The year following, 1693, an earthquake was felt in England, France, and Germany; 60,000 persons, out of 254,000 inhabitants, perished about the same period from a shock in Sicily.
A.D. 1694, an eruption of Vesuvius took place, and Messina was destroyed by an earthquake. Epidemic catarrh raged among men and horses in various parts of Europe. The seamen and troops under Sir Francis Wheeler, sent to conquer the island of Martinique in the West Indies, suffered dreadfully from yellow pestilence, which, during the same year, was rife in the United States of America; the inhabitants of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, were carried off in great numbers: a Dr. Gamble strangely describes it as being a new disease; it was called ‘the new distemper, or Kendall’s fever,’ at Barbados, where it prevailed, causing great mortality. Miliary fever broke out in Berlin, and continued for some time: it was not very fatal.
A.D. 1695, pestilence broke out amongst the American Indians. The inhabitants of the island of Bermuda suffered from yellow fever; and the following years, a similar disease prevailed in the United States of America, especially in Connecticut, New Hampshire, &c.
A.D. 1698, a comet was seen. Spain suffered again from epidemic disease; it was very fatal in Cerdena: Don Manuel de Alsivia wrote a work describing the malady. The disease was supposed to have been taken out to South America; various parts of the coast having suffered severely from this pestilence, Buenos Ayres especially, it spread to a considerable distance, and Lima was nearly depopulated by it; for it nearly devastated the country, sparing neither Spaniard, white, creole, mustee, mulatto, nor negro. North America also suffered from pestilence: at this period, a dreadful disease affected the Anglo-Americans; the inhabitants of Charleston and Philadelphia suffered in the following year, 1699. There was an awful earthquake in China, and nearly 400,000 persons were destroyed. A comet was seen this year. The disease which affected the Anglo-Americans was considered to be similar to, and as severe as the epidemic which had devastated Barbados a few years previously. Fatal catarrh prevailed in England, and plague in various places in the Levant: France also suffered from pestilential catarrh, and an epizootic among the cattle, especially among horses. Capmany describes the disease as being a bilious plague, which at this time prevailed in Liorna, Geneva, Cerdena, Narbonne, and Nismes.
A.D. 1700. Upon the death and in accordance with the will of Charles II., and in obedience to the orders of Maria Theresa of Austria, the celebrated and spirited Don Felipe VI. was invited to Spain. The civil wars, which arose in consequence, produced great devastation and ruin in the land, and were succeeded by an epidemic of a severe type: it is supposed to have originated from the corrupt and irregular habits of the soldiery, who were composed of different nations; its form was that of a malignant exanthematous fever, attended with delirium. Escobar speaks of the disease as being contagious. Pestilential angina, says Bruno Fernandes, in his recent observations, was so fatal to children, that at the commencement of this century but few escaped its ravages, and the disease was in every way the most fatal that had been experienced for a long time: it was called miliary or sweating pestilence, at Breslau; and was very destructive to the inhabitants of the island of Milo, in the Levant. In the North of Europe it was followed by small-pox. During the subsequent seven years of this century, epidemic pestilence prevailed in various parts of the world,—England, Scotland, Friesland, the United States of America, &c.
A.D. 1701, there happened an eruption of Vesuvius: the year following, 1702, the family seat of Borge, near Frederickstadt, in Norway, sunk, with all its towers and battlements, into an abyss one hundred fathoms deep, and its site was instantly filled with water, which formed a lake three hundred ells long and one hundred and thirty broad. Many persons, together with upwards of 200 head of cattle, perished. A comet was seen about this period; and in the next year, 1703, small-pox and scarlatina raged at Boston, United States; in other of the States they were attended with fever of a most malignant type. During this period the drought was extreme; the autumn was sultry, with cold damp nights, north winds, and frequent showers; bilious plague broke out in the city of New York, and was more fatal than at any other previous period; it was termed ‘the great sickness.’ Ergotism prevailed throughout the whole country of Freiburg. A dreadful thunder-storm was experienced in England on the 26th and 27th of November of this year, which frightened the whole kingdom; the houses in London were violently shaken, and many fell; the water rose to a great height at Westminster Hall, and London Bridge was choked up with the wrecks of boats, &c.; fourteen ships of war were lost during the storm, with great numbers of seamen. The damage done by it in London alone was computed at one million pounds sterling: at the same time Rome was shaken by an earthquake, and the city of Aquila, in the kingdom of Naples, was destroyed; many thousand persons were buried in its ruins. The year following, 1704, there was an eruption of Vesuvius.
CHAPTER VII.
FROM A.D. 1705 TO 1795.
A.D. 1705, in the city of Ceuta, an epidemic malignant fever broke out, and raged with dreadful violence, causing great mortality. The appearances on dissection, as reported by Don Antonio de la Locha, proto-medicus of the army, were as follow: “The blood was observed to be coagulated in the ventricles of the heart, especially in that of the right side, and also in the vena cava (in the immediate neighbourhood of the heart); the pulmonary artery was similarly engorged. In the aorta the blood was also very thick, but in moderate quantity: the pulmonary veins were nearly empty. These phenomena were not observed in all cases, since in the majority the blood was only thickened and not coagulated; and the cause of this difference,” observes the reporter, “was according to the greater or less degree of power of the malignant ferment.” In the month of April, pestilential disease broke out at Tunis: in the May following, Malaga was attacked by it; and in August, the island of Cerdena suffered greatly from its violence.
A.D. 1706, a comet was visible, and thunderstorms were experienced in many parts of England. The next year an eruption of Vesuvius occurred, and an island, five miles round, rose from the bottom of the sea in the Archipelago:
———“His hand the lightning forms,