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A Treatise on the Plague and Yellow Fever: With an Appendix, containing histories of the plague at Athens in the time of the Peloponnesian War; at Constantinople in the time of Justinian; at London in 1665; at Marseilles in 1720Tytler, James

History

A Treatise on the Plague and Yellow Fever: With an Appendix, containing histories of the plague at Athens in the time of the Peloponnesian War; at Constantinople in the time of Justinian; at London in 1665; at Marseilles in 1720

Name: A Treatise on the Plague and Yellow Fever: With an Appendix, containing histories of the plague at Athens in the time of the Peloponnesian War; at Constantinople in the time of Justinian; at London in 1665; at Marseilles in 1720
Author: Tytler, James

Tytler, James

Plague -- Early works to 1800; Yellow fever -- Early works to 1800

From this long and contested account of the manner in which the plague
was received into Marseilles, we see how very difficult it must be to
come at a true state of facts, when a number of people think it their
interest to misrepresent or conceal them. The limits of this treatise
will not allow us to follow our author through the numerous details
of misrepresentations and unfair methods which the adversaries of the
doctrine of contagion have made use of to establish their opinion:
neither shall we enter into any discussion concerning the origin of
other plagues, as we should in them find the same opposite kinds of
evidence without such documents for distinguishing the true from the
false as Dr. Russel has produced in the case of Marseilles. A single
fact only, mentioned by Mr. Howard in his Treatise on Lazarettos, shall
be related, and which, if allowed to be _fact_, decides the question as
effectually as a thousand.

“When the plague raged at London in 1665, it was conveyed to the
remote village of Eyam near Tideswell in Derbyshire. In this place it
broke out in September 1665, and continued its ravages upwards of a
year, when two hundred and fifty of the inhabitants had died of it.
The worthy rector, Mr. Mompesson, whose name may rank with those of
Cardinal Borromeo of Milan, and the good bishop of Marseilles, at its
breaking out, resolved not to quit his parishioners, but used every
argument with his wife to quit the infected spot. She, however, refused
to forsake her husband, and is supposed to have died of the plague.
They sent away their children. Mr. Mompesson constantly employed
himself, during the dreadful visitation, in his pastoral office, and
preached to his flock in a field, where nature had formed a sort of
alcove in a rock, which place still retains the appellation of a
church. He survived, and the entries in the parish register relative to
this calamity are in his own hand writing, viz.

  In 1665, Sept.  Died  6
           Oct.        22
           Nov.         5
           Dec.         7
     1666  Jan.         3
           Feb.         5
           March        2
           April       12
           May          5
           June        20
           July        53
           Aug.        78
           Sept.       14
           Oct.        17
           Nov.         1

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

History

A Treatise on the Plague and Yellow Fever: With an Appendix, containing histories of the plague at Athens in the time of the Peloponnesian War; at Constantinople in the time of Justinian; at London in 1665; at Marseilles in 1720

Tytler, James

Plague -- Early works to 1800; Yellow fever -- Early works to 1800

From this long and contested account of the manner in which the plague
was received into Marseilles, we see how very difficult it must be to
come at a true state of facts, when a number of people think it their
interest to misrepresent or conceal them. The limits of this treatise
will not allow us to follow our author through the numerous details
of misrepresentations and unfair methods which the adversaries of the
doctrine of contagion have made use of to establish their opinion:
neither shall we enter into any discussion concerning the origin of
other plagues, as we should in them find the same opposite kinds of
evidence without such documents for distinguishing the true from the
false as Dr. Russel has produced in the case of Marseilles. A single
fact only, mentioned by Mr. Howard in his Treatise on Lazarettos, shall
be related, and which, if allowed to be _fact_, decides the question as
effectually as a thousand.

“When the plague raged at London in 1665, it was conveyed to the
remote village of Eyam near Tideswell in Derbyshire. In this place it
broke out in September 1665, and continued its ravages upwards of a
year, when two hundred and fifty of the inhabitants had died of it.
The worthy rector, Mr. Mompesson, whose name may rank with those of
Cardinal Borromeo of Milan, and the good bishop of Marseilles, at its
breaking out, resolved not to quit his parishioners, but used every
argument with his wife to quit the infected spot. She, however, refused
to forsake her husband, and is supposed to have died of the plague.
They sent away their children. Mr. Mompesson constantly employed
himself, during the dreadful visitation, in his pastoral office, and
preached to his flock in a field, where nature had formed a sort of
alcove in a rock, which place still retains the appellation of a
church. He survived, and the entries in the parish register relative to
this calamity are in his own hand writing, viz.

  In 1665, Sept.  Died  6
           Oct.        22
           Nov.         5
           Dec.         7
     1666  Jan.         3
           Feb.         5
           March        2
           April       12
           May          5
           June        20
           July        53
           Aug.        78
           Sept.       14
           Oct.        17
           Nov.         1

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

A Treatise on the Plague and Yellow Fever: With an Appendix, containing histories of the plague at Athens in the time of the Peloponnesian War; at Constantinople in the time of Justinian; at London in 1665; at Marseilles in 1720

A Treatise on the Plague and Yellow Fever: With an Appendix, containing histories of the plague at Athens in the time of the Peloponnesian War; at Constantinople in the time of Justinian; at London in 1665; at Marseilles in 1720

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