A.D. 1482, France, under the fearful reign of Louis XI., after two years of scarcity, became the scene of a devastating plague: it raged in the form of an inflammatory fever, with delirium, accompanied by such intense cephalalgia, that many are reported to have dashed out their brains against the walls of their houses, or to have rushed into the water.
A.D. 1483, there was so great an inundation in Gloucestershire, that all the country round about was overflowed, and many persons were drowned in their beds. The waters did not abate for ten days,—thus preventing the Duke of Buckingham from passing the river into Wales to join the Welsh, who had risen against King Richard III., and consequently being indirectly the cause of the duke’s misfortunes and of his violent death. Barcelona was again visited by a pestilence, which lasted upwards of a year. The river Severn in England overflowed; epidemic pestilence was the consequence. During the following years, 1484–85, it extended all over England, having first broken out at Shrewsbury, where, according to the testimony of Dr. Caius, who resided in that town, 960 died in a few days. Some authorities have spoken of this pestilence as having occurred under circumstances extremely favourable to the generation of a malignant disease, for it is said to have first appeared in the army of the Earl of Richmond, afterwards King Henry VII., upon his landing at Milford Haven in 1485. This army consisted of foreign troops, brought over in crowded transport-vessels. They were described by a contemporary historian, Philip de Comines, as the most wretched soldiery he ever beheld, collected, it is probable, from jails and hospitals, and buried in filth. The disease soon spread to London, where it raged from the beginning of August to the end of October, having assumed a particular type: it was termed ‘sudor Anglicus,’ or sweating sickness, and proved to be a mortal epidemic. It also prevailed in Ireland. The symptoms were those of a violent inflammatory fever, which, after a short time, caused great prostration of strength. There were also present, oppression at the stomach, and violent headache, accompanied by lethargic stupor, and the body was covered with a profuse fœtid perspiration. The progress of this singular malady was very rapid, a crisis always taking place within the space of a day and a night. The internal heat from which the patient suffered was intolerable, yet every thing cold, or even cool, was certain death. Two lord mayors and six aldermen died in one week. The disease attacked the most robust and strong, and spread without interruption over the entire kingdom, from east to west. In a very short period vast numbers of the population fell victims to this strange epidemic. Many of those who recovered from the first attack were seized a second, and some even a third time. Persons of rank, of the ecclesiastical and civil classes, were not exempt; and great was the consternation when the disease broke out in Oxford. The heads of colleges and the students fled in all directions, and this celebrated university was deserted for six weeks. Three months later, it appeared at Croyland, and carried off Lambert Fossedyke, abbot of the monastery, on the 14th of November. During this period, epidemic pestilence was rife in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Egypt.
A.D. 1485. This year, pestilence broke out in Seville, the mortality from which was increased by the heavy rains and inundations of the subsequent winter. The year following, Saragossa and other parts of the kingdom of Aragon suffered from epidemic pestilence: it was of a peculiar bubonic or glandular kind, the cure of which was attributed to the intercession of Santo Pedro Arbues, one of the first Grand Inquisitors of Spain, murdered by the populace for his cruelties, and afterwards canonized by the papacy.
A.D. 1488, pestilence prevailed in Andalusia, which must have been very fatal, especially in the army which King Don Ferdinand commanded, although no correct accounts of its mortality are on record.
In the year 1489, Barcelona was again visited by a dire pestilence: it broke out on the 3rd of November, and lasted until the 16th of September in the following year. In vol. i. of the ‘Biblioteca Halleri’ there is a memoir published by Pedro Martyr de Anglesia, in which is noted a certain disease accompanied by a pain in the joints, fœtid ulcers in the mouth, and pustules, which are regarded by some modern writers as the symptoms of the French pox (morbus Gallicus).
A.D. 1490, a bilious remittent fever was rife in various parts of Europe. A putrid fever, supposed by some to have arisen from the unburied bodies in Granada, raged with dreadful violence; by others it was stated to have been imported by some soldiers who came from the island of Cyprus, in which place this kind of fever was endemic.
A.D. 1492. Epidemic variola was unknown to the Indians until it was conveyed to the East by the commercial intercourse of the Dutch: it was also supposed to have been introduced into America by a negro slave of Pamfilo Narvaes, when that Spanish general proceeded to Mexico against his enemy, Hernando Cortés. The inhabitants of Zempoala lost great numbers, and 16,000 Indians fell its victims.
In the year 1493, says Don Vincente Mut, there happened the fifth plague in the island of Mallorca; it was called the plague of Boja, and was so termed from the name of the man who is supposed to have introduced it into the island.
During this period, Barcelona was revisited by pestilence, which lasted from the 13th of June until the 4th of October. That the venereal disease was not introduced from America into Europe this year, by means of the troops of Admiral Christobal Colon, is a point which has been already demonstrated in history. Astruc exhibits great erudition in showing that the disease was not known before the years 1494 and 1496. In the list of writers of the kingdom of Valencia, furnished by Vincente Ximeno, we learn that a Pedro Pintor was born in that capital A.D. 1420, and died at Rome in 1503: he was physician to Alexander the Sixth, who was also a Valencian, having been born in the part called Xativa. From the historical writings of Pintor, and of contemporary authors, it seems evident, as suggested by Dr. Sanchez, that the venereal disease, during its first prevalence, was a pestilential fever, which was communicable through the genitals, and otherwise; and that at that period there was no discredit or stigma attached to those who were afflicted with it: it was not considered to be contra bonos mores. The Valencian author, following up the astrological notions of his time, attributes the disease to the same causes as epidemic plagues or pestilences.
During the vernal equinox of this year, this description of pestilence broke out in the city of Rome, as is gathered from the following quotation: “Talis autem epidemia in urbe Romanâ contigit anno 1493 mense Martii, post introitum solis in primum minutum Arietis.” This disease was first noticed in the month of August.