It was about this time that a mortal pestilence broke out in the fleet of Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers, who were on their way to Virginia in America. It was a spotted fever, with yellowness of the skin, attended by bilious vomiting, hemorrhages, &c.,—symptoms which characterize yellow fever in the present day. It raged with an intensity equal to the true plague: it was preceded by bad weather and gales of wind lasting four days, which, with the crowded state of the ships, was sufficient to account for all their sufferings. The vessel in which Sir George Somers embarked was wrecked on the island of Bermuda, where Sir George died of the pestilence. The weather during this period was very inclement in England: heavy rains and inundations of the Severn deluged the country round about Bristol: epidemic pestilence soon after followed in Somersetshire and Norfolk. A comet was seen this year.
A.D. 1609, in the month of July, pestilence broke out in the cities of Citaro, Potraso, Castelnuovo, Padua, and other places of Venice and Albania,—in fact, throughout the entire jurisdiction of Ragusa. In August, the pestilence extended to Seville.
A.D. 1610, plague showed itself in the suburbs of the city of Granada, to which place it soon extended, causing great mortality. The year following, it prevailed in various parts of Spain, and Constantinople suffered awfully from pestilence about the same time; it carried off 200,000 of the inhabitants. “Such clouds, or swarms, of grasshoppers,” says Short, “so plagued their city and country about, that they darkened the sun, and left not any green herb or leaf in all the country; they entered the bedchambers; they were nearly as large as dormice, and had red wings.” The year following, 1611, Goelenius writes, in his account of the plague which raged at Hesse and other parts of Germany, followed by a great pestilence among pigs and cattle in 1612, that a sudden and amazing quantity of spiders appeared; swarms of locusts laid waste the vegetable kingdom in Provence, tempests destroyed great numbers of shipping at sea, many dead bodies were drifted on the English shores as also on the shores of Holland, and a province, under the dominion of France, was nearly destroyed by inundation. The summer in England was hot and dry, and malignant fevers carried off great numbers.
A.D. 1613, epidemic pestilence occurred in various parts of France; and in Montpelier there was a malignant fever, with livid spots and carbuncles. Riverius states, that one-third of those who were attacked with it died. At Lausanne, where pestilence raged with great violence, there was such an abundance of flies as was never remembered to have occurred previously,—“tanta ubique fuit muscarum copia, ut post hominum memoriam vix similis visa fuerit.” (Hildanus.) Pestilence also raged at Constantinople, where the physicians, supposing that the cats spread the contagion, advised the Emperor, Achmet I., to transport them to the desert island of Scutari. Spain, this year, suffered from malignant sore-throat, which raged with such severity, that it was considered to have been more fatal than in the year of the garratillos (quinsy). The year following, the winter was very severe, the summer cold and wet, and the autumn variable. The most deadly small-pox laid waste Crete, Alexandria, Calabria, Turkey, Italy, Dalmatia, Venice, Germany, France, Poland, Flanders, Persia, and Asia; it prevailed also, with great severity, in England. In some of these countries, measles was also prevalent. The mortality from the natural small-pox, at that period, equalled in fatality the plague in its worst form. About this period, water was first brought by means of the New River to London by Sir Hugh Middleton.
CHAPTER VI.
FROM A.D. 1616 TO 1704.
A.D. 1616, Germany was greatly troubled with epidemic agues. Two years after, violent tempests, inundations, volcanic eruptions, meteors, &c. distinguished this pestilential period or season. A malignant angina prevailed at Naples: the plague infested Bergen, Norway, Denmark, Egypt, the Levant, and many other places; and a terrible yellow pestilence, in both North and South America, swept away thousands of the Aborigines (Indians). Hutchison says, that the Massachusetts tribe in North America, consisting of 30,000 persons, was reduced to 300! Gorges writes, that the disease occurred in the summer and autumn for several years, commencing A.D. 1618, and ending in 1623. This distemper the Indians described as a spotted putrid fever, with ulcers, and yellowness of the skin and eyes, and bleeding from the mouth and ears. This pestilence must have been of domestic origin, as no known intercourse had been held with any part of this new continent; it evidently was endemic—a bilious pestilence.
A.D. 1617, a terrible inundation occurred in Catalonia in Spain, from continued heavy rains, during which more than 50,000 persons lost their lives: the year following, a comet appeared. From this time until 1623, Malta, Naples, Hungary, France, and England suffered from epidemic diseases, such as small-pox, plague, &c. Seville was visited by gangrenous sore-throat about this time; and in 1619, many places in the Levant suffered from epidemic pestilence. In 1620, Antonio de Fonseca, a Portuguese physician of the city of Lisbon, wrote a work entitled ‘De Epidemiâ febrili, grassante in exercitû Regis Catholici in inferiori Palatinato.’ During this year a heavy snow-storm was experienced, which continued for thirteen nights and days; upwards of 20,000 sheep in one district, Eskdale Moor, were destroyed by it and famine conjoined.
A.D. 1622, London was visited by epidemic pestilence, which continued for four years. In the first year there died 8000; in the second, 11,000; in the third, 12,000; and in the fourth, 35,417. Plague also broke out about this period in Amsterdam, and persisted, as it is stated, eight years. Pestilence was prevalent in many parts of Spain. In July, the Council of One Hundred, at Barcelona, received advice that pestilence had broken out at Argel; orders were given, in consequence, for the exclusion of all slaves and goods coming thence.
A.D. 1625, plague broke out in London, and raged with varied intensity all over England; 30,000 persons were carried off by it in London alone. Epidemic disease also prevailed in Italy, Denmark, and Egypt. Inundations occurred in Spain. In the month of January, the river Tormes departed from its bed, destroying cattle and houses in Salamanca. Seville suffered similarly from the overflowing of the Guadalquivir; and in the year following, 1626, pestilence carried off 60,000 persons at Lyons. France continued to suffer from pestilence the two following years.
A.D. 1629, epidemic pestilence broke out in Narbonne; it also prevailed at Amsterdam, and at Cambridge in England, where it raged mortally: yellow pestilence was rife at the same time in America, and plague raged at Marseilles.