four hundred thousand Neapolitans were destroyed by this infection; so that we must at any rate believe it to have been very violent. In the plague of London in 1665, immense numbers perished; and particular accounts were published of this calamity; of which an abridgment is given in the Appendix to this work, No. III. Since that time it has not been known in Britain; but other parts of Europe have not been equally fortunate. In the beginning of the eighteenth century it appeared in several parts of the continent; particularly in Copenhagen in the year 1711; where it committed great ravages, as it had done at Dantzic two years before; but in 1720 it appeared at Marseilles in France, where it raged with such fury as to destroy sixty out of the hundred thousand supposed to be the whole population of the place.[24] Since that time France hath been free from the distemper; but in Sicily, the dominions of the Ottoman Porte, and places adjacent, it hath been felt very severely. In 1743 it was supposed to have destroyed two thirds of the inhabitants of Messina. A particular account of its ravages was read before the Royal Society of London by Dr. Mead. The following is taken from Dr. Lobb’s Treatise on the Plague. “From the beginning of June to the end of July, of forty thousand inhabitants, two thirds perished. The disorders in the city were incredible. All the bakers died, and no bread was baked for many days. The streets were full of dead bodies; at one time from twelve to fifteen thousand remaining in the open air: men, women and children, rich and poor, all together dragged to the church doors. The vaults being full, and the living not sufficient to carry the dead out of the city, they were obliged to put them on funeral piles, and burn them promiscuously. Nothing was more shocking than to see people, far above the common stations, go about begging for a loaf of bread, when they could hardly walk, with their tumours upon them; and few were in a state to help them. All these calamities did not hinder the most execrable villanies, which were committed every moment; and, though so few survived, the governor was obliged to make several public examples.” [23] Journal of the Plague Year. [24] See Appendix, No. IV.