Epidemics : their origin and prevention / by J. Foster Palmer.

  • Palmer, J. Foster (James Foster)
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Epidemics : their origin and prevention / by J. Foster Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    third century carried off nearly half the population of the world.* From this time till the eigliteenth cen- tury, a period of just 1500 years, it became a European disease, extending to its extreme limit in the British Isles, where it remained from 664-5 to 1665-7 A.D. Although constantly endemic in Europe during this period, there were periodical outbreaks of greater or less activity. One of the most important of these was the epidemic of the sixth century (554 A.D.) This is the first epidemic of plague which has been clearly defined, and from this time we have little difficulty in tracing its progress. We are told by Gibbon that it resulted in a visible diminution of the human race, which, he says, in many countries lias never been repaired. For some time 10,000 people died each day at Constantinople, and he considers that 100,000,000 would not be an unfair estimate of the total deaths.t About a century later (665 A.D.) the plague spread over the British Isles. This was the first time it had ever visited Scotland. It was attributed to the fact that the Scotch had fallen off from their former habits of temperance and virtue. It left them on their return to prayer, temperance, and cleanliness. On the other hand, it is said to have visited Ireland in answer to prayer: a famine had taken place, food was scarce, it is quite possible that this was due to the continuation of an earlier civilisation, and that Ireland, and indeed all the British Isles, had a history extending back into very remote ages, as has now been shown to be the case in so many countries in various parts of the world. That these ancient documents do not exist in Britain is explained by the fact that the Saxons invariably de- stroyed the relics of civilisation of all countries that they over- ran, and that Ireland did not come at that early period under their ]^ower. In any case, we may assume that wherever man has lived in the past, in a state approaching civilisation, he has been subject to diseases and epidemics. * Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Eoman Empire, vol. i., chap. X., page 456. f Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. vii., chap. XLiii., page 423.