A History of Epidemic Pestilences: From the Earliest Ages, 1495 Years Before the Birth of our Saviour to 1848: With Researches into Their Nature, Causes, and Prophylaxis — John Shaqi
A History of Epidemic Pestilences: From the Earliest Ages, 1495 Years Before the Birth of our Saviour to 1848: With Researches into Their Nature, Causes, and ProphylaxisBascome, Edward
History
A History of Epidemic Pestilences: From the Earliest Ages, 1495 Years Before the Birth of our Saviour to 1848: With Researches into Their Nature, Causes, and Prophylaxis
Bascome, Edward
Epidemics -- History
In the years 1087–88 and 1089, very rainy, cold summers and extreme
winters were experienced in England, Gaul, and Germany, when pestilence
and famine did much mischief in those countries. There were also famine
and epidemic disease in Italy. In the latter year, 1089, erysipelas
prevailed epidemically in France, causing great mortality. A.D. 1090,
a terrible earthquake was felt throughout England, which was followed
by a great scarcity of fruit and a late, unproductive harvest. The year
following, a severe storm was felt in several parts of England; the
wind was at south-west, especially at Winchelscomb, Gloucestershire,
where the steeple of the church was thrown down; there was much thunder
and lightning; the crucifix with the image of the Virgin was broken
in pieces. On the 5th of October, during the storm a thick mist for
several hours darkened the sky. A few days after, on the 17th, a
thunder-storm from the south-west destroyed upwards of 500 houses in
London: it unroofed Bow church; and at Old Sarum the steeple was struck
down, with many dwelling-houses.
A.D. 1093, a tremendous inundation occurred in Syria, by
which prodigious numbers of the inhabitants and cattle, such as oxen
and horses, were destroyed. A.D. 1096–97, 1100, 1103–4, and
1105, pestilence and famine happened from unhealthy seasons; there
occurred excessive rains, terrible inundations, severe winters,
inclement summers, variable autumns, multitudes of worms (papiliones),
and violent hurricanes in England, Palestine, and Holland, in which
latter place 100,000 persons were drowned by the inroads of the sea. It
was during this period, A.D. 1100, that the lands of Godwin,
earl of Kent, to this day called the ‘Goodwin Sands,’ were inundated.
1104, a comet was seen. The disease which prevailed in England was
an erysipelatous epidemic fever, in which the limbs of the sick were
discovered to be thickly beset with black and livid spots, like
carbuncles in the plague. Two years after, fevers, fluxes, &c., were
rife, and pestilence continued to prevail in various parts of Europe
in the years 1108–9, 1110–11. There appeared a comet in the years
1107 and 1110. A.D. 1113, the water of the Medway failed so
greatly, that the smallest boats could not float in its channel. The
Thames about the same period was so low between the Tower and London
Bridge that women and children waded over. Owing to so great an ebb of
the ocean, the sands were laid bare for a whole day for several miles
from the shore: pestilence ravaged Judea. A.D. 1116, severe
earthquakes were experienced in the month of December in various parts
of England, especially in Shropshire. Two years previously, 1114,
several bridges, being built of wood, were broken down in England by
the ice, when it thawed after the severe frost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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