A.D. 1482, France, under the fearful reign of Louis XI., after two years of scarcity, became the scene of a devastating plague: it raged in the form of an inflammatory fever, with delirium, accompanied by such intense cephalalgia, that many are reported to have dashed out their brains against the walls of their houses, or to have rushed into the water. A.D. 1483, there was so great an inundation in Gloucestershire, that all the country round about was overflowed, and many persons were drowned in their beds. The waters did not abate for ten days,--thus preventing the Duke of Buckingham from passing the river into Wales to join the Welsh, who had risen against King Richard III., and consequently being indirectly the cause of the duke’s misfortunes and of his violent death. Barcelona was again visited by a pestilence, which lasted upwards of a year. The river Severn in England overflowed; epidemic pestilence was the consequence. During the following years, 1484–85, it extended all over England, having first broken out at Shrewsbury, where, according to the testimony of Dr. Caius, who resided in that town, 960 died in a few days. Some authorities have spoken of this pestilence as having occurred under circumstances extremely favourable to the generation of a malignant disease, for it is said to have first appeared in the army of the Earl of Richmond, afterwards King Henry VII., upon his landing at Milford Haven in 1485. This army consisted of foreign troops, brought over in crowded transport-vessels. They were described by a contemporary historian, Philip de Comines, as the most wretched soldiery he ever beheld, collected, it is probable, from jails and hospitals, and buried in filth. The disease soon spread to London, where it raged from the beginning of August to the end of October, having assumed a particular type: it was termed ‘sudor Anglicus,’ or sweating sickness, and proved to be a mortal epidemic. It also prevailed in Ireland. The symptoms were those of a violent inflammatory fever, which, after a short time, caused great prostration of strength. There were also present, oppression at the stomach, and violent headache, accompanied by lethargic stupor, and the body was covered with a profuse fœtid perspiration. The progress of this singular malady was very rapid, a crisis always taking place within the space of a day and a night. The internal heat from which the patient suffered was intolerable, yet every thing cold, or even cool, was certain death. Two lord mayors and six aldermen died in one week. The disease attacked the most robust and strong, and spread without interruption over the entire kingdom, from east to west. In a very short period vast numbers of the population fell victims to this strange epidemic. Many of those who recovered from the first attack were seized a second, and some even a third time. Persons of rank, of the ecclesiastical and civil classes, were not