A brief history of epidemic and pestilential diseases: with the principal phenomena of the physical world, which precede and accompany them, and observations deduced from the facts stated ; in two volumes (Volume 2).

  • Webster, Noah, 1758-1843.
Date:
1799
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A brief history of epidemic and pestilential diseases: with the principal phenomena of the physical world, which precede and accompany them, and observations deduced from the facts stated ; in two volumes (Volume 2). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    lo8 Lord Bacon informs us that during a plague in his time, thei * were found in the ditches and low grounds about London, a Ipecies of animals which he calls toads^ with tails two or three inches long—a kind of animals doubtlefs which we often fee in ftagnant waters, but of larger fize. He remarks further, that , thofe years have been noted for peftilential and unwholefome, •wherein there were great numbers of frogs, flies, locufts, &c. Works, vol. .-;. p. i66. Ariftotle mentions the multitudes of frogs in fickly years. Prob. fee. i. Horftius informs us that unufual numbers of frogs, toads* lo- cufts, ferpents, canker-worms, mice, fnails and fimilar infefts, are the infallible figns of a peftilence. To thefe he adds an ex- traordinary abundance of fifli in the fea and in rivers. See p. 253, dc pefte. ■- The commencement of the prefent peftilential ftate in Amer- 'ica was diftinguifhed by an unufual plenty of fhad, of which fourteen thoufand were caught at one draft of a feine, near the ■ harbor of New-York. I have met with one or two writers be- lides Horftius, who have mentioned this phenomenon, among the prefages of peftilence, particularly Paracelfus in vol. i. 168. The plague of 1635 and 6 in Holland was accompanied or preceded by an incredible number of infefts, as gnats, butterflies, beetles, wafps, grafs-hoppers, but efpecially flies, which were lb numerous, as to cover the ceilings of houfes, and even to obfcure the fun in the open air. See Diemerbroeck, de peftc, p. 16. In the plague at Laufanne, in 1613, flies were in fimilar abundance. Ibnt, The approach of the plague at Dantzick, in 1709, was an- iiounced by incredible numbers of fpiders, in the preceding year. Baddam's Memoirs, vol. 6. 1.3. The year 1633, which produced a peftilential fever among the fettlers at Plymouth in America, was remarkable for fwarms of large flies, which filled the woods with their humming founds. In the month of Auguft, during a dreadful drouth at Bengal in 1770, which cut fhort the rice-crops and produced a terrible famin, and fubfequent epidemic fever, the air was filled with a