We dwell in a region of the earth, seldom touched by this besom of destruction. Pestilence and famine have rarely come nigh unto us. It would be impious to envy the denizens of milder climes.
“With gold and gems if Chilian mountains glow,
If bleak and barren Scotia’s hills arise;
There plague and poison, lust and rapine grow,
Here peaceful are the vales and pure the skies.”
I thank heaven, I was not an undertaker, in London, in 1665, when there were scarcely enough of the living to bury the dead. When I used to wrap myself up, in the pages of Robinson Crusoe, how little I suspected, that Daniel Defoe was the writer of some twenty volumes beside. His inimitable history of the plague, of 1665, is admirable reading, for the members of our craft.
At irregular periods, plague, yellow fever, sweating sickness, and cholera have visited the earth, with terrible effect. Let us take a cursory view of these awful visitations. A. D. 78, 10,000 perished daily at Rome. The plague returned there A. D. 167. Terrible plague in Britain A. D. 430. A dreadful plague spread over Europe, Asia and Africa, A. D. 558, and continued, for several years. 200,000 died of the plague in Constantinople, A. D. 746. This plague raged for three years, and extended to Calabria, Sicily and Greece. William of Malmsbury states, that A. D. 772, an epidemic disease carried off 34,000 in Chichester, England. 40,000 died of pestilence in Scotland, A. D. 954. Hollingshed gives an account of a terrible plague among cattle, A. D. 1111, and in Ireland A. D. 1204. In this year a general plague raged in Europe. In London 200 persons were buried daily, in the Charterhouse yard. A dreadful mortality prevailed in London and Paris, A. D. 1362 and ’7. Great pestilence in Ireland A. D. 1383. Endemic destroyed 30,000 in London A. D. 1407. Great numbers died of plague in Ireland, following famine, A. D. 1466. Dublin was severely visited with plague A. D. 1470. Rapin and Salmon give an account of the plague at Oxford, A. D. 1471, and throughout England A. D. 1478.
The sweating sickness, sudor Anglicus, first appeared, in England, in 1483, in the army of Henry VII., on his landing at Milfordhaven. A year or two after, it travelled to London, and remained there, with intermissions, for forty years. It then passed over to the continent, and overran Holland, Germany, Flanders, France, Denmark, and Norway. It continued in those countries, from 1525 to 1530; it then returned to England; and was last known there, in 1551. It was a malignant fever, accompanied with very great thirst, delirium, and excessive sweat. Dr. Caius called it “a contagious, pestilential fever of one day, prevailing with a mighty slaughter, as tremendous as the plague of Athens.” Dr. Willis says, “Its malignity was so extreme, that as soon as it entered a city, it made a daily attack, on five or six hundred persons, of whom scarcely one in a hundred recovered.” Strype says, “The plague of sweat this summer, 1551, was very severe, and carried away multitudes of people, rich and poor, especially in London, where, in one day, July 10th, died an hundred people, and the next, one hundred and twenty. From the 8th of this month to the 19th, there died in London, of this sweat, 872.”
Stowe says that, in the 9th year of Henry VII., 1517, half the population, in the capital towns of England, died of the sweating sickness: and that it proved fatal, in three hours. In the year 1500, Stowe also says, that the plague was so terrible in London, that Henry VII. and his court went over to Calais. The plague prevailed in England and Ireland, in 1603, and in London 30,000 persons died. In 1611, 200,000 died of pestilence, in Constantinople; 35,000 persons died of an epidemic in London, in 1625. In 1632 a general mortality prevailed in France; 60,000 died in Lyons. The plague was brought from Sardinia to Naples, in 1656, and 400,000 of the Neapolitans died, in six months. In the great plague of London, of 1665, described by De Foe, 68,596 persons died. In 1720, 60,000 perished of the plague at Marseilles.
An account is given, by the Abbe Mariti, of one of the most awful plagues ever known, which prevailed in Syria, in 1760. In Persia, 80,000 inhabitants of Bassorah, died of the plague, in 1773. In 1792, the plague destroyed 800,000 persons in Egypt. In 1799, 247,000 died of the plague at Fez; and in Barbary, 3000 daily, for several days. In 1804 and ’5, an immense number were destroyed, by the plague, in Gibraltar. At the same place, in 1828, many were swept away, by an epidemic fever, scarce distinguishable from the plague. Verily the vocation of an undertaker is anything but a sinecure! But, in such terrible emergencies, as were hourly occurring, during the prevalence of the great plague of London, such an operator as Pontraci would have cast aside all thoughts of shrouds and coffins. In one single night 4000 died. The hearses were common dead carts; and the continued cry, bring out your dead, rang through every heart. Defoe rates the victims of the plague of 1665, at 100,000.
At present, we have a deeper interest in the pestilence of modern times, though by some accounted of great antiquity. The Indian or Asiatic cholera traversed the north, east and south of Europe, and the countries of Asia, and, in two years, prostrated 900,000 victims. It subsequently appeared in England, at Sunderland, Oct. 26, 1831; in Scotland, at Edinburgh, Feb. 6, 1832; in Ireland, at Dublin, March 3, 1832. The mortality was great, but much less than upon the continent. Between March and August, 1832, 18,000 died of cholera, in Paris. In July and August, 1837, it reappeared in Rome, the Two Sicilies, Genoa, Berlin, and some other cities. Its ravages, in this country, were far less notable, than in many others. It is very wise to cast about us, and determine what we will do, if it should come again, and it is very likely to take us in its progress. But let us not forget, that it will most easily approach us, through our fears; and probably, in no disease, are fear and grief more fatal avant couriers, than in affections of the abdominal viscera.
I am half inclined to the opinion of a charming old lady of my acquaintance, who, after listening to a learned discussion, as to the seat of the soul—the fountain of sensibility,—and whether or not it was seated in the conarion—the pineal gland—gave her decided opinion, that it was seated in the bowels.