A.D. 1649, epidemic small-pox prevailed in the city of Boston, United States; plague revisited London and Shropshire, and was destructive in Ireland. Spain suffered dreadfully this year, especially in the southern provinces, where, it is said, disease carried off 200,000 persons. Marseilles also suffered greatly. This year, says Fray Francisco de Cabrera, was the most tragic ever known in Seville, at least since 1246; the violence of the pestilence ceased about May, when the city was one entire hospital. There was great mortality also at Marbella, a port of the Mediterranean. In France, a very hot summer, with much thunder and lightning, was experienced, which did great mischief in Guienne, Bourdeaux, and other provinces, firing hayricks, granaries, &c. Several of the Members of the Parliament of Aix were found dead in their beds after a tempestuous night of thunder and lightning; and the day following, the roof of the house in which Parliament was assembled fell in, and killed several members.
A.D. 1650, the winter was open, and the spring cold and wet. Severe influenza prevailed all over Europe, and was succeeded by a general pestilence during the hot summer and autumn. It prevailed in the form of ague in Denmark, and of inflammatory fever in France. This epidemic, in rather a formidable character, called by some writers ‘ignis sacer’ and ‘fièvre St. Antoine,’ and by the French ‘ergot,’ raged during this period with great mortality in Sologne. The disease was not ascribed so much to the scarcity of food, as to a diseased state of the rye. It commenced with lassitude and debility, followed by torpor, swelling, and burning heat, with excruciating pains in the lower limbs, which became shrivelled and dark, and at length gangrenous. There was reason, however, to believe that this malady was the result of insufficient food, amounting almost to starvation, and not of diseased grain. The lower classes, as is generally the case, suffered most. Pestilence also caused great ravages in Russia and Poland. Clouds of locusts were seen to enter the former country in three different places: they afterwards spread over Poland to Lithuania in such astonishing multitudes, that the air was darkened and the earth blackened with their numbers. In very many places they were found heaped up upon each other to the depth of four feet! in others they covered the surface of the ground like a black cloth. The trees bent with their weight; and the damage sustained by the country was beyond computation.
The city of Carmona was visited by epidemic pestilence, as was also the neighbouring country. The disease which pervaded Andalusia soon spread with great mortality through the populations of Catalonia, Aragon, and Valencia. In the month of February the Council of One Hundred (Ciento) of Barcelona were occupied with the pestilence which was ravaging Tortosa. In May the same Council declared Gerona to be in a pestilential condition. The year following, 1651, the city of Huesca, as also Alcubierre and a greater part of the population of Aragon, suffered from pestilence of rather a formidable character. Barcelona soon became affected; the disease raged there with extreme violence. Dr. Salvador wrote a work describing this pestilence: it was entitled ‘Breve Tratado de la Peste y fiebre pestilente, en el qual se trata de su esencia, causas, dignocion, preservacion y purificacion.’—A.D. 1652, a comet was seen.
A.D. 1653. In Girona, at present called Gerona y Osterlique, pestilence broke out, and raged with violence. The year following, 1654, epidemic disease again made its appearance in England and also in Denmark. In the month of April it broke out in Chester in England. Pestilential disease at this period was also rife in Turkey, Russia, Presburg, Hungary, Italy, Egypt, Malta, Sardinia, Leyden, Riga, and Amsterdam: 200,000, it is stated, died from it in Moscow alone, 9000 in Riga, 13,200 at Amsterdam, and 13,000 at Leyden.
Two years after (1656), 240,000 persons were destroyed by mortal pestilence in Naples; a great number—9000—in Benevento, 10,000 at Genoa, the like number at Rome, and in the Neapolitan territories generally it is supposed 400,000 perished. Cardinal Gastaldi, speaking of the pestilence at Rome, states that it was one of the most horrible diseases Rome had ever suffered from. The same author eulogizes the precautionary measures adopted by the Spaniards and the Portuguese. Franco, a physician of Carmona, in his work entitled ‘Elysius jucundarum Quæstionum Campus medicis imprimis utilis,’ lauds as great alexipharmics the properties of the unicorn and of the bezoar concretion.
In the spring of 1658, epidemic catarrh prevailed all over Europe, and in the following autumn degenerated into malignant fever: it caused great mortality in England and France, where the seasons were very intemperate. Epidemic disease was also rife in North America during this period. The fever which prevailed in England was of a peculiar kind—a pernicious intermittent: it was universal, and raged with as great destructiveness as the plague. A similar disease, we are informed by Morton, continued for some years previous to the plague of 1665. Oliver Cromwell died of it; and Morton states that his own father also perished by it, and that he himself and his whole family were infected. “Matrem pientissimam, fratres, sorores, servos, ancillas, nutrices conductitias, quotquot erant intra eosdem nobiscum parietes, ac fere omnes ejusdem ac vicinorum pagorum incolas, hoc veneno infectos et decumbentes vidi.” He proceeds to say that the cold weather afterwards checked the disease in some measure,—yet the seeds of it seem to have been by no means destroyed; for it still continued to show itself under other forms: “durante enim brumâ, intermittentes quartanas, tertianas, quotidianas, ab ejusdem veneni mitiore gradu oriundas, fere æque epidemias videre erat ac in autumno συνεχέας seu remittentes; neque mehercule sæviente gelu penitus defecerunt istæ febres continentes. Atque equidem hancce febrem hoc pacto sub typo συνεχέος præsertim simplicis et legitimæ, quotidianæ scilicet, vel tertianæ, maxime vulgarem fuisse, et tempore autumnalis plus minus epidemiam, usque ad annum 1664 observavi.” He informs us likewise, that in the two years immediately succeeding the great plague, dysenteries were very frequent; so that in the autumn of 1667, “civitas fere universa hoc morbo correpta videbatur, atque singulis septimanis 345 plus minus fluxu et torminibus confecti fatis cedebant.”
It was during this year (1658) that remarkable phenomena were observed in various parts of Europe. The most tempestuous and inclement weather was experienced; and on the day on which Oliver Cromwell died, there arose a dreadful storm in England, which was felt all over Europe, and from its severity seemed to threaten all nature.
Two years after, A.D. 1660, there was an eruption of Vesuvius.
A.D. 1661, a comet made its appearance, and an earthquake was again felt with great severity at Chili: China suffered in a similar manner the same year, 300,000 persons having been buried in Pekin alone.
The year following, A.D. 1662, great drought was experienced in England; the springs were dried up, the rivers were very low, and an epizootic prevailed with great mortality among cattle: it was of rather a remarkable character, being a disease of the liver; a small worm (entozoa), especially in sheep, it is said, seemed to prey on the liver, lungs, and bowels: Venice was also visited by pestilence, of which it is said 60,000 persons died. Puerperal fever was very destructive this year at Leipsic and at Copenhagen.