The following year, 1785, epidemic tertian prevailed in Andalusia. Dr. Don Juan Manuel Alvarez, of Constantina, wrote a work on the pernicious intermittent fevers of this and the previous years, which had been so extensively prevalent in the Peninsula: the disease was felt more severely in Carthagena than during any other previous year; it was exceedingly malignant, and destroyed vast numbers. Intemperate seasons were attended with inundations from rains, so heavy as to form lakes in some places. The city of Lerida suffered from variola.
A.D. 1786, in the city del Viso, on the confines of the province of La Mancha, a frightful epidemic broke out, and destroyed great numbers of the inhabitants. The city of St. Roque suffered in the autumn from a similar pestilence: it proved to be a form of pernicious intermittent. Dr. Don Josef Masdevall’s practice was adopted in its treatment, and proved as successful as it had hitherto done; it consisted of what he termed ‘la opiata antifebril y mixtura antimonial.’ This year, Brother Miguel de Acero y Aldovera wrote a work on the pernicious effects of intramural interments. The vomito negro prevailed this year in the Havannah; its outbreak was attributed to the emanations from putrid hides. In the Madras Reports, it is stated that pestilential cholera was very destructive at Arcot.
A.D. 1787, there took place on the coast of Coromandel an inundation proceeding from a severe hurricane; a district called Uppora was overflowed by the sea on the 20th of May, when upwards of 12,000 persons lost their lives, and much property in cattle and houses was destroyed. There was a violent storm that did much damage in England and Ireland. There was also an eruption of Vesuvius.
A.D. 1788, severe frost occurred in England, commencing in November, and continuing till the following March.
In the month of October, A.D. 1789, an almost universal darkness overspread the land in America, and the most severe pestilences on record occurred all over the United States, in the form of anginas, croup, ulcerated sore-throat, putrid bilious fevers, &c. Dr. Manson describes one of the epidemics thus; “slight influenza, stinging pain in the jaws and limbs, soreness of the muscles of the neck, attended with severe fever.” The measles, which occurred the year previously, appear to have been the prelude to a series of epidemics which raged for thirty years. Influenza was very severe in the cities of New York and Philadelphia, and rapidly affected the other parts of the States, wherever the same conditions of weather and atmosphere prevailed: this disease also traversed the barren wilderness, seizing on the Indian population, attacked seamen at sea, and raged with great mortality through the western hemisphere, from the 15° to 45° of northern latitude. Scarlet fever was also prevalent at Philadelphia, and carried off great numbers of the young. These epidemics generally exhibited as the predominant feature the superabundance of biliary secretions, which were vomited.
A.D. 1790, the winter was very mild in America, there having been but little frost until the month of February. In spring, catarrhs prevailed; plethoric and consumptive persons suffered most, and were the principal victims: measles appeared in autumn. The year following, 1791, the winter commenced early, and was very severe; the spring and summer were dry and cold: catarrhs again prevailed: yellow fever broke out in New York, and carried off numbers: scarlatina and hooping-cough were also rife. About this period a kind of black worm, resembling a caterpillar, appeared in Maryland, and destroyed the grass and corn; they were represented as appearing in legions. At the same time a blight destroyed the fruit and other vegetable productions; and another distinct species of worm, called the palmer-worm, answering to the description given in Sacred History, infested the land, devouring even the forest trees, and destroying all woodwork. The thermometer at Salem rose to 80° for fifty days, and for twelve days stood at 90°: in various other parts of the States it varied from 90° to 102°. The bilious plague, as reported by Dr. Rush, prevailed at Philadelphia. The island of Grenada in the West Indies suffered from a similar pestilence. Bilious remittent fever was also prevalent on the coast of Africa: the plague raged in Egypt, and typhus fever committed great ravages in England: yellow pestilence laid waste the Havannah; and a severe murrain afflicted the horned cattle in Hungary, Servia, and other European countries.
A.D. 1791, a tremendous earthquake was felt in Sicily, which destroyed many lives and much property; it was equal in severity to the shock experienced the year before at Borgo di San Sepolcro, during which an opening in the earth swallowed up many houses with their inhabitants. On the 2nd of February, this year, the Thames rose to an extreme height, and overflowed many parts of Westminster.
A.D. 1792. This was a pestilential year in Egypt; it is recorded that 800,000 persons died from plague. The winter of the previous year, 1791, was very severe, and the spring wet and rainy in the southern parts of the United States; the summer was cold up to June, cold north-west winds prevailing. In May and June, locusts appeared in the State of New York, and devoured the grain; the wheat insect continued its ravages with great destruction to the crops in Long Island and also in Maryland and north of the Elk ridge. In the month of July, yellow fever raged terribly, causing great mortality in the city of Charleston. A kind of caterpillar destroyed the lime-trees in Philadelphia, and in the month of August, scarlet fever carried off numbers in that city, as well as in New York, and in a place called Bethlem.
A.D. 1793, the spring was dry, the summer intensely hot and showery, with hail, and the autumn dry and cold. A fatal dysentery swept off vast numbers in Georgetown, Coventry; a nervous fever was prevalent at a place called Fairfield. Yellow fever raged to an alarming extent in Philadelphia, carrying off in the course of four or five months upwards of 4000 persons: it was also fatal in Boston. In the following year it prevailed in Baltimore, and at Norfolk in Virginia. About this period a similar epidemic caused great destruction in the island of Dominica and other of the West Indian islands: in Dominica it continued for three years, until 1796.
A.D. 1794, an awful earthquake was felt at Naples, and Vesuvius, pouring forth its flames, overwhelmed the city of Torre del Greco. The following year, the weather was uncommonly bad, the spring cold and late, the summer suffocatingly hot, damp, and rainy, whilst south winds were prevalent,—the fruits perished from mould. There was a disease among vegetables, especially the potatoes and cabbages. A dense moisture penetrated into the inmost recesses of the houses, even into desks, bureaux, &c., and the walls appeared covered with a damp white mould, which destroyed the paper-hangings. Millions of mosquitoes and other insects were generated; in fact, a pestilential constitution of the air, answering to the description given by Hippocrates and other writers, was evidenced by these signs. Yellow fever raged with great violence in many parts of the United States of America, viz. in Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, &c., and continued until 1800. “In the whole course of my life,” says Professor Kemp, writing to Dr. Baily on yellow fever, “I never experienced a state of air so distressingly debilitating, and unfriendly to my spirits.” On the 6th of February, this year, a severe shock of an earthquake was felt at Vienna. At this period 10,000 persons lost their lives in three towns of Turkey by a similar catastrophe.