The Black Death in the Fourteenth Century

Chapter Vi.--Physicians 128

APPENDIX--

I.--The Ancient Song of the Flagellants 172

II.--Trial of the Jews accused of poisoning the Wells 181

III.--Extracts from “A Boke or Counseill against the Sweate or Sweatyng Sicknesse” 191

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.

In reading Dr. Hecker’s account of the Black Death which destroyed so large a portion of the human race in the fourteenth century, I was struck, not only with the peculiarity of the Author’s views, but also with the interesting nature of the facts which he has collected. Some of these have never before been made generally known, while others have passed out of mind, being effaced from our memories by subsequent events of a similar kind, which, though really of less magnitude and importance, have, in the perspective of time, appeared greater, because they have occurred nearer to our own days.

Dreadful as was the pestilence here described, and in few countries more so than in England, our modern historians only slightly allude to its visitation:--Hume deems a single paragraph sufficient to devote to its notice, and Henry and Rapin are equally brief.

It may not then be unacceptable to the medical, or even to the general reader, to receive an authentic and somewhat detailed account of one of the greatest natural calamities that ever afflicted the human race.

My chief motive, however, for translating this small work, and at this particular period, has been a desire that, in the study of the causes which have produced and propagated general pestilences, and of the moral effects by which they have been followed, the most enlarged views should be taken. The contagionist and the anti-contagionist may each find ample support for his belief in particular cases; but in the construction of a theory sufficiently comprehensive to explain throughout the origin and dissemination of universal disease, we shall not only perceive the insufficiency of either doctrine, taken singly, but after admitting the combined influence of both, shall even then find our views too narrow, and be compelled, in our endeavours to explain the facts, to acknowledge the existence of unknown powers, wholly unconnected either with communication by contact or atmospheric contamination.

I by no means wish it to be understood, that I have adopted the author’s views respecting astral and telluric influences, the former of which, at least, I had supposed to have been, with alchemy and magic, long since consigned to oblivion; much less am I prepared to accede to his notion, or rather an ancient notion derived from the East and revived by him, of an organic life in the system of the universe. We are constantly furnished with proofs, that that which affects life is not itself alive; and whether we look to the earth for exhalations, to the air for electrical phenomena, to the heavenly bodies for an influence over our planet, or to all these causes combined, for the formation of some unknown principle noxious to animal existence, still, if we found our reasoning on ascertained facts, we can perceive nothing throughout this vast field for physical research which is not evidently governed by the laws of inert matter, nothing which resembles the regular succession of birth, growth, decay, death, and regeneration, observable in organized beings. To assume, therefore, causes of whose existence we have no proof, in order to account for effects which, after all, they do not explain, is making no real advance in knowledge, and can scarcely be considered otherwise than an indirect method of confessing our ignorance.

Still, however, I regard the author’s opinions, illustrated as they are by a series of interesting facts diligently collected from authentic sources, as, at least, worthy of examination before we reject them, and valuable, as furnishing extensive data on which to build new theories.

I have another, perhaps I may be allowed to say a better, motive for laying before my countrymen this narrative of the sufferings of past ages,--that by comparing them with those of our own time, we may be made the more sensible how lightly the chastening hand of Providence has fallen on the present generation, and how much reason, therefore, we have to feel grateful for the mercy shewn us.

The publication has, with this view, been purposely somewhat delayed, in order that it might appear at a moment when it is to be presumed that men’s thoughts will be especially directed to the approaching hour of public thanksgiving, and when a knowledge of that which they have escaped, as well as of that which they have suffered, may tend to heighten their devotional feelings on that solemn occasion.

When we learn that, in the fourteenth century, one quarter, at least, of the population of the old world was swept away in the short space of four years, and that some countries, England among the rest, lost more than double that proportion of their inhabitants in the course of a few months, we may well congratulate ourselves that our visitation has not been like theirs, and shall not justly merit ridicule, if we offer our humble thanks to the “Creator and Preserver of all mankind” for our deliverance.

Nor would it disgrace our feelings, if, in expiation of the abuse and obloquy not long since so lavishly bestowed by the public, we should entertain some slight sense of gratitude towards those members of the community, who were engaged, at the risk of their lives and the sacrifice of their personal interests, in endeavouring to arrest the progress of the evil, and to mitigate the sufferings of their fellow men.

I have added, at the close of the Appendix, some extracts from a scarce little work in black letter, called “A Boke or Counseill against the Disease commonly called the Sweate or Sweatyng Sicknesse,” published by Caius in 1552. This was written three years before his Latin treatise on the same subject, and is so quaint, and, at the same time, so illustrative of the opinions of his day, and even of those of the fourteenth century, on the causes of universal diseases, that the passages which I have quoted will not fail to afford some amusement as well as instruction. If I have been tempted to reprint more of this curious production than was necessary to my primary object, it has been from a belief that it would be generally acceptable to the reader to gather some particulars regarding the mode of living in the sixteenth century, and to observe the author’s animadversions on the degeneracy and credulity of the age in which he lived. His advice on the choice of a medical attendant cannot be too strongly recommended, at least by a physician; and his warning against quackery, particularly the quackery of painters, who “scorne (quære score?) you behind your backs with their medicines, so filthy that I am ashamed to name them,” seems quite prophetic.

In conclusion, I beg to acknowledge the obligation which I owe to my friend Mr. H. E. Lloyd, whose intimate acquaintance with the German language and literature will, I hope, be received as a sufficient pledge that no very important errors remain in a translation which he has kindly revised.

PREFACE.

We here find an important page of the history of the world laid open to our view. It treats of a convulsion of the human race, unequalled in violence and extent. It speaks of incredible disasters, of despair and unbridled demoniacal passions. It shews us the abyss of general licentiousness, in consequence of an universal pestilence, which extended from China to Iceland and Greenland.

The inducement to unveil this image of an age, long since gone by, is evident. A new pestilence has attained almost an equal extent, and though less formidable, has partly produced, partly indicated, similar phenomena. Its causes and its diffusion over Asia and Europe, call on us to take a comprehensive view of it, because it leads to an insight into the organism of the world, in which the sum of organic life is subject to the great powers of Nature. Now, human knowledge is not yet sufficiently advanced, to discover the connexion between the processes which occur above, and those which occur below, the surface of the earth, or even fully to explore the laws of nature, an acquaintance with which would be required, far less to apply them to great phenomena, in which one spring sets a thousand others in motion.

On this side, therefore, such a point of view is not to be found, if we would not lose ourselves in the wilderness of conjectures, of which the world is already too full: but it may be found in the ample and productive field of historical research.

History--that mirror of human life in all its bearings, offers, even for general pestilences, an inexhaustible, though scarcely explored, mine of facts; here too it asserts its dignity, as the philosophy of reality delighting in truth.

It is conformable to its spirit to conceive general pestilences as events affecting the whole world, to explain their occurrences by the comparison of what is similar, by which the facts speak for themselves, because they appear to have proceeded from the higher laws which govern the progression of the existence of mankind. A cosmical origin and convulsive excitement, productive of the most important consequences among the nations subject to them, are the most striking features to which history points in all general pestilences. The latter, however, assume very different forms, as well in their attacks on the general organism, as in their diffusion; and in this respect a development from form to form, in the course of centuries, is manifest, so that the history of the world is divided into grand periods in which positively defined pestilences prevailed. As far as our chronicles extend, more or less certain information can be obtained respecting them.

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