Statistics of the British Empire : mortality of the metropolis : a statistical view of the number of persons reported to have died, of each of more than 100 kinds of disease, and casualties, within the bills of mortality, in each of the two hundred and four years, 1629-1831 ... / by J. Marshall.

  • John Marshall
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Statistics of the British Empire : mortality of the metropolis : a statistical view of the number of persons reported to have died, of each of more than 100 kinds of disease, and casualties, within the bills of mortality, in each of the two hundred and four years, 1629-1831 ... / by J. Marshall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ferred from the diminution which it occasioned in the value or Money price of all commodities. In the Chronicon Preciosum, published in 1707, it is stated that in the Pestilence [1348] things were sold almost for nothing. A Horse worth 40s. was sold for 6s. 8d., a Cow for Is., which in 1344 would have sold for 5s., and so in proportion for all other things; both cattle and sheep, however, appear to have fallen Victims either to the Disease, or to hunger occasioned by want of attention and provision during the Winter; it is mentioned that 5000 Sheep perished in one district. The loss of animals, and the seeming suspension or limitation of Agricultural pursuits, in 1349, after the Pestilence had ceased, which it did before the end of August in that year, occasioned the price of Provisions to rise again to a degree that exposed to the risk of Famine those who had escaped the Pestilence ; but, as the people soon recovered their wonted energy, liberal supplies of Com were obtained from distant parts, whereby con- fidence and activity soon again became permanently re-established. The Scots, between whom and the English great strife at this period prevailed, attempted to take advantage of the Consternation in which the Pestilence had involved the English, by marching a considerable body of Troops into the North of England, which Troops immediately became infected with the Disease, so that they were soon glad to return, carrying back with them the Pestilence, as the merited reward of their enterprise. In Ireland the Plague appears to have committed great ravages among the English settlers, while it affected the Native Irish but very partially. 29. Although this unexampled Pestilence is stated to have raged in different parts of the World, from 1345 to 1362, its Virulence appears to have considerably abated after 1350, and in England entirely so before the end of August, 1349; and the Mortality in other parts, subsequent to the latter date, was probably occasioned as much, or more, by the privation and destitution of all social comfort, in which such a calamity was calculated to leave large numbers of Survivors, as from any marked or Specific Pestilential Disease. See Column 66 of the first, and 75—81 of the second, Periodical Display of Diseases, for the effects which the Plague of 1665 appeals to have left behind it: all those Diseases, as well as those in Columns 16—20, and 28, in the first period, appear to have been consequences of the more virulent effects of the Pestilence which committed such ravages in the Year in question [1665]. One of the worst features to which the Pestilence of 1345—50 gave rise, was the accusation of different Sects and Parties of Poisoning the Waters, and other similar Mal-practices, and assigning to them the cause of the desolation which had prevailed. Both Christians and Jews, in their turn, appear to have been persecuted unto death in great numbers. At Mentz 12,000 Jews are stated to have fallen victims to the fury of an ignorant and brutal populace, under the pretext of their having poisoned the waters of the wells of that city. ■ 30. In Section 63 it is stated that in Florence more than 60,000 persons fell victims to the Pesti- lence, in 1347. This was the period of Italian glory in literature and art, and in political importance. Giovanni Villani, one of the most elegant and faithful of her historians, was one of the Pest’s victims. Giovanni Boccaccio, however, another of the luminaries of Italian literature, survived to adorn the sub- sequent pages of her history, and the Pestilence in question appears to have led to the production of the deservedly celebrated Ten Days Tales [II Decamerone], the introduction to which, as versified by an English Translator, is so confirmatory of the consternation of the period that, although in verse, I shall venture to introduce an extract therefrom:— “This Preface to remembrance calls A Plague of such forlorn career, That yet the soundest mind appals. The dreadful narrative to hear. Know then, my gentle readers fair, A Plague broke out in Florence gay, Which neither age nor sex did spare. And swept off hundreds every day. No human skill neglected was Its dreadful progress to restrain, But, from an unknown heavenly cause, All earthly efforts proved in vain. No language can the misery paint, No artist’s pencil has the power, For words and colours are too faint To represent each shocking hour.