1788.
12mo. Many Convulsionnaires were seized with illness in consequence of this
singularly erroneous mode of cure. A Dominican friar died from the effects of it—
though accidents of this kind were kept carefully concealed. See Renault (parish priest
at Vaux, near Auxerre; obiit, 1796), Le Secourisme détruit dans ses fondemens, 1759.
12mo. and Le Mystère d’Iniquité, 1788. 8vo.
[130] Arouet, the father of Voltaire, visited, in Nantes, a celebrated Convulsionnaire,
Gabrielle Mollet, whom he found occupied in pulling the bells off a child’s coral, to
designate the rejection of the unbelievers. Sometimes she jumped into the water, and
barked like a dog. She died in 1748.
[131] J. Phil. Hecquet (obiit 1737). La Naturalisme des Convulsions. Soleure, 1733.
8vo.
[132] De Melancholia et Morbis Melancholicis. Paris, 1765. 2 vols. 8vo.
[133] Especially from 1784 to 1788.
[134] See Grégoire, Histoire des Sectes Religieuses, tome ii. ch. 13. p. 127. Paris, 1828.
8vo. The following words of this meritorious author, on the mental state of his
countrymen, are very well worthy of attention. “L’esprit public est dans un état de
fluctuation persévérante: des âmes flétries par l’égoïsme n’ont que le caractère de la
servitude; l’education viciée ne forme guère que des êtres dégradés; la religion est
méconnue ou mal enseignée; la nation présente des symptômes alarmans de sa
décrépitude, et présage des malheurs dont on ne peut calculer l’étendue ni la durée.” P.
161.
[135]
“I had occasion to witness at Cairo another species of religious fanaticism. I heard one
day, at a short distance from my residence, for several hours together, singing, or more
properly crying, so uniform and fatiguing, that I inquired the cause of this singularity. I
was told that it was some dervise or monk, who repeated, while dancing on his heels,
the name of Allah, till, completely exhausted, he sank down insensible. These unhappy
visionaries, in fact, often expire at the end of this holy dance; and the cries of the one
whom I heard, having commenced in the afternoon, and continued during the whole of
the night, and part of the following morning, I doubt not that his pious enthusiasm cost
him his life.”—Recollections of Egypt, by the Baroness Von Minutoli. London, 1827.
In Arabia the same fanatical zeal exists, as we find from the following passage of an
anonymous history of the Wahabis, published in Paris, in 1810: “La prière la plus
méritoire consiste à crier le nom de Dieu, pendant des heures entières, et le plus saint
est celui qui répète ce nom le plus long temps et le plus vite. Rien de plus curieux que le
spectacle des Schekhs, qui, dans les fêtes publiques, s’essayent à l’envi, et hurlent le
nom d’Allah d’une manière effrayante. La plupart enroués sont forcés de se taire, et
abandonnent la palme au sainte à forte poitrine, qui, pour jouir de sa victoire, s’efforce
et jette encore quelque cris devant ses rivaux réduits au silence. Epuisé de fatigue,
baigné de sueur, il tombe enfin au milieu du peuple dévot, qui s’empresse à le relever et
le porte en triomphe. Les principales mosquées retentissent, tous les Vendredis, des cris

dictés par cette singulière émulation. Le Schekh, que ses poumons ont sanctifié,
conserve son odeur de sainteté par des extases et des transports, souvent dangereux
pour les Chrétiens que le hazard en rend témoins malgré cux.”—Transl. note.
[136] For examples see Osiander, Entwickelungskrankheiten. Loc. cit. p. 45.
[137] Among 108 cases of insanity, Perfect mentions eleven of mania and methodistical
enthusiasm, in nine of which suicide was committed. Annals of Insanity. London, 1808.
8vo.
[138] Harris Rowland and William Williams.
[139] John Evans, Sketch of the Denominations of the Christian World. 13th edition.
London, 1814. 12mo. p. 236.—See Grégoire, loc. cit. tome iv. chap. xiii. p. 483.
[140] Mrs. Trollope’s Domestic Manners of the Americans. A Revival, pp. 108–112.
Shaking Quakers, pp. 195–196. Camp Meeting, p. 233. London, 2 vols. 1832.—Transl.
note.
[141] In Kentucky, assemblies of from ten to twelve thousand have frequently taken
place. Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and New York, are also the theatres of these
meetings.—Grégoire, tome iv. p. 496.
[142] At one of these camp-meetings a traveller saw above eight hundred persons faint
away. Idem. He nowhere met with more frequent instances of suicide in consequence of
Demonomania, than in North America.
[143] Idem. p. 498. These are the Barkers. Numerous other convulsive Methodistical
sects abound in North America. The Shakers, who are inimical to marriage, would also
have been mentioned, were not their contortions much less violent than those of the
Jumpers.—See Grégoire, tome v. p. 195. Evans, p. 267.
[144] See Perrin du Lac, Voyage dans les deux Louisianes. Paris, 1805. 8vo. chap. ix.
pp. 64, 65. chap. xvii. pp. 128, 129.—Michaud, Voyage à l’ouest des Monts Alleghanys.
Paris, 1804. 8vo. p. 212.—John Melish, Travels in the United States of America.
Philadelphia, 1812. 8vo. vol. i. p. 26.—Lambert, Travels through Canada and the
United States. London, 1810. 8vo. vol. iii. p. 44.—John Howison, Sketches of Upper
Canada. Edinburgh, 1822. 8vo. p. 150.—Edward Allen Talbot, Cinq Années de
Résidence au Canada. Paris, 1825. 8vo. tome ii. p. 147.
[145] The substance of Nos. III. and IV. having been embodied in the text, it seems only
necessary to insert here the original old German, which is couched in language too
coarse to admit of translation.—Transl. note.

T HE S WE AT IN G
S IC KN E S S .

P R E FA C E .

The present work is a continuation of my treatises on collateral subjects,
and, like them, maintains the opinion, that great epidemics are epochs of
development, wherein the mental energies of mankind are exerted in every
direction. The history of the world bears indisputable testimony to this fact.
The tendencies of the mind, the turn of thought of whole ages, have
frequently depended on prevailing diseases; for nothing exercises a more
potent influence over man, either in disposing him to calmness and
submission, or in kindling in him the wildest passions, than the proximity of
inevitable and universal danger. Often have infatuation and fanaticism,
hatred and revenge, engendered by an overwhelming fear of death, spread
fire and flames throughout the world. Famine and diseases, among which
may be instanced the fiery plague of St. Anthony, were no less powerful in
calling forth the chivalrous spirit of the crusades than the enthusiastic
eloquence of Peter the Hermit—the Black Death brought thousands to the
stake, and aroused the fearful penances of the Flagellants—while the
oriental leprosy cast a gloomy shade over society throughout the whole
course of the middle ages.
With all such commotions, the most striking events of the world are in
intimate relation, and unquestionably, amid the changing forms of existence
in the human race, more has always depended on the prevailing tone of
thought than on the rude powers by which those events were produced. The
historian, therefore, who would investigate the hidden influence of mind,
cannot dispense with medical research. The facts themselves convince him
of the organic union of the corporeal and the spiritual in all human affairs,
and consequently of the innate vital connexion of all human knowledge.
Hence, in a medical point of view, how vast is the field for observation
presented by the history of popular diseases. Present bodily sufferings[1],
are, collectively, but a step in the development,—but one phase of morbid
life amid a long series of phenomena, and hence are not fully understood

without a previous knowledge of the past, and historical research. How can
we recognise the ring of Saturn as such, so long as our axis of vision is in its
plane, and we see it only as a line. Great pestilences have vanished or been
dispersed; from causes apparently the most insignificant, the most important
consequences have resulted, and throughout the vicissitudes of danger and
devastation, the operations of mighty laws of nature are everywhere
manifested in the social tendencies of entire centuries.
This is no aërial realm of transitory conjectures—facts themselves speak
in a thousand reminiscences. If we do but investigate the past with
unprejudiced assiduity—if we do but consider even the few successful
researches which have hitherto been made in historical pathology, (perhaps
those who are kindly disposed will recognise even mine,) we shall not fail
to arrive at a centre of reality, which the healing art, to its great detriment,
has hitherto been far from reaching, whilst it has occasionally penetrated
into a less fertile soil, or even encumbered itself with the accumulated
rubbish of the pedantic dogmas of the schools.
The state, which founds its legislation on a knowledge of realities, which
expects from the physical sciences information respecting human life
collectively, considered in all its relations, has a right to demand from its
physicians a general insight into the nature and causes of popular diseases.
Such an insight, however, as is worthy the dignity of a science, cannot be
obtained by the observation of isolated epidemics, because nature never in
any one of them displays herself in all her bearings, nor brings into action,
at one time, more than a few of the laws of general disease. One generation,
however rich it may be in stores of important knowledge, is never adequate
to establish, on the foundation of actually observed phenomena, a doctrine
of popular diseases worthy of the name. The experience of all ages is the
source whence we must in this case draw, and medical investigation is the
only road which leads to this source, unless, indeed, we would be
unprepared to meet new epidemics, and would maintain the unfounded
opinion that medical science, as it now exists, is the full result of all
preceding efforts.
An insight, not only into general visitations of disease, which in the
course of ages have appeared in divers forms, but also into every single
disease, whether it occurs in intimate connexion with others or not, is
rendered more distinct by a knowledge of the contemporary circumstances

which attend its development. I would fain hope, therefore, that the future
research and diligence of physicians devoted to the pursuit of truth and
science, will be more generally directed to historical investigation; and that
universities and academies will concede to it that prominent place, which,
from its high importance, as an extensive branch of natural philosophy, it
justly demands.
Whether the following inquiry into one of the most remarkable diseases
on record corresponds with these views, I must leave my readers to judge.
The historian will discern what social feelings are produced among nations
by great events, and to the physician a picture of suffering will be unveiled,
to which the diseases of the present time afford no parallel. I have
throughout kept in view the spirit and the dignity of the sixteenth century,
which was as remarkable for military triumphs as for tragic events; and I
look with confidence for the same indulgence and goodwill now, which,
through the kindness of friends, I have already enjoyed both at home and
abroad, in a higher degree than my sincere gratitude can find words to
express.

THE SWEATING SICKNESS.

CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST VISITATION OF THE DISEASE—1485.

“Sound drums and trumpets, boldly and cheerfully,
God and Saint George! Richmond and victory!”—Shakespeare.

Sect. 1.—Eruption.
After the fate of England had been decided by the battle of Bosworth, on
the 22d of August, 1485[2], the joy of the nation was clouded by a mortal
disease which thinned the ranks of the warriors, and following in the rear of
Henry’s victorious army, spread in a few weeks from the distant mountains
of Wales to the metropolis of the empire. It was a violent inflammatory
fever, which, after a short rigor, prostrated the powers as with a blow; and
amidst painful oppression at the stomach, headache and lethargic stupor,
suffused the whole body with a fetid perspiration. All this took place in the
course of a few hours, and the crisis was always over within the space of a
day and night[3]. The internal heat which the patient suffered was
intolerable, yet every refrigerant was certain death. The people were seized
with consternation when they saw that scarcely one in a hundred escaped[4],
and their first impression was that a reign commencing with such horrors
would doubtless prove most inauspicious[5].
At first the new foe was scarcely heeded; citizens and peasants went in
joyful processions to meet the victorious army. Henry’s march from
Bosworth towards London resembled a triumph, which was everywhere
celebrated by festivals; for the nation, after its many years of civil war,
looked forward to happier days than they had enjoyed under the blood-
thirsty Richard.
Very shortly, however, after the king’s entry into the capital on the 28th
of August[6], the Sweating Sickness[7], as the disease was called, began to
spread its ravages among the densely peopled streets of the city. Two lord
mayors and six aldermen died within one week[8], having scarcely laid aside

their festive robes; many who had been in perfect health at night, were on
the following morning numbered among the dead. The disease for the most
part marked for its victims robust and vigorous men; and as many noble
families lost their chiefs, extensive commercial houses their principals, and
wards their guardians, the festivities were soon converted into grief and
mourning. The coronation of the king, which was expected to overcome the
scruples that many entertained of his right to the throne, was of necessity
postponed in this general distress[9], and the disease, in the mean time,
spread without interruption and over the whole kingdom from east to
west[10].
It is agreed that the pestilence did not commence till the very beginning
of August, 1485, and was in obvious connexion with the circumstances of
the times. To return to their native country had long been the ardent desire
of the Earl of Richmond and his faithful followers. At the age of 15, (1471,)
having escaped the vengeance of the House of York, and the assassins of
Edward, he was overtaken by a storm, and fell into the hands of Francis II.,
Duke of Bretagne, who long detained him prisoner, but on the death of
Edward, in 1483, supplied him with means to enforce his claims to the
English throne, as the last descendant of the House of Lancaster. This first
undertaking miscarried. A storm drove back the bold adventurer to Dieppe,
and compelled him once more to throw himself, with his five hundred
English followers, on the hospitality of Duke Francis. Richard’s influence
with the Duke, however, rendered his stay there somewhat dangerous.
Richmond withdrew privately, and endeavoured to gain over to his cause
Charles VIII., who was yet a minor. A small subsidy of French troops, some
pieces of artillery, and an adequate supply of money, were finally granted to
his repeated solicitations. This little band was quickly augmented to 2000
men, who were all embarked, and on the 25th of July, 1485, they weighed
anchor at Havre, and seven days after, the standard of Richmond was raised
in Milford Haven[11].
They landed at the village of Dale, on the west side of the harbour, and
on the evening of their arrival, or very early on the following morning,
Richmond hastened to Haverfordwest, where no messenger had yet
announced the renewal of the civil war. It appears that he reached Cardigan,
on the northern shore, on the 3d of August, and for the first time granted to
his small but increasing army the repose of an encampment.

After a short halt, he set forward with confidence, crossed the Severn at
Shrewsbury[12], turned from thence to Newport and Stafford, and pitched
his camp at Litchfield, probably before the 18th of August[13]. The distance
to this place from Milford Haven is 170 miles, and the road leads over
wooded mountains and cultivated fields, without touching upon any
swampy lands. Litchfield, however, lies low, and it was here that the army
encamped in a damp situation, till it broke up for the neighbouring field of
Bosworth. Thither Richmond, with scarcely 5000 men, and having his right
wing covered by a morass, went to meet his deadly foe, whose army
doubled his own. The combat was at first furious, but in two hours Lord
Stanley crowned the conqueror with Richard’s diadem[14].
All these events so rapidly succeeded each other in the course of three
weeks, that the knights and soldiers of Richmond, more and more excited
every day by fear and hope, were scarcely equal to such exertions. Yet the
very rapidity of the movements of the army was the cause why the disease
could not spread so quickly, nor obstruct the final decision of Bosworth,
although the report of it had already, before this event, spread universal
terror; so that Lord Stanley, when authoritatively summoned by Richard to
repair to his standard, sought to gain time, and, by way of excuse, alleged
the prevalence of the new disease[15].
After the victory of Bosworth, King Henry remained two days in
Leicester, and then without further delay hastened to London, which he
reached in less than four days, unaccompanied by military parade, and
attended only by a select body of followers. The remainder of his army,
which stood greatly in need of repose after its severe toils, were not in a
condition for marching, they therefore halted in the neighbouring towns,
and were probably disbanded, according to the custom of the age[16].
The Sweating Sickness is said not to have made its appearance in London
till the 21st of September[17], but historians have most likely intended by
that day to mark the commencement of its virulence, which continued to the
end of the following month, and lasted, therefore, in all, about five weeks.
During this short period a large portion of the population[18] fell victims
to the new epidemic, and the lamentation was without bounds so long as the
people were ignorant that this fearful disease, unable to establish its
dominion, would only pass through the country like a flash of lightning, and

then again give place to the active intercourse of society and the cheering
hope of life.
There was no security against a second attack; for many who had
recovered were seized by it, with equal violence, a second, and sometimes a
third time, so that they had not even the slender consolation enjoyed by
sufferers in the plague[19] and small-pox, of entire immunity after having
once surmounted the danger[20].
Thus by the end of the year the disease had spread over the whole of
England, and visited every place with the same severity as the metropolis.
Many persons of rank, of the ecclesiastical and the civil classes, became its
victims; and great was the consternation when, in the month of August, it
broke out in Oxford. Professors and students fled in all directions: but death
overtook many of them, and this celebrated university was deserted for six
weeks[21]. Three months later it appeared at Croyland, and on the 14th of
November, carried off Lambert Fossedyke, abbot of the monastery[22]. No
authentic accounts from other quarters have been handed down to our
times, but we may infer, from the general grief and anxiety which prevailed,
that the loss of human life was very considerable.

Sect. 2.—The Physicians.
The physicians could do little or nothing for the people in this
extremity[23]. They are nowhere alluded to throughout this epidemic, and
even those who might have come forward to succour their fellow citizens,
had fallen into the errors of Galen, and their dialectic minds sank under this
appalling phenomenon. This holds good even of the famous Thomas
Linacre, subsequently physician in ordinary to two monarchs[24], and
founder of the College of Physicians, in 1518. In the prime of his youth he
had been an eye-witness of the events at Oxford, and survived even the
second and third eruption of the Sweating Sickness; but in none of his
writings do we find a single word respecting this disease, which is of such
permanent importance. In fact, the restorers of the medical science of
ancient Greece, who were followed by all the most enlightened men in
Europe, with the single exception of Linacre, occupied themselves rather
with the ancient terms of art than with actual observation, and in their
critical researches overlooked the important events that were passing before

their eyes[25]. This reminds us of the later Greek physicians, who for four
hundred years paid no attention to the small-pox, because they could find
no description of it in the immortal works of Galen[26].
No resource was therefore left to the terrified people of England but their
own good sense, and this led them to the adoption of a plan of treatment,
than which no physician in the world could have given them a better;
namely, not to resort to any violent medicines, but to apply moderate heat,
to abstain from food, taking only a small quantity of mild drink, and quietly
to wait for four-and-twenty hours the crisis of this formidable malady.
Those who were attacked during the day, in order to avoid any chill,
immediately went to bed in their clothes, and those who sickened by night
did not rise from their beds in the morning; while all carefully avoided
exposing to the air even a hand or foot. Thus they anxiously guarded against
heat or cold, so as not to excite perspiration by the former, nor to check it
by the latter—for they well knew that either was certain death[27].
The report of the infallibility of this method soon spread over the whole
kingdom, and thus towards the commencement of 1486, many were rescued
from death. On New Year’s Day, a violent tempest arose in the south-east,
and by purifying the atmosphere relieved the oppression under which the
people laboured, and thus, to the joy of the whole nation, the epidemic was
swept away without leaving a trace behind[28].

Sect. 3.—Causes.
It was thought remarkable, even at that time, that the Sweating Sickness
did not extend beyond the limits of England, and that, remaining the
unenviable property of that nation, it did not even spread to Scotland,
Ireland, or Calais which belonged to Britain. Much, doubtless, was owing to
the peculiarity of the climate, more still to atmospherical changes, and
something also to the habits of the people and the circumstances of the
times. It plainly appeared in the sequel that the English Sweating Sickness
was a spirit of the mist, which hovered amid the dark clouds. Even in
ordinary years, the atmosphere of England is loaded with these clouds
during considerable periods, and in damp seasons they would prove the
more injurious to health, as the English of those times were not accustomed
to cleanliness, moderation in their diet, or even comfortable refinements.

Gluttony was common among the nobility as well as among the lower
classes; all were immoderately addicted to drinking[29], and the manners of
the age sanctioned this excess at their banquets and their festivities. If we
consider that the disease mostly attacked strong and robust men—that
portion of the people who abandoned themselves without restraint to all the
pleasures of the table—while women, old men, and children, almost
entirely escaped, it is obvious that a gross indulgence of the appetite must
have had a considerable share in the production of this unparalleled plague.
To this may be added, the humidity of the year 1485, which is
represented by most chronicles as very remarkable[30]. Throughout the
whole of Europe the rain fell in torrents, and inundations were frequent.
Damp weather is not prejudicial to health if it be merely temporary, but if
the rain be excessive for a series of years, so that the ground is completely
saturated, and the mists attract baneful exhalations out of the earth, man
must necessarily suffer from the noxious state of the soil and atmosphere.
Under these circumstances epidemics must inevitably follow. The five
preceding years had been unusually wet[31], 1485 proved equally so; the last
hot and droughty summer was that of 1479[32]. Extensive inundations of the
Tiber, the Po, the Danube, the Rhine, and most of the other great rivers,
took place in 1480, and were attended with the usual consequences, the
deterioration of the air, misery and disease[33]. The greatest inundation ever
remembered in England was that of the Severn, in October, 1483. It was
long afterwards called the Duke of Buckingham’s Great Water[34], because
it frustrated the rebellion of this powerful subject against Richard III.,
whom he had been instrumental in placing upon the throne; and
consequently defeated also the first enterprise of Henry VII. It lasted full
ten days, and the tremendous ravages occasioned by the overwhelming
torrent dwelt long in the memory of the people.

Sect. 4.—Other Epidemics.
During the whole of this period the nations of Europe were visited with
various and destructive plagues. In 1477, the Bubo-plague broke out in
Italy, and raged without interruption till 1485[35]. It was accompanied by
striking natural phenomena, among which we may reckon an enormous
flight of locusts in 1478[36] and 1482, and remarkable inter-current diseases,

such as inflammatory pain in the side, throughout the whole of Italy in
1482[37]. In Switzerland and Southern Germany malignant epidemics[38]
appeared in the train of drought and famine in 1480 and 1481, while putrid
fever accompanied by phrenites[39], prevailed in Westphalia, Hesse and
Friesland. There had never been in the memory of the inhabitants of these
districts so many ignes fatui as during this period. There too the people
suffered from the failure of the harvest, so that it was necessary to obtain
supplies from Thuringen[40]. France, where, under the fearful reign of Louis
XI., oppression and misery seemed to mock the gifts of heaven, became in
1482, after a two years’ scarcity, the scene of a devastating plague. It was an
inflammatory fever with delirium, accompanied by such intense pain in the
head, that many dashed out their brains against the wall, or rushed into the
water; while others, after incessantly running to and fro, died in a state of
the greatest agony. According to the notion of the age, this disease was
attributed to astral influences, for it could not have been brought on only by
famine, which left to the poor peasantry, south of the Loire, nothing but the
roots of wild herbs to support their miserable existence[41], since the higher
classes were also frequently attacked[42]. This fever was without doubt
accompanied by inflammation of the meninges, or even of the brain itself,
and was, perhaps, identical with that which at the same period desolated the
north-west of Germany as far as the shores of the North Sea, only that it
was heightened by the greater natural vivacity and miserable situation of the
French people, who were kept in a state of perpetual dread by the cruel
executions of Louis[43]. This pestilence occasioned the king to follow the
advice of his morose physician[44] in ordinary, and to keep himself closely
confined within the town of Plessis des Tours. It was prohibited under a
heavy penalty to speak in his presence of death which was carrying off its
victims in all directions, and forty crossbowmen kept guard in the fosse of
the castle to put to death every living thing which might approach[45]. Two
years after, in 1484, virulent diseases[46] again visited Germany and
Switzerland; and thus it seemed as if the nations were everywhere
threatened with death and destruction.

Sect. 5.—Richmond’s Army.
From these data, which might easily be extended[47], it is evident that the
Sweating Sickness of 1485 did not make its appearance without great and

general premisory events, which for a series of years imparted to the people
of England a susceptibility to dangerous and unusual diseases. If, besides
this, we take into account the gloomy temperament of the English, and the
general depression of their spirits, in consequence of the sanguinary wars of
the red and white roses, a series of events which seems to have shaken their
faith in an overruling Providence, we may readily conceive that it would
require but a very slight impulse to excite a powerful commotion in the
mysterious mechanism of the human body. This impulse was evidently
given by the landing of Richmond’s army in the very year when great and
portentous evils were anticipated; for on the 16th of March, the same day
when Queen Ann, the unfortunate wife of Richard III., expired, a total
eclipse of the sun enveloped all Europe in darkness, and gave rise to
gloomy prognostications[48]. Even under ordinary circumstances, wars
beget pestilential disorders—how much more inevitably must these have
arisen in the then existing state of affairs! Richmond’s army consisted not of
brave men animated by zeal to avenge their dishonoured country or to serve
a good cause. It was composed of wandering freebooters, “vile
landskneckte,” as they were called in Germany, who assembled under his
banner at Havre,—sharpshooters formed under Louis XI., who recklessly
pillaged Normandy, and whom Charles VIII. gladly made over to Henry, in
order to free his own peaceful territories from so great a scourge[49]. This
army may not have been worse than others of the same period[50]; but
cooped up as they were for a whole week in dirty ships, they doubtless
carried about with them all the material for germinating the seeds of a
pestilential disorder, which broke out soon after on the banks of the Severn
and in the camp at Litchfield.

Sect. 6.—Nature of the Sweating Sickness.
PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION.

Before we proceed further, some account is here required of the nature of
this disease. It was an inflammatory rheumatic fever, with great disorder of
the nervous system. This assumption is supported by the manner of its
origin and its especial characteristic of being accompanied by a profuse and
injurious perspiration. From the judgment that we are now capable of
forming of the pernicious influences which prevailed in the year 1485, it
may, without hesitation, be admitted that the humidity of that and of the

preceding years affected the functions of the lungs and of the skin, and
disturbed the relation of this very important tissue to the internal organs of
life. This is the usual commencement of rheumatic fevers, which bear the
same relation to the Sweating Sickness as slight symptoms bear to severe
ones of the same kind. The predominance of affections of the brain and of
the nerves, however, gave to the English epidemic a peculiar character. The
functions of the eighth pair of nerves were violently disordered in this
disease, as was shewn by oppressed respiration and extreme anxiety with
nausea and vomiting, symptoms to which the moderns attach much
importance[51]. The stupor and profound lethargy shew that there was injury
of the brain, to which, in all probability, was added a stagnation of black
blood in the torpid veins. We must also take into the account a previous
corruption and decomposition of the blood, which, even if we should be
disinclined to infer their existence from the offensive perspiration of the
disease itself, were proved by striking phenomena of a similar nature that
occurred in Central Europe about the same time; for the scurvy prevailed as
an epidemic, more especially in Germany, in the year 1486, and with such
severe and unusual symptoms, that people were inclined to regard it as a
totally new malady[52]. Now such is the vital connexion of different
functions that every impediment to respiration, whether in consequence of
pressure from without, or through spasm and irritation of the nerves from
within, or even from a morbid condition of the circulating fluid, infallibly
calls forth the compensating activity of the skin, and the body becomes
suffused with an alleviating perspiration.
Thus it plainly appears that the profuse perspiration in the disease of
which we are treating, notwithstanding its apparently injurious tendency,
was the result of a commotion excited on the part of the lungs, which was
critical with respect to the disease itself; and this is in accordance with all
the causes of which we still have any knowledge. Noxious and even
stinking fogs penetrated into the organs of respiration, and as the blood was
thus so much affected in its composition and in its vitality that its corrupt
state was only to be obviated by profuse perspiration, the inevitable
consequence was an interference with the extensive functions of the eighth
pair of nerves, which interference, as later writers relate, extended in many
cases to the spinal marrow, and brought on violent convulsions[53]. We have
here only one essential cause, out of many, for this gigantic disease, and one

too which accounts for its advance and spread. It is highly probable, for the
reasons stated, and as according with all human experience, that it first
broke out in the army of Henry the VIIth, and beyond all doubt that it
spread from west to east, and afterwards in a retrograde course from east to
west. With the perfectly equable operation of the predisposing causes, from
which the disease ought indubitably to have broken out all over England at
the same time, had the condition of the atmosphere been its sole occasion,
we must additionally presume a special cause for its progress through towns
and villages. This, according to all appearance, was to be found in the air,
impregnated with foul odours, which surrounded the sick, and abounded in
the tents and dwellings in which Henry the VIIth’s soldiers, after various
privations and hard service, amid storms and rain, were closely crowded
together. Of both causes modern observation furnishes analogous examples.
Intermittent fevers spread more easily in air which is contaminated by sick
people, and bands of soldiers, themselves in perfect health, have not
unfrequently conveyed camp fever to remote places. It signifies very little
by what expressions of the schools these occurrences are designated; it is
best perhaps to abstain from them altogether, for they are all inadequate,
and occasion misconceptions. Contemporaries, however, were certainly
justified in not admitting the notion of contagion in the same sense as when
the term is applied to the plague, with which they were well acquainted[54].
For very frequently cases which were not to be explained on the principle of
contagion communicated by persons diseased, occurred among people of
rank, and manifestly arose independently of the usual causes. In these cases
the fear of death, which everywhere was the harbinger of the disease, and
threw the nerves of the chest into spasmodic commotion, gave an impulse
to the malady for which the quality of the atmosphere and luxury had long
made preparation. Had this view of contemporaries been even less impartial
than it really was, it would have found the most striking confirmation in the
sudden cessation of the pestilence throughout the whole country. For the
destructive spirits of air, which would not have been discerned even by the
proud naturalists of the nineteenth century, dispersed and vanished for half
an age in the fury of the tempest which raged on the 1st of January, 1486.

CHAPTER II.
THE SECOND VISITATION OF THE DISEASE.—1506.

“The times were rough and full of mutations and rare incidents.”—Bacon.

Sect. 1.—Mercenary Troops.
At the commencement of the sixteenth century, society was very differently
constituted from what it was at the period when Henry the VIIth unfurled
his banner for victory. The darkness of the middle ages had receded, as at
the approach of a sun still hidden behind a cloud. The mind unconsciously
expanded in the unwonted light of day—the whole earth was on the eve of
renovation—new energies were to be called into action—events more
stupendous had never occurred, nor had more creative ideas ever aroused
the spirit of man. The invention of Gutenberg burst through the bonds of
mental darkness, and gave to freedom of thought imperishable wings;
unsuspected powers successively developed themselves; and, while in
Western Europe an ardent desire arose boldly to overstep the ancient limits
of human activity, the hopes of the more enlightened fell far short of the
actual result of such unexpected events. The discovery of the New World,
and the circumnavigation of Africa, laid the foundation for great
improvements; yet the events in Central Europe, though less striking to
contemporaries, were in their consequences, infinitely more important and
beneficial. The establishment of civil order among all the nations of the
West took place at this period, which forms so important a boundary
between the middle ages and modern times. Regal power was fixed on a
firm basis, and when the castles had fallen before the artillery of the princes
and imperial cities, so that the petty feudal barons were compelled to swear
obedience to the laws, an end was put to the incessant predatory feuds
which had so long desolated Europe, and the establishment of internal
peace was followed by the security of life and property—the first essential
of refinement in manners and of the free development of human society.

This great result of a concatenation of circumstances was not, however,
brought about without violent struggles and innovations, the effects of
which were felt for centuries; but it was probably the establishment of
standing armies which had the greatest influence on European civilization.
They became indeed the pillars of civil order, but having proceeded
immediately from the pernicious mercenary system, they long nourished the
seeds of unrestrained depravity, and transmitted to later generations the
corruptions of the middle ages. The Lansquenets[55] (Landsknechte) of the
emperor, and the mercenaries of the kings of France and England, who,
during the war, had joined the smaller branches of the standing army, were
homeless adventurers from every country in Europe, and were allured, not
by military ambition, but solely by the prospect of booty[56]. In whatever
country the drum beat to arms, they flocked together like swarms of locusts
—no one knew from whence—and defying the feeble restraints of military
discipline, indulged, during the continuance of the war, in all the unbridled
licence of a predatory life.
Hence the unbounded barbarity of their mode of warfare, which was
restrained only by the individual exertions of more humane commanders.
There was, however, a decided contrariety between this system and the
moral condition of the people of Western Europe: a contrariety which was
never entirely removed by the subsequent introduction of a more strict
military discipline, and which has been done away only in modern times, by
the establishment of regular armies on a system more congenial to the
feelings of the people. Hence the consequences were the more pernicious,
for when the armies were disbanded on the conclusion of peace, the
Landsknechts dispersed in all directions, not to follow the plough again, or
to resume their former occupations, but to pass their time in idleness and
dissipation, if enriched by booty, and if reduced to poverty by intemperance
and gambling, to infest the country as mendicants or robbers, till a new war
again summoned them from their dishonourable mode of life[57]. Probably
but very few were ever able to rise from such deep degradation, and many
fell early victims to their vices[58], while the infection of their example
brought fresh accessions from every town and village to the mercenary
legions.

Sect. 2.—New Circumstances.

It is evident that in such a condition of affairs, the effect which the plague
produced on civil society must have been different from that of former
times. Pernicious influences which, during the middle ages, had endangered
the health of the inhabitants of towns, and had often rendered disorders,
naturally slight, in the highest degree malignant, were for ever removed.
Under this head may be mentioned more particularly the ill-contrived
construction of the houses and streets, which even yet, in large cities,
destroys the comfort of the inhabitants of whole districts, and those not of
the poorest class only. As people acquired confidence in the security of
peace, it ceased to be necessary to protect every country town by
fortifications. The walls were thrown down, the stagnant moats were filled
up, and as people were no longer limited to a narrow space, they built more
convenient houses in airy streets; the dark alleys and damp dwellings under
ground were gradually abandoned, and a more comfortable mode of living
superseded the former misery. By this means the mortality was considerably
diminished, and the power of epidemics was checked; nor can it be
doubted, that the better administration of the laws greatly obviated the
dissolution of social ties in times of plague, and the effects of superstition
and religious animosity, which had formerly been so frightful. These
inestimable national improvements, however, took place but gradually, and
were not a little retarded for a time by the new evil of the employment of
mercenaries. For as the germs of vice were scattered in all directions by the
wandering Lansquenets, so also the infection of noxious diseases found
easier entrance into the towns and villages through the medium of this
dissolute and widely spread class of men. The Lansquenets of the sixteenth
century, as spreaders of contagion, supplied the place of the former Romish
pilgrims and flagellants; they even proved a more permanent scourge than
those wanderers of the middle ages, who only made their appearance on
extraordinary occasions. We need here only call to mind the malignant and
beyond measure noisome lues which at the end of the fifteenth century
spread with the rapidity of lightning over all Europe. It was not an
importation from the innocent inhabitants of the New World, nor was it bred
by the ill-treated Marrani[59], the victims of the Spanish Inquisition. It was
the mercenary army of Charles the VIIIth in Naples (1495), whose excesses
gave to the already existing poison a malignity till then unknown, and
prepared for the deeply rooted depravity, a scourge at which all the world
shuddered with horror. It is, moreover, in place here to observe that, in the

larger armies which the new military system now brought into the field, the
ordinary camp diseases, to which another very fatal one was added[60], were
of course much more extensively propagated than in the less numerous
forces of preceding centuries, and consequently that the peaceful
inhabitants of the towns and of the country at large were thereby exposed to
much danger.

Sect. 3.—Sweating Sickness.
Meantime Europe was frequently and very severely visited by the
epidemics of the middle ages, the terrors of the constantly recurring plague
being borne with gloomy resignation to the inevitable evil with which, as a
merited chastisement, the anger of God, according to the notion of the
times, afflicted the human race. Even the English were not exempt from this
fearful visitation, which, in the year 1499, carried off 30,000 people in
London alone, so that the king found it advisable to retire with all his court
to Calais[61]. Thus the recollection of the Sweating Sickness of 1485 was
gradually obliterated. No one thought of its possible return, and all the
world was occupied with other matters, when the old enemy unexpectedly
again raised his head in the summer of 1506, and scared away this
comfortable state of false security. The renewed eruption of the epidemic
was not, on this occasion, connected with any important occurrence, so that
contemporaries have not even mentioned the month in which it began to
rage. Towards the autumn it had again disappeared, and as no new
symptoms were added to the disease, the form of which was identified by a
reference to the old descriptions, it was immediately treated by the same
means, the efficacy of which those who had witnessed the epidemic of 1485
lauded with so much reason[62]. Every exposure to heat or cold was, as at
that time, avoided, and the malignant fever was left to the curative powers
of nature, the patient being kept moderately warm in bed; and no powerful
medicines being administered. The result was beyond all expectation
favourable, for in few houses did any fatal cases occur. The victory over
this dreaded enemy was now, by a pardonable error, attributed more to
human skill than to the mildness of the malady on this occasion, which,
even under a less judicious treatment of the sick, would certainly not have
been marked by any considerable degree of severity.

The disease broke out in London, but whether it penetrated to the west or
not, contemporary writers, being soon convinced of its slight character,
have left us no intelligence. However widely it may have spread, it certainly
was confined to England, and nowhere occasioned any great mortality.

Sect. 4.—Accompanying Phenomena.
As the epidemic was on this occasion so very mild, it was not
accompanied by any remarkable phenomena in England, but the case was
otherwise in the rest of Europe, as will be proved by the following details.
After a wet summer, in the year 1505, a severe winter set in[63]. Comets
were seen in this as in the following year. An eruption of Vesuvius also took
place in 1506[64], which may be mentioned, although it is well established
that volcanic commotions are to be taken into account only in great
pestilences, not in less extensive epidemics. In England there blew a violent
storm from the south-west, from the 15th till the 26th of January, 1506,
which drove the king of Castille, Philip of Austria, with his consort
Johanna, from the Netherlands to Weymouth; and as, some days before, a
golden eagle falling from St. Paul’s church, in London, had crushed a black
eagle which ornamented some lower building, evil predictions were
promulgated among the people respecting the fate of this son of the
emperor[65]. This event, however, could not be considered as at all
connected with the pestilence which broke out about half a year afterwards.
More consideration is due to the gloom and anxiety which at that time
depressed the spirit of the English nation. The reckless avarice of Henry the
VIIth, named the English Solomon[66], gave just ground for doubts
regarding the security of property; and the pious foundations—those
accustomed means of softening the dreaded wrath of heaven, which the
king, who became gradually more and more broken down by disease,
established, could not efface the recollection of the arbitrary violence and
extortions of his corrupt servants[67]. Although these extortions principally
affected the wealthy nobility, who were much in need of restraint, yet dark
mistrust was general, and all cheerfulness was banished from the minds of
the people. This state of feeling might have been favourable to the
propagation of the returning disease, but the genius of the year 1506 would
not suffer it to be more than a slight and transient reminiscence of a

mystically hidden danger, the import of which was not apparent to any
medical inquirer of the 16th century.

Sect. 5.—Petechial Fever in Italy, 1505.
Thus, if we paid attention, as usual, only to the palpable occurrences
which take place on the earth and beneath its surface, the Sweating Sickness
of the above-mentioned year might appear to be unconnected with more
considerable commotions of organic life. The powers of nature, however,
are in their operations too subtle to be comprehended by our dull senses and
by the coarse mechanism of our organs; nay, precisely at a time when
neither the one nor the other indicate any alteration around us, those
operations bring to light the most extraordinary phenomena in the human
frame—that most sensitive index of secret influences on life. This
observation was fully confirmed at the time of the first return of the
sweating fever. For whilst this disease remained confined to England, there
appeared in the southern and central parts of Europe a new and fatal
epidemic, which thenceforth visited these nations almost continually with
intense malignity. This was the petechial fever, a disease unknown to the
older physicians, which was first observed in 1490, in Granada, where it
threatened to annihilate the army of Ferdinand the Catholic, and made great
havoc also among the Saracens[68]. The bubo plague had immediately
preceded it, (1483, 1485, 1486, 1488, 1489, and 1490[69],) and it may with
no small probability be assumed that the petechial fever had resulted from
this as a peculiar variety, since in other countries also, fifteen years later, the
bubo plague degenerated in various ways, and examples are not wanting in
which particular forms or constituent parts of great epidemics thus branch
off from them, in the same manner as, under favourable circumstances,
these will combine together, and united into one destructive whole, multiply
the sources of danger.
Yet some contemporaries were of opinion that the petechial fever had
been brought over to Granada[70] by Venetian mercenaries from Cyprus,
where they had fought against the Turks, and where this disorder was said
to have been indigenous. Notwithstanding some good works[71] already
existing, this matter has need of a more thorough examination, which might
bring to light important and instructive results, respecting the rise and
spread of the petechial fever, and especially respecting its relation to other

plagues. Whatever may be held with regard to the true origin of this fever,
thus much is established, that it was at first an independent European
disease, and that, at the commencement, having occupied the southern part
of this quarter of the world, it then became connected, in a manner as
extraordinary as it was worthy of observation, with the sweating sickness of
the north; since the nearly simultaneous eruption of the sweating fever in
England, with the great epidemic petechial fever in the year 1505, may be
justly attributed to an influence common to both, although unquestionably
of greater power in the latter.
The epidemic petechial fever, of which we are now treating, prevailed
principally in Italy, and is described by Fracastoro as the first plague of this
kind which ever appeared in that country. Of this new disease[72], which
was placed by this great physician midway between the bubo plague and
the non-pestilential fever, the contagious quality showed itself from the
beginning; yet it was plainly perceived, that the contagion did not take
effect so quickly as in the bubo plague, that it was not conveyed so easily
by means of clothing and other articles, and that physicians and attendants
on the sick were the only persons who incurred much danger of infection.
The fever began insidiously, and with very slight symptoms, so that the sick
in general did not so much as seek medical aid. Many persons, and even
physicians among the number, suffered themselves to be deceived by this
circumstance, and thus, not being aware of the danger, they hoped to effect
an easy cure, and were not a little astonished at the sudden development of
malignant phenomena. The heat was inconsiderable, in proportion to the
fever, yet those affected felt a certain inward indisposition, a general
depression of all the vital powers, and a weariness as if after great exertion.
They lay upon their backs with an oppressed brain, their senses were
blunted, and in most cases delirium and gloomy muttering, with bloodshot
eyes, commenced from the fourth to the seventh day. The urine was usually
clear and copious at the beginning, it then became red and turbid, or
resembling pomegranate wine, (granatwein,) the pulse was slow and small,
the evacuations putrid and offensive, and either on the fourth or seventh day
red or purple spots, like flea-bites, or larger, or resembling lentils,
(lenticulæ,) which also gave a name to the disorder, broke out on the arms,
the back, and the breast. There was either no thirst at all, or very little; the
tongue was loaded, and in many cases a lethargic state came on. Others, on
the contrary, suffered from sleeplessness, or from both these symptoms

alternately. The disease reached its height on the seventh or on the
fourteenth day, and in some cases still later. In many there existed a
retention of urine with very unfavourable prognosis. Women seldom died of
this fever, elderly people still more rarely, and Jews scarcely ever. Young
people, on the other hand, and children died in great numbers, and
especially from among the higher ranks, while the plague, on the contrary,
used generally to commit its ravages only among the poorer classes. An
inordinate loss of power in the commencement betokened death, as also a
too violent effect from mild aperient means, and a failure in alleviation after
a complete crisis. Patients were seen to die who had lost to the extent of
three pounds of blood from the nose. It was also a very bad sign when the
spots disappeared, or broke out tardily, or were of a blackish-blue colour.
Phenomena of an opposite character, on the contrary, afforded hope of
recovery.
The best physicians were agreed on the importance of the petechiæ as an
indication of the nature of the crisis; for those cases in which they were
abundant and of a good quality were cured much more easily than those in
which the eruption was suppressed. An abundant perspiration also was
particularly conducive to recovery, whereas all other evacuations, especially
a flux from the bowels, proved to be injurious and even fatal.
If we keep these phenomena in view, and consider, moreover, that in the
widely extending lues venerea of those times cutaneous eruptions
predominated over the other symptoms, the English sweating sickness in
the north of Europe will appear, as in connexion with this circumstance, of a
very important character; and the supposition, that the morbid activity of
the system during the whole of this age, maintained a decided determination
to the skin, may thence be fairly considered as something more than a mere
conjecture.
This fact speaks for itself, but the causes of this altered temperament of
the body it is not an easy matter to discover. Fracastoro, who knew much
better than his modern followers how to manage his sagacious doctrine of
contagion, looked for these causes in the quality of the air, which was
manifest by much more evident phenomena in the epidemic petechial fever
of 1528 than in that of 1505, and he traced an active connexion between this
quality, which he called “infection of the atmosphere,”[73] and the condition
of the blood; thus indicating unknown influences by an obscure notion. He

considered the altered quality of the blood according to the established
views of that period, which the petechial spotted fever seemed clearly to
confirm, as a putrefaction; and he even assumed that, in the non-epidemic
petechial fevers, which, from the year 1505 forward, frequently occurred,
isolated causes must have given rise to changes in the blood, as well as that
quality of the air, to which this great physician attributed the general and
continued alterations which take place in the nature of diseases.
The petechial fever made the same impression on the physicians of Italy
as new disorders have ever made; for although they were the best in
Europe, their view was bounded by the horizon of Galen, within the limits
of which the novel phenomenon was not to be found. They were therefore
soon perplexed, and whilst they sought to entrammel the dreaded enemy
with scholastic doctrines of repletion and acrimony and occult qualities, and
betook themselves first to one remedy and then to another, they exposed
themselves to the derision of the people, who soon perceived their
disagreement and indecision, and, as usual, charged on the whole medical
profession the well merited blame of individuals[74].

Sect. 6.—Other Diseases.
About the same period, in October, 1505, a very fatal disease broke out in
Lisbon, the further progress of which was marked by the terror, the flight,
and the confusion of the inhabitants[75]. Of what kind it was, whether a
petechial fever or a bubo plague, and what connexion it had with a
pestilence in Spain which had just preceded it, it would perhaps be difficult
now to ascertain. This latter pestilence had spread from Seville, following
an earthquake, and violent storms of wind and rain in 1504, and may very
likely have been a bubo plague. Similar notices are met with of pestilences
occurring in that country in 1506, the year of the English Sweating
Sickness, in 1507 and 1508, in which years mention is made of swarms of
locusts in the neighbourhood of Seville, and finally in 1510, the year of a
great influenza[76], and 1515. Exact descriptions, however, of these
disorders are entirely wanting[77].
With all the above phenomena, the epidemics which took place in
Germany and France at the commencement of the sixteenth century,
evidently unite to form a connected whole. Varying in intensity and extent,

they continued without intermission for full five years, and moreover were
accompanied by unusual circumstances, such as occur only in the time of
great pestilences. The century was ushered in by the appearance of a
comet[78], which, on this occasion, seemed to confirm the long cherished
belief that the appearance of these heavenly bodies was prognostic of evil.
For mankind are in the habit of concluding that phenomena which are
simultaneous must have some internal connexion, and many examples were
called to mind in which great pestilences affecting the whole world had
been either preceded or accompanied by comets[79]. Immediately afterwards
a great murrain among cattle took place, which may have proceeded from
some injurious quality in their food. A notion immediately arose that the
pastures were poisoned, and of this there was so firm a conviction, that the
most violent resentment, as of old, in the time of the Black Death, prevailed
against the supposed poisoners, and in the neighbourhood of Meissen some
“böse Buben” (wicked knaves) who had fallen under suspicion, were
actually executed[80].
A very considerable blight of caterpillars which, in the north of Germany,
stripped the gardens and woods far and wide of their foliage, deserves to be
here mentioned as a phenomenon appertaining to the lower grades of the
animal kingdom[81]. Natural history has shewn that occurrences of this kind
are by no means occasioned by new and wonderful influences, but rather by
unusual combinations of circumstances, appearing to occur together almost
accidentally, at a given time; especially by the simultaneous union of
warmth and humidity in the atmosphere, whereby sometimes one and
sometimes another of the lower grades of animal existences becomes
extraordinarily developed. It is on this account that unusual phenomena in
the insect world, whether it be the appearance or the disappearance of
particular kinds, take place much more frequently when the order of
succession in the seasons and the condition of the atmosphere are in a
greater degree than usual and more permanently disturbed; and thus those
phenomena have, with much reason, ever been considered as forerunners of
pestilences, whenever the human frame has become, through atmospherical
causes, generally susceptible of disease. Swarms of locusts have appeared
before and during most great pestilences, and indeed the exuberant
production of this insect appears, at least in Europe, to require the most
unusual combination of causes.

Sect. 7.—Blood Spots.
Of rarer occurrence, but quite as important in reference to the general
tendencies of life, are the luxuriant growths of the minutest cryptogamic
plants in the water, and on damp things of all kinds, which, from their spots
of various forms and colours, produced the utmost horror both before and
during great pestilences, and excited superstitious fears, as appearing to be
something miraculous. These spots (signacula), and especially the blood-
spots, were seen at a very early period, as for instance during the great
general plague in the sixth century[82], and again, during the plague of the
years 786[83] and 959, when it is said to have been remarked, that those on
whose clothes they frequently appeared, and seemingly imparted to them a
peculiar odour, were more susceptible than other people of attack from
leprosy, on which account this spotted appearance was inconsiderately
called the clothes leprosy[84], (Lepra vestium;) not to mention other
examples[85] in which plagues affecting the human species did not take
place. The same signs also, in the years from 1500 to 1503, threw the
faithful into great consternation, because, as on former occasions, they
fancied they recognised in them the form of the cross[86]. The phenomenon
on this occasion spread throughout Germany and France, and from its great
extent and long duration, may be reckoned among the most remarkable of
the kind. The spots were of different colours, principally red, but also white,
yellow, grey, and black, and arose, often in a very short time on the roofs of
houses, on clothes, on the veils and neck handkerchiefs of women, on
various household utensils, on the meat in larders, &c. A historian, who
speaks also of blood-rain[87], recounts that they could not be got rid of in
less than ten or twelve days, and that they frequently occurred in closed
chests, on linen and on articles of clothing[88]. Much information is not to
be expected from the researches of the naturalists of those times, but there
is no doubt that what is described was some one or more kinds of mould[89],
inasmuch as the whole phenomenon evidently corresponds with modern
observations[90]. Scientific physicians of the sixteenth century, among
whom the naturalist George Agricola, who was born in 1494, and died in
1555, ought especially to be mentioned, recognised, even then, these spots
as lichens, and without seeking to account for them by supernatural
agencies, or lending credence to popular superstition, they gave them their

just interpretation as indications of extensive disease[91]. Should the too
bold notion of Nees v. Esenbeck, that fungi of the most minute forms have
their origin in the higher regions of the firmament, and descending to the
surface of the earth, produce spots and stains, be confirmed, which is not
yet the case, these “signacula” would have a much more important
connexion with epidemics than can be otherwise conceded to them; for
though it be highly probable that they have their origin only in the
dissemination of germs in the lower strata of the atmosphere, it must yet be
granted, that if they appear over a considerable space, and during a long
time, as at the commencement of the sixteenth century, the causes favouring
their generation and spread, must be ranked among those of an
extraordinary kind, and on this very account may exercise an influence over
human organism, as was then evident.
For so early as the fruitful year 1503, the plague, which had already
appeared partially, made great advances, and France in particular was
visited by so fatal a pestilence, that the inhabitants of towns and villages, in
order to escape the infection, fled in bodies to the woods, and even the
house-dogs became wild, which never happens, unless a country be
extensively depopulated[92]. They were obliged to establish great hunts, in
order to free the country from these new beasts of prey, and from wolves
which appeared in great multitudes[93]. The dry and continued heat of the
following year, 1504, having given rise to still more extensive sickness, and
caused a failure in the crops, the bubo plague raged in Germany with such
violence, that in some places a third part, and in others as many as half the
inhabitants perished. Various kinds of fevers accompanied this
overwhelming disease, among which there was one distinguished by
headache and phrensy similar to that which appeared in France, in 1482[94].
Various putrid fevers and putrid inflammations of the lungs with bloody
expectoration, are also no less plainly discernible from the accounts[95].
This diversified and general sickness throughout the whole of Germany,
terminated in the cold winter of 1504–5 and the following summer, during
which there was a continued murrain among cattle. It is certain, that at that
time the petechial fever in Italy, had not yet passed the Alps.
From all these facts it is a probable conjecture, that the Sweating
Sickness which visited England in the year 1506, although accompanied in
that country itself by no prominent circumstances, was not without

connexion with the morbid commotion of human and animal life in the
south and middle of Europe, and may perhaps be regarded as having been
the last feeble effort of mysterious agencies in the domain of organized
being.

CHAPTER III.
THE THIRD VISITATION OF THE DISEASE.—1517.

“This learned Lord, this Lord of wit and art,
This metaphysick Lord, holds forth a Glasse,
Through which we may behold in every part
This boisterous prince.”—Howell[96].

Sect. 1.—Poverty.
The ordinances of Henry the VIIth, which, although adapted to the times,
bore hard upon the people, soon produced their fruits. The great diminished
the number of their servants, and as, moreover, many of the peasantry were
thrown out of employment in consequence of a conversion of large tracts of
arable land into pasture[97], the population of towns increased even to an
overflow, and the consequent activity of trade gradually rendered the towns
flourishing. But this change took place too rapidly. Wealth and luxury
engendered, it is true, numerous wants which were a source of gain, so that
the English were at this time considered luxurious and effeminate[98], but
there was a general scarcity of workmen and artists, and hence it happened,
that from Genoa, Lombardy, France, Germany and Holland, innumerable
foreigners immigrated and took possession of the most lucrative branches
of employment. This was a peculiar hardship on the natives, who from their
imperfect knowledge of the arts, could not compete with the more skilful
foreigners, and were besides treated by them with insolence and contempt.
The distresses of the poor thus increased yearly, and their indignation at
length broke out. A great insurrection of the English artisans arose
throughout London, and might have proved destructive to the foreigners,
had affairs been in a less orderly state. The popular commotion was,
however, suppressed without any considerable sacrifice, and Henry the
VIIIth on a solemn day, appointed at Westminster, for passing judgment
upon the prisoners, bestowed a pardon on them; for he saw into the causes
of their discontent, and very soon after caused restrictive alien laws to be
enacted[99].