Curiosities of Medical ExperienceMillingen, J. G. (John Gideon)
Philosophy
Curiosities of Medical Experience
Millingen, J. G. (John Gideon)
Medicine
Florence lost 60,000 inhabitants
Venice " 10,000 "
Marseilles " in one month 56,000 "
Paris " " 50,000 "
Avignon " " 60,000 "
Strasburg " " 16,000 "
Basle " " 14,000 "
Erfurth " " 16,000 "
London " " 100,000 "
Norwich " " 50,000 "
Hecker states that this pestilence was preceded by great commotion in the
interior of the globe. About 1333, several earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions did considerable injury in upper Asia, while in the same year,
Greece, Italy, France, and Germany suffered under similar disasters. The
harvests were swept away by inundations, and clouds of locusts destroyed
all that the floods had spared, while dense masses of offensive insects
strewed the land.
As in the recent invasion of cholera, the populace attributed this scourge
to poison and to the Jews, and these hapless beings were persecuted and
destroyed wherever they could be found. In Mayence, after vainly
attempting to defend themselves, they shut themselves up in their
quarters, where 1200 of them were burnt to death. The only asylum found by
them was Lithuania where Casimir afforded them protection; and it is
perhaps owing to this circumstance that so many Jewish families are still
to be found in Poland.
A curious monumental record of the plague is to be seen at Eyam, an
insignificant village in Derbyshire, to the eastward of Tideswell. It is
an ancient stone cross of curious form and workmanship, erroneously stated
to have been erected to commemorate the extinction of the pestilence which
was supposed to have been brought there in a bag of woollen clothes, sent
from London to a tailor of the place. The hamlet was soon infected, and
its panic-struck inhabitants fled in every direction, scattering death in
their flight, until driven back within their boundaries. During the
prevalence of this scourge, tradition makes honourable mention of the
rector of the parish, William Mompesson. Determined not to abandon his
flock in the hour of need, he never quitted the devoted spot. In vain he
entreated his wife to remove from the pestilential sphere of action--she
would not leave him. Eyam was now cut off from all communication with the
neighbourhood. The worthy clergyman addressed the Earl of Devonshire, then
residing at Chatsworth, acquainting him with his resolution, and
requesting that regular supplies of provisions might be duly placed in
certain points of the adjacent hills. If this request was attended to, he
pledged himself that none of his parishioners should transgress a given
boundary. Troughs and wells, which are still there, were dug to secure
water supplied by a stream, which to this day bears the hallowed name of
_Mompesson brook_. The following account of this benevolent pastor's
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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