This year, 1436, the seasons were inclement and rainy, and there was a dearth of corn in various parts of Europe. Epidemic coughs, small pox, and fevers swept away many thousands from the face of the earth. The moisture which existed during the preceding year in Spain, was excessive; it did not cease raining and snowing in Castile from the 29th of October, 1434, to the 7th of January in the following year, 1435. Four years after, 1439, the city Huesca, in the kingdom of Aragon, suffered from such a cruel pestilence, that, following the credulity of the times, Alonso de Burgos says in his Treatise on Plague, “that the disease in Huesca only yielded to a solemn and general vow which the city made, to celebrate a feast on the day of the Conception of the Virgin, and to observe its vigil with an absolute fast.” A.D. 1438, there was a famine in England. During a storm on the 25th of November a heavy gust of wind blew off the leads of the Grey Friars Church, in London, and almost beat down the whole side of a street called the Old Exchange. A.D. 1441. During this year, brother Diego de Herrera complained of an itching, or leprosy, all over his body: the physicians declared the disease to be communicable, and obliged him to live outside the monastery of Mejorada--a fact showing that this disease had existed previously in Spain, and that the physicians were acquainted with its characters. These observations are to be found in the life of the illustrious Senhor Don Diego de Anaya, Archbishop of Granada. A.D. 1443, there was a severe frost in England from the 14th of November until the 10th of February in the following year. A thunder-storm with severe lightning did much damage to St. Paul’s Church and to that of Waltham Cross; they were fired by the lightning on Candlemas day. From about this period until 1450, famine and pestilence were destructive to millions of the human race, especially in Italy, Gaul, Germany, Asia, and Spain. About the same date, King Don Alonso of Aragon, surnamed the Wise, conquered the kingdom of Naples. The great obstacles which presented themselves before accomplishing the subjugation of the provinces of Abruzzo, coupled with the sufferings caused by a protracted and desperate war, subjected the numerous cavalry employed in the service to attacks of disease. Great numbers of their horses died from a particular kind of epizootic. This great mortality caused the king to order his major domo, one Manuel Diaz, to call together all the veterinary surgeons of his cavalry and the surgeons of the infantry, in order that they should compose a work on farriery--thus giving rise to the renewal of that most useful art, as noted in the Spanish Hippiatria, or Veterinary of Spain. A.D. 1446, the sea broke down the dykes at Dort, in Holland, on the 17th of April, and drowned 100,000 persons.