Produced by Turgut Dincer, Robert Tonsing, Linda Cantoni and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) THE EPIDEMICS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. FROM THE GERMAN OF J. F. C. HECKER, M.D. PROFESSOR AT FREDERICK WILLIAM’S UNIVERSITY AT BERLIN, AND MEMBER OF VARIOUS LEARNED SOCIETIES IN ALBANY, BERLIN, BONN, COPENHAGEN, DIJON, DRESDEN, ERLANGEN, HANAU, HEIDELBERG, LEIPZIG, LONDON, LYONS, MARSEILLES, METZ, NAPLES, NEW YORK, OFFENBURG, PHILADELPHIA, STOCKHOLM, TOULOUSE, WARSAW AND ZURICH. TRANSLATED BY B. G. BABINGTON, M.D. F.R.S., ETC. LONDON MDCCCXLIV LONDON: GEORGE WOODFALL AND SON, ANGEL COURT, SKINNER STREET GENERAL PREFACE. The Council of the SYDENHAM SOCIETY having deemed Hecker’s three treatises on different Epidemics occurring in the Middle Ages worthy of being collected into a volume, and laid before its members in an English dress, I have felt much pleasure in presenting them with the copyright of the Black Death; in negociating for them, the purchase of that of the Dancing Mania, whereof I could resign only my share of a joint interest; and, in preparing for the press these productions, together with a translation, now for the first time made public, of the Sweating Sickness. This last work, from its greater length, and from the immediate relation of its chief subject to our own country, may be considered the most interesting and important of the series. Professor Hecker is generally acknowledged to be the most learned medical historian, and one of the most able medical writers in Germany. His numerous works suffice to show not only with what zeal he has laboured, but also how highly his labours have been appreciated by his countrymen; and when I state that, with one trifling exception, they have all been translated into other languages, I furnish a fair proof of the estimation in which they are held in foreign countries; and, so far at least as regards the originals, a full justification of the Council of the Sydenham Society in their choice on the present occasion.