He heaves old Ocean, and he wings the storms.”
A.D. 1708, a severe storm, with thunder and lightning, was experienced at Ipswich and Harrogate. A universal catarrh overspread all Europe and America, and was followed by pestilential fevers. Lanciscus relates that a similar epidemic appeared and raged with much severity in Italy, principally at Rome: he describes the malady as beginning with a running at the nose, or coryza, attended with pains in the limbs, extending over the whole body, but felt more especially in the chest. In the spring, peripneumoniæ prevailed; chills and flushes suddenly seized persons, and were accompanied by severe cough, spitting of blood, and turbid, scanty urine; the respiration was laborious, and a general yellowness of the body was observed. In the years following, A.D. 1709, 1710, and 1711, various parts of the coast of South America suffered from putrid or yellow pestilence, especially in the Brazilian territory; vast numbers were carried off of all complexions, from the mulatto to the black. Seville and various other parts of Spain were visited by dire pestilence at this period; it caused great consternation amongst the inhabitants throughout Andalusia. The celebrated Spanish physician, Dr. Don Diego Villalon, was famous for its treatment. Plague or pestilence raged at Dantzic; a prodigious number of insects, especially of spiders, had been noted in the city of Seville the year previously. This pestilence continued for some time; in fact, the five following years may be said to have been remarkable for general and aggravated epidemic disease all over Europe. Horned cattle and horses were observed to suffer greatly from an epizootic. In Holland alone it is reported that 300,000 head of cattle were destroyed by it.
A.D. 1709, Sologne was again visited by gangrenous ergotism, a fourth part of the rye crop having been infected with the ergot or spur. About this period, memorable for hard frosts, this disease appeared in the cantons of Lucerne, Zurich, and Berne; it also prevailed in those places in the years 1715 and 1716, and also epidemically four or five times within the space of ten years at Orleans.
A.D. 1710. Copenhagen and many parts of Sweden suffered from sweating sickness this year: its victims at Stockholm were 30,000; and it is reported that 25,000 died of it in Copenhagen in six months. Pestilence raged in Lithuania; and the troops under General Nicholson, destined to cooperate with the fleet of England in the reduction of Canada in North America, encamped at a place called Wood Creek, in the province of New York, were affected with a sore epidemic distemper, which carried off great numbers.
A.D. 1711, a murrain broke out among cattle in Italy and Germany; the disease was supposed to be a sort of typhus fever, but was in fact, more properly speaking, a fatal dysentery. The following year, A.D. 1712, a miliary or sweating pestilence raged at Mümpelgart. There was an eruption of Vesuvius that year.
A.D. 1713, in consequence of small-pox being rife at Constantinople, inoculation was practised: the following year, a fatal epidemic raged among the horses and horned cattle in England, by which 70,000 head were destroyed: it was supposed to have been occasioned by the excessive heat and drought during the summer months: great numbers of insects were generated.
A.D. 1715, small-pox and measles were epidemic in many parts of Europe, and malignant yellow pestilence raged in the United States of America. Thomas Hacket, of Duck Creek, states that the disease was equal in intensity to that which raged in London in 1665. Miliary fever prevailed at Breslau and at Turin.
A.D. 1716, a dreadful storm, with heavy rains, thunder and lightning, did much damage throughout England. On the 6th of March, an aurora borealis was visible for three days. The noble city of Aguilar de Campo, situated on the seashore, having suffered about this time from cold and damp weather, epidemic variola broke out in the month of March, and was the prelude to a pestilential sore-throat, or quinsy, which lasted until December, 1719.
A.D. 1717, there was another eruption of Vesuvius, and Friesland was again inundated. Half the province of Groningen was ruined by it, and 2500 of its inhabitants perished: it occurred on the 24th and 25th of December. Various parts of the country suffered: all the Lower Elbe was under water, and it is stated that fully 20,000 persons were drowned. From this period until the year 1721, according to Dr. Casal, southern winds prevailed, with dry, cold weather, which suddenly changed to a dry heat, lasting for weeks; after this, copious rains fell, accompanied by frequent changes in the direction of the winds. In the autumn, an epidemic jaundice became so general, that nearly a tenth part of the population of the Asturias suffered from it. Pestilence in the shape of the true plague carried off 80,000 persons in Aleppo. We are told by Didier that this year the fields were barren and the fruits bad, so that the poor, among whom the disease chiefly raged at Marseilles, were almost starved during its prevalence. Mr. Secretary Craggs applied to Dr. Mead to be advised as to the most effectual remedy for or preventive of the plague.
A.D. 1718. A comet made its appearance this year, and a severe shock of an earthquake was experienced in China. In the following year, an aurora borealis was observed, which was supposed to have been not more than thirty-eight miles high.