In reading Dr. Hecker’s account of the Black Death which destroyed so large a portion of the human race in the fourteenth century, I was struck, not only with the peculiarity of the Author’s views, but also with the interesting nature of the facts which he has collected. Some of these have never before been made generally known, while others have passed out of mind, being effaced from our memories by subsequent events of a similar kind, which, though really of less magnitude and importance, have, in the perspective of time, appeared greater, because they have occurred nearer to our own days. Dreadful as was the pestilence here described, and in few countries more so than in England, our modern historians only slightly allude to its visitation:—Hume It may not then be unacceptable to the medical, or even to the general reader, to receive an authentic and somewhat detailed account of one of the greatest natural calamities that ever afflicted the human race. My chief motive, however, for translating this small work, and at this particular period, has been a desire that, in the study of the causes which have produced and propagated general pestilences, and of the moral effects by which they have been followed, the most enlarged views should be taken. The contagionist and the anti-contagionist may each find ample support for his belief in particular cases; but in the construction of a theory sufficiently comprehensive to explain throughout the origin and dissemination of universal disease, we shall not only perceive the insufficiency of either doctrine, taken singly, but after admitting the combined influence of both, I by no means wish it to be understood, that I have adopted the author’s views respecting astral and telluric influences, the former of which, at least, I had supposed to have been, with alchemy and magic, long since consigned to oblivion; much less am I prepared to accede to his notion, or rather an ancient notion derived from the East and revived by him, of an organic life in the system of the universe. We are constantly furnished with proofs, that that which affects life is not itself alive; and whether we look to the earth for exhalations, to the air for electrical phenomena, to the heavenly bodies for an influence over our planet, or to all these causes combined, for the formation of some unknown principle noxious to animal existence, still, if we found our Still, however, I regard the author’s opinions, illustrated as they are by a series of interesting facts diligently collected from authentic sources, as, at least, worthy of examination before we reject them, and valuable, as furnishing extensive data on which to build new theories. I have another, perhaps I may be allowed to say a better, motive for laying before my countrymen this narrative of the sufferings The publication has, with this view, been purposely somewhat delayed, in order that it might appear at a moment when it is to be presumed that men’s thoughts will be especially directed to the approaching hour of public thanksgiving, and when a knowledge of that which they have escaped, as well as of that which they have suffered, may tend to heighten their devotional feelings on that solemn occasion. When we learn that, in the fourteenth century, one quarter, at least, of the population of the old world was swept away in the short space of four years, and that some countries, England among the rest, lost more than double that proportion of their inhabitants in the course of a few months, Nor would it disgrace our feelings, if, in expiation of the abuse and obloquy not long since so lavishly bestowed by the public, we should entertain some slight sense of gratitude towards those members of the community, who were engaged, at the risk of their lives and the sacrifice of their personal interests, in endeavouring to arrest the progress of the evil, and to mitigate the sufferings of their fellow men. I have added, at the close of the Appendix, some extracts from a scarce little work in black letter, called “A Boke or Counseill against the Disease commonly called the Sweate or Sweatyng Sicknesse,” published by Caius in 1552. This was written three years before his Latin treatise on the same subject, and is so quaint, and, at the same In conclusion, I beg to acknowledge the obligation which I owe to my friend Mr. |