Malignant fever at this period assailed all Naples, destroying, as has been asserted, 20,000 inhabitants: it was preceded by famine. An earthquake was felt at Comorra, in Hungary; 1500 houses were thrown down, and many lives were lost, the sufferers being buried under the ruins.
A.D. 1764, on the 26th of December, a severe shock of an earthquake was felt at Lisbon: a comet was visible. The treatment of small-pox was greatly modified about this time by the introduction of the cooling regimen, which was first recommended in England by the Suttons. In the same year epidemic pestilence broke out in the principality of Estremadura, and was very fatal: various other parts of Spain suffered from the invasion of a similar disease; it carried off great numbers at Cadiz, and its outbreak was attributed in a great measure to the distresses occasioned by the Portuguese war; it was a miliary fever, attended with glandular swellings, especially of the parotids. Rain fell heavily during the months of April and May in Carthagena, and consequently tertian fevers were prevalent; and there perished of that disease upwards of 2000 persons in the city during those two months. Pestilential disease ravaged Suabia, and both Scotland and Ireland suffered greatly at this time from epidemic pestilence.
Lethal epidemic disease prevailed in Austria; and in the greater part of the United States of America bilious remittent fever, similar to that prevalent in the West Indian Islands, carried off vast numbers. The pestilence in Ireland was marked by all the symptoms of bilious remittent or yellow fever.
A.D. 1765, on the 4th of June, an earthquake was felt along the banks of the Ganges: a shock was experienced on the 19th of May previously in the Pyrenean mountains. A severe storm occurred on the east coast of Britain, and many seamen perished in consequence. Spital, near Berwick, suffered greatly from this catastrophe.
A.D. 1766, there was an eruption of Vesuvius: earthquakes were felt in various quarters this year; at Constantinople on the 22nd of May, when 880 persons were buried in the ruins of the fallen houses; a severe shock was experienced at Cuba, and St. Jago was completely demolished, on which occasion hundreds lost their lives. The earth opened in the Abruzzi in Naples, and many thousands were engulphed. The river Taina on the 14th of November overflowed its banks, and destroyed more than 12,000 houses with their occupants at Montauban in France. Two comets were visible about this period. The summer was hot and dry all over Europe, and in both the Americas; vegetable productions were scarce in all these countries, and the winter following was severe in both hemispheres; the mercury fell in many places 20° below zero. Malignant catarrh swept over Europe; a murrain destroyed cattle in the United States of America, the horses and horned cattle, &c. perishing, especially in New England and New Jersey. A similar murrain attacked cattle in Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Mecklenburg in Germany. The following year, puerperal fever was fatal in Normandy. Small-pox carried off at Pekin nearly 100,000 persons, principally young children. There was about this period an eruption of Vesuvius; Spain suffered from severe epidemic pestilence. In the month of December a catarrh of a peculiar type broke out in Madrid, extending far and wide over the Continent: it was not particularly fatal.
A.D. 1768, a severe storm destroyed ninety-six public edifices and 4048 private houses on the 25th of October at the Havannah; many lives were lost in the ruins. Pestilence again broke out in the city of Carthagena, and raged with great violence and fatality. Vast numbers of caterpillars infested Northampton and Massachusetts, in the United States, and destroyed all traces of verdure. The summer following was hot and rainy; small-pox, dysentery, and hydrophobia prevailed in Boston and in other parts of the States: anginas were also rife. Yellow pestilence raged in the island of Jamaica. In Holland, about this period, 30,000 head of horned cattle and sheep were destroyed by a murrain.
Irregular seasons deteriorated the produce of the earth, and famine and pestilence were the consequence. A dreadful famine and pestilence in the year 1769 carried off, as has been recorded, three millions and upwards of the inhabitants of Bengal. The falls of rain had been unfrequent and of short duration, so that every thing in the shape of vegetation was parched up and unproductive. The grain crop was almost a total failure, and as the two former crops had been scanty, the unfortunate people in the hour of extremity had no resource; they were driven by the cravings of hunger to the woods, where they perished in thousands, after devouring the bark of trees and the remains of putrefying vegetables.
Various parts of Spain suffered from epidemic pestilence this year. Don Manuel Antonio Bela, a physician of some eminence, wrote and published a work entitled ‘Una Disertacion sobre los cometas que no causan ni anuncian enfermedades publicas,’ for the purpose of refuting the idea that comets and other meteoric phenomena influence the production of epidemic disease.
A comet was noticed this year; and the year following, 1770, was remarkable for the severity of an earthquake which was experienced in the island of St. Domingo. There was also an eruption of Vesuvius, and deadly pestilence raged in many parts of Europe, carrying off great numbers. The mortality from murrain at this period was great among cattle in Sardinia, Holland, Flanders, &c. In Poland and Russia alone upwards of 20,000 persons died of famine and disease: it is recorded that 168,000 fell victims to a dire pestilence which prevailed in Bohemia. In the city of Constantinople, during this year, 1000 bodies were buried daily for some weeks. During this and the following year, 1771, a singular epidemic destroyed the foxes in the United States of America. Tertian fevers of a malignant type again broke out in the city of Carthagena, and the persons residing in the convent of St. Diego again suffered from pestilence, which continued the two following years: out of fifty-three padres of the convent, one only escaped. Puerperal fever was fatally epidemic at Vienna.
A.D. 1771, there was an inundation in the North of England, and there occurred also an eruption of Vesuvius. A.D. 1772, strange phenomena were observed with regard to the body of Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, which had been buried 345 years in the abbey at St. Edmund’s Bury; when the leaden coffin was opened, the flesh, hair, and toe and finger nails appeared perfect and sound, as though he had not been interred many hours. On an incision being made on the breast, the flesh cut as firm as in a living subject, and there was even an appearance of blood. A similar phenomenon was observed A.D. 1494, when the body of one Alice Hackney, which had been interred 175 years, was accidentally dug up in the churchyard of St. Mary’s Hill, London: the skin was whole, and the joints of the arms, legs, &c. were pliable, the parts exhibiting a natural appearance, as though she were but recently dead. A dreadful hurricane happened this year in the Caribbean Islands. Plague raged at Moscow, and, it is stated, carried off 133,299 persons within eighteen months. Epidemic catarrh and measles prevailed in the United States of America; small-pox was rife in Scotland; and the pestilence, which was still raging in Carthagena, extended to other provinces of Spain. Plague carried off great numbers in Bassora; 80,000 persons are said to have fallen victims to the frightful pestilence; in short, famine and disease about this time, induced by long and continued drought and excessive heat, destroyed an incredible number of lives in the peninsula of the Ganges. Baraillon gives an account of a most singular pestilence with which France was afflicted in the year 1774: it was termed Epidemic Convulsions, ‘sur une epue d’epilepsie qui reconnoit pour cause le virus exanthematique malaire.’ A similar malady about this period was rife in the United States of America. In England, epidemic catarrh prevailed to a great extent; it was attended with sore throat. Blight or mildew destroyed the oats in Scotland, and in the United States of America wheat suffered from blast or blight; a bed of oysters perished from disease at Wellflat Harbour, at Cape Cod, and the lobsters disappeared from York Island, in the United States. In the month of July, a murrain broke out among the horned cattle in the province of Labourd, in France, and proved very destructive. It was a sort of ramollissement of the brain, according to the authority of Ignacio de Michelena, Juan de Ordoi, and Martin de Lorz. Dr. Alsinet, a celebrated physician of Aranjuez, wrote a work this year on the treatment of the tertian fever, which had been so prevalent all over Spain: his plan of treatment consisted in giving emetics during the intervals of the paroxysms, and bark immediately on the approach of the cold fit; in cases of pernicious and malignant tertian, he gave double doses. Puerperal fever was again epidemic at Vienna, and was attended with great mortality.