The History of Epidemics in the Middle Ages. J. F. C. Hecker
to the present moment, it might almost seem that the most essential preliminaries are wanting for the accomplishment of such an undertaking. The study of medical history is everywhere at a low ebb;—in France and England scarcely a trace remains, to the most serious detriment of the whole domain of medicine; in Germany too, there are but few who suspect what inexhaustible stores of instructive truth are lying dormant within their power; they may, perhaps, class them among theoretical doctrines, and commend the laborious investigation of them without being willing to recognise their spirit. None of the Universities of Germany, whose business it ought to be to provide, in this respect, for the prosperity of the inheritance committed to their charge, can boast a Professor’s chair for the History of Medicine; nay, in many, it is so entirely unknown, that it is not even regarded as an object of secondary importance, so that it is to be apprehended that the fame of German erudition, may, at least in medicine, gradually vanish, and our medical knowledge become, as practical indeed, but at the same time as assuming, as mechanical, and as defective, as that of France and England. Even those noble institutions, the Academies, in which the spirit of the eighteenth century still lingers, and whose more peculiar province it is to explore the rich pages of science, have not entered upon the history of Epidemics, and by their silence have encouraged the unfounded and injurious supposition, that this field is desolate and unfruitful.
All these obstacles are indeed great, but to determined and persevering exertion they are not insuperable; and, though we cannot conceal them from ourselves, we should not allow them to daunt our spirit. There is, in Germany, a sufficiency of intellectual power to overcome them; let this power be combined, and exert itself in active co-operation. Sooner or later a new road must be opened for Medical Science. Should the time not yet have arrived, I have at least endeavoured to discharge my duty, by attempting to point out its future direction.
THE BLACK DEATH.
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
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 deems a single paragraph sufficient to devote to its notice, and Henry and Rapin are equally brief.
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, shall even then find our views too narrow, and be compelled, in our endeavours to explain the facts, to acknowledge the existence of unknown powers, wholly unconnected either with communication by contact or atmospheric contamination.
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 reasoning on ascertained facts, we can perceive nothing throughout this vast field for physical research which is not evidently governed by the laws of inert matter—nothing which resembles the regular succession of birth, growth, decay, death, and regeneration, observable in organized beings. To assume, therefore, causes of whose existence we have no proof, in order to account for effects which, after all, they do not explain, is making no real advance in knowledge, and can scarcely be considered otherwise than an indirect method of confessing our ignorance.
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 of past ages,—that by comparing them with those of our own time, we may be made the more sensible how lightly the chastening hand of Providence has fallen on the present generation, and how much reason, therefore, we have to feel grateful for the mercy shown us.
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, we may well congratulate ourselves that our visitation has not been like theirs, and shall not justly merit ridicule, if we offer our humble thanks to the “Creator and Preserver of all mankind” for our deliverance.
Nor would it disgrace our feelings, if, in expiation of the abuse and obloquy not long since so lavishly bestowed by the public on the medical profession, 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 time, so illustrative of the opinions of his day, and even of those of the fourteenth century, on the causes of universal diseases, that the passages which I have quoted will not fail to afford some amusement as well as instruction. If I have been tempted to reprint more of this curious production than was necessary to my primary object, it has been from a belief that it would be generally acceptable to the reader to gather some particulars regarding the mode of living in the sixteenth century, and to observe the author’s animadversions on the degeneracy and credulity of the age in which he lived. His advice on the choice of a medical attendant cannot be too strongly recommended, at least by a physician; and his warning against quackery, particularly the quackery of painters, who “scorne (quære score?) you behind your backs with their medicines, so filthy that I am ashamed to name them,” seems