A.D. 1616, Germany was greatly troubled with epidemic agues. Two years after, violent tempests, inundations, volcanic eruptions, meteors, &c. distinguished this pestilential period or season. A malignant angina prevailed at Naples: the plague infested Bergen, Norway, Denmark, Egypt, the Levant, and many other places; and a terrible yellow pestilence, in both North and South America, swept away thousands of the Aborigines (Indians). Hutchison says, that the Massachusetts tribe in North America, consisting of 30,000 persons, was reduced to 300! Gorges writes, that the disease occurred in the summer and autumn for several years, commencing A.D. 1618, and ending in 1623. This distemper the Indians described as a spotted putrid fever, with ulcers, and yellowness of the skin and eyes, and bleeding from the mouth and ears. This pestilence must have been of domestic origin, as no known intercourse had been held with any part of this new continent; it evidently was endemic—a bilious pestilence.

A.D. 1617, a terrible inundation occurred in Catalonia in Spain, from continued heavy rains, during which more than 50,000 persons lost their lives: the year following, a comet appeared. From this time until 1623, Malta, Naples, Hungary, France, and England suffered from epidemic diseases, such as small-pox, plague, &c. Seville was visited by gangrenous sore-throat about this time; and in 1619, many places in the Levant suffered from epidemic pestilence. In 1620, Antonio de Fonseca, a Portuguese physician of the city of Lisbon, wrote a work entitled ‘De Epidemiâ febrili, grassante in exercitû Regis Catholici in inferiori Palatinato.’ During this year a heavy snow-storm was experienced, which continued for thirteen nights and days; upwards of 20,000 sheep in one district, Eskdale Moor, were destroyed by it and famine conjoined.

A.D. 1622, London was visited by epidemic pestilence, which continued for four years. In the first year there died 8000; in the second, 11,000; in the third, 12,000; and in the fourth, 35,417. Plague also broke out about this period in Amsterdam, and persisted, as it is stated, eight years. Pestilence was prevalent in many parts of Spain. In July, the Council of One Hundred, at Barcelona, received advice that pestilence had broken out at Argel; orders were given, in consequence, for the exclusion of all slaves and goods coming thence.

A.D. 1625, plague broke out in London, and raged with varied intensity all over England; 30,000 persons were carried off by it in London alone. Epidemic disease also prevailed in Italy, Denmark, and Egypt. Inundations occurred in Spain. In the month of January, the river Tormes departed from its bed, destroying cattle and houses in Salamanca. Seville suffered similarly from the overflowing of the Guadalquivir; and in the year following, 1626, pestilence carried off 60,000 persons at Lyons. France continued to suffer from pestilence the two following years.

A.D. 1629, epidemic pestilence broke out in Narbonne; it also prevailed at Amsterdam, and at Cambridge in England, where it raged mortally: yellow pestilence was rife at the same time in America, and plague raged at Marseilles.

A.D. 1630, the principality of Catalonia suffered from plague in different parts: Drs. Mas, Mox, and Rosell described the disease in their works: its symptoms were those of the malady which we now term Andalusian fever,—a yellow bilious fever. The city of Guadix suffered from pestilence of the puncticular type at the same time: it continued there for two years and upwards. Gangrenous ergotism prevailed in many of the provinces of France, as reported by Dr. Thullier, physician to the Duc de Sully, the prime minister of Henry IV. The first symptom of this extraordinary malady was a numbness of the legs, then pain with slight swelling, devoid of inflammation, to which succeeded rapidly coldness, lividness, mortification, and dropping off of the limbs. In many instances, the nose, fingers, hands, arms, feet, legs, thighs, sphacelated spontaneously, and dropped off. The following extraordinary account of a similar disease occurring in a family at Watlesham, in Suffolk, was transmitted to the Royal Society of London, and published in its ‘Transactions’ for the year 1762. The report was drawn up by Charlton Wollaston, M. D., F. R. S.: it was as follows:

John Downing, a labourer at Watlesham, in the month of January, 1762, had a wife and six children; the eldest, a girl about fifteen years of age, the youngest aged four months; at that time all were very well, as the man himself and neighbours assured Dr. Wollaston. On Sunday, the 10th of January, the eldest girl complained in the morning of a pain in her left leg, particularly in the calf, increasing severely towards evening. The same evening another girl (her sister), ten years old, complained also of violent pain in the leg. On the Monday the mother and another child, and on the Tuesday all the rest of the family, except the father, were affected in the same manner. Their pains were excessive, insomuch that the whole neighbourhood was alarmed by the loudness of their shrieks. The left leg only in most of the cases was affected; but in some, both legs were diseased. The infant was removed from its mother’s breast as soon as it fell ill, and survived only a few weeks. The nurse told Dr. Wollaston that it, too, seemed to be in violent pain, and that its legs became black before death.

Dr. Wollaston’s inquiries were very minute; he was told that in about four, five, or six days, the diseased leg became somewhat less painful, and gradually turned black, appearing at first covered with spots as if it had been bruised; then commenced the affection of the other leg, with the same excruciating pains, and in a few days thereafter that also began to mortify: in a very little time both legs were perfectly sphacelated: the mortified parts separated from the sound spontaneously, the attending surgeon having in most of the cases no other trouble than merely to saw through the bone, with little or no pain to the patient: the separation took place generally about two inches below the knee; in some, rather lower, and in one instance the feet separated at the ankles without any surgical aid; in others the separation was less perfect. The eldest girl had one leg taken off, and the other was entirely sphacelated, but the surgeon delayed removing it, owing to a large abscess which had formed under the hamstrings, attended with a swelling of the thigh. The mother’s right foot came off at the ankle-joint, while the other leg, wasted to the bone, was black and extremely fœtid, what little remained of flesh being quite putrid and almost dried. In one child alone was one of the legs saved, but with the loss, however, of two toes even from that. Three of the children lost both legs, and another child both its feet. The father was attacked about two weeks after the rest of the family, but in a slighter degree, the pain being confined to two fingers of his right hand, which turned blackish and withered for some time, but then got better, and he recovered the use of them.

It is remarkable that during the time of this dreadful calamity the whole family are said to have appeared well in some respects; that is to say, they ate heartily, and even slept well when the pain began to abate. When Dr. Wollaston saw them, they all seemed free from febrile symptoms, except the girl already mentioned, who had an abscess in the ham. The mother looked emaciated, and had but very little use of her hands. The rest of the family seemed well; one poor boy in particular looked as healthy and florid as possible, and was sitting on his bed, quite jolly, drumming with his stumps!

On inquiry, it was evident that this disease proceeded from eating bread made from spoiled wheat. Another labouring man, who had eaten of the same bread, was affected with a numbness in both hands for about four weeks from the 9th of January: they were continually cold, and the skin peeled off his fingers’ ends: one thumb, he says, remains without any sensation. A nurse who had lived with them from the beginning of their illness was not affected.

A.D. 1631, there was an eruption of Mount Vesuvius. An erysipelatous epidemic was prevalent in various parts of Europe. In the month of April a decree was published in Spain prohibiting all intercourse with France, where pestilence was rife. The year following, 1632, a similar decree was published prohibiting intercourse with Narbonne. Plague broke out at Dresden, and continued until the year 1637. A.D. 1633, Newcastle-upon-Tyne was inundated; many lives and much property were destroyed. The year following, 1634, plague raged with great violence at Ratisbon; and in 1635, epidemic pestilence carried off 20,000 of the inhabitants of Leyden; it also was very fatal in many parts of Germany.

A.D. 1636, frequent and excessive rains induced epidemic fevers during the summer and autumn in Barcelona and in other parts of Spain; plague raged in London, destroying 10,000 persons. Nemiguen suffered greatly from disease. Epidemic pestilence was also rife in Egypt; and, according to Diemmerbroeck’s account, also in Holland and Denmark. Constantinople with Natolia suffered greatly from disease of a similar kind.—A.D. 1638, malignant fevers with small-pox prevailed in the United States, and also along the coasts of South America: and a new disease, which continued for ten years, attacked the inhabitants, principally on the coasts of St. Andres, Malaga, Puerto de Santa Maria, and Xeres de la Frontera. Many provinces in the interior also suffered from it, as Burgos, Nieto, Viana, and other cities of Navarette. A severe earthquake was felt at Naples and in Sicily; it swallowed up several towns and more than 30,000 persons: it occurred in the month of March. The year following there was a severe frost in England, which continued for nine weeks, commencing on the 24th of December. London was visited by epidemic pestilence of a severe type; a similar disease was also rife in other parts of Europe.—A.D. 1640, many portions of South America inhabited by Spaniards suffered from yellow pestilence.

A.D. 1642, in the month of January, heavy rains fell continuously for sixteen days at Seville, during which time the Guadalquivir overflowed its banks, destroying much property in Castile, as also many of the inhabitants. The settlers at Newhaven, in the United States of America, and those on the banks of the Delaware river, suffered from pestilence, during this year. In the subsequent year, the city of Boston suffered from epidemic disease, as did also many other parts of the States. A malignant fever broke out in the army of the Earl of Essex, whilst besieging Reading, in England; the king’s army also suffered. Great numbers in both armies having died, it ultimately extended to Oxford and to all the villages within ten miles. It first appeared like a putrid synochus; after the middle of summer it raged with increased violence and in a greatly aggravated form; spots began to appear and pustules, attended with great prostration of strength; many had buboes as in the true plague. During the dog-days the disease was considered and treated as a mild form of plague.

A.D. 1644, epidemic malignant disease broke out at Madrid, causing great mortality. Denmark and England also suffered from malignant fevers, which were followed by dysentery. The preceding summer had been excessively hot, and there were also heavy and frequent showers, with dews at night.

A.D. 1646, inundations took place in Holland, in Zealand, and in Friesland. Earthquakes were felt in many parts of the world; in Chili, several mountains of the Andes sunk into the earth, one after another. A comet was seen about this period. The ravages of locusts were great during this and the two subsequent years. Pestilence caused great destruction in Andalusia: plague raged in London, extending to other parts of the kingdom, especially to Newark, Stafford, and Totnes. About the same time it likewise occasioned great mortality in Ireland. Epidemic catarrh prevailed in America, affecting equally the Dutch, English, and Swiss colonists. Pestilential yellow fever was rife throughout the West Indies, especially in Barbados and St. Kitts; it has been computed that in the two islands 12,000 perished. Various parts of Spain suffered from epidemic pestilence during this and the following years: the city of Valencia suffered great mortality from an epidemic; it was of so general a character, that it seized on old and young.

A.D. 1649, epidemic small-pox prevailed in the city of Boston, United States; plague revisited London and Shropshire, and was destructive in Ireland. Spain suffered dreadfully this year, especially in the southern provinces, where, it is said, disease carried off 200,000 persons. Marseilles also suffered greatly. This year, says Fray Francisco de Cabrera, was the most tragic ever known in Seville, at least since 1246; the violence of the pestilence ceased about May, when the city was one entire hospital. There was great mortality also at Marbella, a port of the Mediterranean. In France, a very hot summer, with much thunder and lightning, was experienced, which did great mischief in Guienne, Bourdeaux, and other provinces, firing hayricks, granaries, &c. Several of the Members of the Parliament of Aix were found dead in their beds after a tempestuous night of thunder and lightning; and the day following, the roof of the house in which Parliament was assembled fell in, and killed several members.

A.D. 1650, the winter was open, and the spring cold and wet. Severe influenza prevailed all over Europe, and was succeeded by a general pestilence during the hot summer and autumn. It prevailed in the form of ague in Denmark, and of inflammatory fever in France. This epidemic, in rather a formidable character, called by some writers ‘ignis sacer’ and ‘fièvre St. Antoine,’ and by the French ‘ergot,’ raged during this period with great mortality in Sologne. The disease was not ascribed so much to the scarcity of food, as to a diseased state of the rye. It commenced with lassitude and debility, followed by torpor, swelling, and burning heat, with excruciating pains in the lower limbs, which became shrivelled and dark, and at length gangrenous. There was reason, however, to believe that this malady was the result of insufficient food, amounting almost to starvation, and not of diseased grain. The lower classes, as is generally the case, suffered most. Pestilence also caused great ravages in Russia and Poland. Clouds of locusts were seen to enter the former country in three different places: they afterwards spread over Poland to Lithuania in such astonishing multitudes, that the air was darkened and the earth blackened with their numbers. In very many places they were found heaped up upon each other to the depth of four feet! in others they covered the surface of the ground like a black cloth. The trees bent with their weight; and the damage sustained by the country was beyond computation.

The city of Carmona was visited by epidemic pestilence, as was also the neighbouring country. The disease which pervaded Andalusia soon spread with great mortality through the populations of Catalonia, Aragon, and Valencia. In the month of February the Council of One Hundred (Ciento) of Barcelona were occupied with the pestilence which was ravaging Tortosa. In May the same Council declared Gerona to be in a pestilential condition. The year following, 1651, the city of Huesca, as also Alcubierre and a greater part of the population of Aragon, suffered from pestilence of rather a formidable character. Barcelona soon became affected; the disease raged there with extreme violence. Dr. Salvador wrote a work describing this pestilence: it was entitled ‘Breve Tratado de la Peste y fiebre pestilente, en el qual se trata de su esencia, causas, dignocion, preservacion y purificacion.’—A.D. 1652, a comet was seen.

A.D. 1653. In Girona, at present called Gerona y Osterlique, pestilence broke out, and raged with violence. The year following, 1654, epidemic disease again made its appearance in England and also in Denmark. In the month of April it broke out in Chester in England. Pestilential disease at this period was also rife in Turkey, Russia, Presburg, Hungary, Italy, Egypt, Malta, Sardinia, Leyden, Riga, and Amsterdam: 200,000, it is stated, died from it in Moscow alone, 9000 in Riga, 13,200 at Amsterdam, and 13,000 at Leyden.

Two years after (1656), 240,000 persons were destroyed by mortal pestilence in Naples; a great number—9000—in Benevento, 10,000 at Genoa, the like number at Rome, and in the Neapolitan territories generally it is supposed 400,000 perished. Cardinal Gastaldi, speaking of the pestilence at Rome, states that it was one of the most horrible diseases Rome had ever suffered from. The same author eulogizes the precautionary measures adopted by the Spaniards and the Portuguese. Franco, a physician of Carmona, in his work entitled ‘Elysius jucundarum Quæstionum Campus medicis imprimis utilis,’ lauds as great alexipharmics the properties of the unicorn and of the bezoar concretion.

In the spring of 1658, epidemic catarrh prevailed all over Europe, and in the following autumn degenerated into malignant fever: it caused great mortality in England and France, where the seasons were very intemperate. Epidemic disease was also rife in North America during this period. The fever which prevailed in England was of a peculiar kind—a pernicious intermittent: it was universal, and raged with as great destructiveness as the plague. A similar disease, we are informed by Morton, continued for some years previous to the plague of 1665. Oliver Cromwell died of it; and Morton states that his own father also perished by it, and that he himself and his whole family were infected. “Matrem pientissimam, fratres, sorores, servos, ancillas, nutrices conductitias, quotquot erant intra eosdem nobiscum parietes, ac fere omnes ejusdem ac vicinorum pagorum incolas, hoc veneno infectos et decumbentes vidi.” He proceeds to say that the cold weather afterwards checked the disease in some measure,—yet the seeds of it seem to have been by no means destroyed; for it still continued to show itself under other forms: “durante enim brumâ, intermittentes quartanas, tertianas, quotidianas, ab ejusdem veneni mitiore gradu oriundas, fere æque epidemias videre erat ac in autumno συνεχέας seu remittentes; neque mehercule sæviente gelu penitus defecerunt istæ febres continentes. Atque equidem hancce febrem hoc pacto sub typo συνεχέος præsertim simplicis et legitimæ, quotidianæ scilicet, vel tertianæ, maxime vulgarem fuisse, et tempore autumnalis plus minus epidemiam, usque ad annum 1664 observavi.” He informs us likewise, that in the two years immediately succeeding the great plague, dysenteries were very frequent; so that in the autumn of 1667, “civitas fere universa hoc morbo correpta videbatur, atque singulis septimanis 345 plus minus fluxu et torminibus confecti fatis cedebant.”

It was during this year (1658) that remarkable phenomena were observed in various parts of Europe. The most tempestuous and inclement weather was experienced; and on the day on which Oliver Cromwell died, there arose a dreadful storm in England, which was felt all over Europe, and from its severity seemed to threaten all nature.

Two years after, A.D. 1660, there was an eruption of Vesuvius.

A.D. 1661, a comet made its appearance, and an earthquake was again felt with great severity at Chili: China suffered in a similar manner the same year, 300,000 persons having been buried in Pekin alone.

The year following, A.D. 1662, great drought was experienced in England; the springs were dried up, the rivers were very low, and an epizootic prevailed with great mortality among cattle: it was of rather a remarkable character, being a disease of the liver; a small worm (entozoa), especially in sheep, it is said, seemed to prey on the liver, lungs, and bowels: Venice was also visited by pestilence, of which it is said 60,000 persons died. Puerperal fever was very destructive this year at Leipsic and at Copenhagen.

A.D. 1663, severe pestilence prevailed in England. The illustrious Sydenham graphically describes the various epidemic maladies which prevailed all over England from the year 1661 unto 1680. Inflammatory fevers and quinsies, he says, were more frequent in London than they were ever before known to be. During the summer of 1664, in the month of May, a comet was seen and a malignant fever prevailed, which could not in many cases be distinguished from the true plague; and in the month of June it became greatly aggravated. From the 2nd of November the true plague raged with violence, and continued with great mortality for eighteen months, unto May, 1666. Among the signs foreshowing the advent of the plague, it is said that birds, wild fowl, and wild beasts left their accustomed haunts, and but few swallows were seen. In the summer of 1664, there were such multitudes of flies, that the insides of houses swarmed with them; ants were generated in great numbers, and might have been taken up from the highways in handsful; the ditches were filled with frogs and various kinds of insects.

The plague was ushered in with seven months’ dry weather and westerly winds: it commenced on the highest parts of London, in the parish of St. Giles in the Fields, whence it extended rapidly to St. Martin’s, Westminster, Highgate, Hampstead, and Acton; all these parishes and villages were soon infected.

“The disease,” says Mr. Boghurst, a medical practitioner, who resided in the metropolis during the whole period of the prevalence of the disease, “spread not altogether by contagion at first, nor began only at one place, and spread farther and farther as an eating and spreading sore doth all over the body, but fell upon several places of the city and suburbs like rain even at the first,—as St. Giles’, St. Martin’s, Chancery Lane, Southwark, Houndsditch, and some places within the city, as at Proctors’ Houses.” Boghurst further states that “this year, 1665, in which the plague hath raged so much, no alteration nor change appeared in any element, vegetable or animal, besides the body of man, except only the season of the year and the winds; the spring being continually dry for six or seven months together, there being no rain at all, but a little sprinkling shower or two about the latter end of April, which caused a pitiful crop of hay in the spring: in the autumn there was a pretty good crop, but all other things were healthy and sound, and all sorts of fruits, such as apples, pears, cherries, plums, grapes, melons, cabbages, &c.; all roots, as parsnips, carrots, turnips; all flowers, and medicinal simples, were as plentiful, large, fair, and wholesome, and all grain as plentiful and as good as ever.” 68,596 persons are reported to have been carried off this year by the plague in London alone. A comet was seen in 1665, and an earthquake shook Oxford. Immediately after the great fire, on the 2nd September, 1666, which destroyed 13,200 houses, fatal dysentery was very prevalent. During this period, a plague infested the island of Malta; yellow pestilence, or fever, prevailed in the island of St. Domingo, as also in many other of the West Indian Islands; Holland and Prussia suffered from severe epidemic disease: and the year following, 1667, a miliary pestilence raged in Bavaria; Spain suffered from epidemic pestilence, from which no province escaped: it caused great mortality, and was rapidly fatal. Don Pedro Vasquez, a physician of Toledo, describes the symptoms as being those of quinsy, attended with malignant fever, in his work entitled ‘Morbi Essentia qui non solum per hanc insignem urbem Tolitanam, sed per totam Hispaniam sparsim grassatur, quem vulgus garratillo appellat, Apologetica Disceptatio; et ea quæ in curatione hujus morbi sunt animadvertenda.’

The same year, A.D. 1667, Salamanca and Lisbon suffered from pestilence. Yellow fever appeared in the United States of America in A.D. 1668, and was especially destructive in the cities of New York and Philadelphia; in the subsequent year, the inhabitants of Norway were visited by pestilence in the shape of malignant measles, which with small-pox was also rife in England. About this time, a terrible earthquake occurred at Naples, which destroyed great numbers of lives and houses in Benevento. The Archbishop was dug out of the ruins, and became afterwards Pope Benedict XIII.

A.D. 1670, gangrenous ergotism broke out in Aquitaine, in Sologne, and in the Galinois district; it continued until 1674, by which time it had extended to Montagris and the neighbourhood.

A.D. 1672, in the month of December, there fell in the West of England a shower of rain that froze into ice as soon as it touched the boughs of trees or anything above ground, and by the increase of size of the icicles, it broke all down with its weight. The ice on the sprig of an ash weighing three-quarters of a pound amounted to sixteen pounds. The rain that fell on the snow immediately became ice without sinking into the snow, so intensely cold was the weather. About this time, a strange phenomenon occurred; while the English were waiting for the flow of the tide, in order to land on the coast of Scheveling, they were disappointed; as the next tide flowed but two hours, when an ebb for many hours succeeded, which carried the English fleet again to sea before the return of the flow: the Hollanders were thus preserved from an invasion, as it were, by a miracle. In Spain, great sterility of the land and epidemic disease prevailed. In the month of May, the Council of One Hundred were informed that pestilence had broken out on the French frontiers. Miliary pestilence prevailed in Hungary; and in the early part of the year following, 1673, an epidemic of a violent character broke out in Spain, which continued until 1684; it was described by Valcarcel as being of a tertiary type. The disease was of a mild form in the months of May and June, but increased in malignancy in August, September, and October to such a degree that it destroyed nearly half the inhabitants of Barcelona.

A.D. 1675 and 1676, virulent small-pox and measles again broke out in England. In the former year (1675), 11,300 persons were carried off by plague in the island of Malta: a miliary epidemic was very fatal in Hamburgh, and, according to Escobar, the inhabitants of the city of Carthagena suffered from epidemic tertian fevers.

A.D. 1677, a comet was observed. Pestilence again broke out in Murcia and Carthagena; thousands died of small-pox in Charleston, Massachusetts, United States, and a plague desolated many parts of Europe. From this year until 1679, epidemic pestilence overspread Spain; and, according to the statements of several historians, the capitals of Granada, Cordova, and Seville suffered greatly.

A.D. 1678. A comet was observed this year also. An inundation occurred in Gascony, when the water spouted in jets from the sides of an adjacent mountain in overwhelming quantities. Plagues ravaged Algeria and Morocco.—The year following, mortal pestilence prevailed in Vienna, and in Malaga and other parts of Andalusia.

A.D. 1679, pestilence and famine were rife in Germany from June until the month of December the following year, 1680: two comets were observed. Dresden suffered from plague, and cholera prevailed in England.

A.D. 1681, there was a great fire in Southwark, on the Surrey side of the Thames, and 600 houses were destroyed. Bronchial disease was prevalent in England: a mortal angina, which caused death in twenty-four hours, raged in Italy, Poland, Switzerland, and Germany; and at the same time a petechial fever prevailed in Dublin and in other parts of Ireland: pestilence was rife in the island of Sardinia and in different parts of Castile; it also broke out in the city of Esmirna, and extended to Carthagena, Murcia, and Oran, and soon after to Malaga, Antequera, Granada, Moron, Ronda, Lucena, Andujar, and other districts; and thence to Xeres, Santa Maria, and Cadiz.

A.D. 1682, there was an eruption of Vesuvius, and the city of Catania was destroyed by an earthquake; there was also an eruption of Etna, which destroyed 60,000 of the inhabitants. A comet was seen this year.

A.D. 1683, there was a comet seen, and earthquakes were felt in many parts of England. The winter was very inclement; and the frost was so severe at Christmas, that the river Thames was frozen over below Gravesend for thirteen weeks. Epidemic pestilence broke out in Argel and other parts of Berberia. The winters of this year and the following were the coldest ever experienced by the oldest inhabitants in Europe; the summers were rainy, and the autumns cold: epidemic disease spread over both continents—Europe and America. Pestilence, say Drs. Sastre and Puiz of Spain, prevailed over nearly the entire world; the city of Vich was greatly afflicted. Epidemic pestilence also prevailed with the greatest violence on the coasts of Spain; the Hungarian fever did much mischief in Leyden. The three following years the summers were hot and dry; grasshoppers overspread Languedoc in France, the subsequent autumn being cold and wet. Malignant fevers were very destructive in Europe and America.

A.D. 1686, Friesland was inundated, and thousands of men and cattle were drowned. The following year, an earthquake shook the island of Jamaica and Lima. There occurred also an inundation in Yorkshire; a rock opened visibly, and water was thrown into the air to the height of an ordinary church steeple: a comet was observed. Yellow pestilence caused great mortality in the West Indies, especially in the island of Martinique, where it was called ‘Maladie de Siam,’ from the supposition that it had been imported from that country.

A.D. 1688. Catarrhs, pleurisies, and dysentery were epidemic, this year, both in Europe and America; and during the following years, 1689–90 and 1691, pestilence prevailed with great severity in Germany, Italy, various parts of Spain, and in the United States of America: it was preceded in America by hot and moist weather.

A.D. 1690, about the beginning of June, all the legumina and springing corn were spotted with mildew; grapes and other fruits were destroyed, or rendered unfit for use, and the leaves of herbs, shrubs, &c., were eaten to the stems by various insects. Much rain fell during the first seven months of the year and after the autumnal equinox in Lombardy. “All the animals suffered,” observes Ramazzini; “even bees and silkworms perished; and the cicadæ did not sing this year; swine died of suffocation,—but the greatest destruction was among cattle.” He applies the title ‘pestilential’ to the disease affecting men in the season which proved so fatal to cattle. Miliary or sweating pestilence committed great ravages in Stuttgart, Dusseldorf, Erfurt, and Jena. Bilious remittent or yellow fever was prevalent in the United States of America; it raged with great violence in Charleston. Various parts of Spain, about this period, suffered from epidemic pestilence, especially Perpignan and Bellagardi; disease was also rife in Italy. A severe earthquake was felt this year all over Ireland.

A.D. 1692, the summer was hot and dry, and on the 7th of June an awful earthquake swallowed up Port Royal, Jamaica; Lima also suffered from a similar shock: 2000 citizens were drowned in the former place:

Mosquitoes and flies were generated in great numbers, and yellow malignant or bilious remittent fever carried off 3000 of the inhabitants of Port Royal, Jamaica. The same year, yellow fever was also very fatal at Barbados, and continued to be so for several years.

The year following, 1693, an earthquake was felt in England, France, and Germany; 60,000 persons, out of 254,000 inhabitants, perished about the same period from a shock in Sicily.

A.D. 1694, an eruption of Vesuvius took place, and Messina was destroyed by an earthquake. Epidemic catarrh raged among men and horses in various parts of Europe. The seamen and troops under Sir Francis Wheeler, sent to conquer the island of Martinique in the West Indies, suffered dreadfully from yellow pestilence, which, during the same year, was rife in the United States of America; the inhabitants of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, were carried off in great numbers: a Dr. Gamble strangely describes it as being a new disease; it was called ‘the new distemper, or Kendall’s fever,’ at Barbados, where it prevailed, causing great mortality. Miliary fever broke out in Berlin, and continued for some time: it was not very fatal.

A.D. 1695, pestilence broke out amongst the American Indians. The inhabitants of the island of Bermuda suffered from yellow fever; and the following years, a similar disease prevailed in the United States of America, especially in Connecticut, New Hampshire, &c.

A.D. 1698, a comet was seen. Spain suffered again from epidemic disease; it was very fatal in Cerdena: Don Manuel de Alsivia wrote a work describing the malady. The disease was supposed to have been taken out to South America; various parts of the coast having suffered severely from this pestilence, Buenos Ayres especially, it spread to a considerable distance, and Lima was nearly depopulated by it; for it nearly devastated the country, sparing neither Spaniard, white, creole, mustee, mulatto, nor negro. North America also suffered from pestilence: at this period, a dreadful disease affected the Anglo-Americans; the inhabitants of Charleston and Philadelphia suffered in the following year, 1699. There was an awful earthquake in China, and nearly 400,000 persons were destroyed. A comet was seen this year. The disease which affected the Anglo-Americans was considered to be similar to, and as severe as the epidemic which had devastated Barbados a few years previously. Fatal catarrh prevailed in England, and plague in various places in the Levant: France also suffered from pestilential catarrh, and an epizootic among the cattle, especially among horses. Capmany describes the disease as being a bilious plague, which at this time prevailed in Liorna, Geneva, Cerdena, Narbonne, and Nismes.

A.D. 1700. Upon the death and in accordance with the will of Charles II., and in obedience to the orders of Maria Theresa of Austria, the celebrated and spirited Don Felipe VI. was invited to Spain. The civil wars, which arose in consequence, produced great devastation and ruin in the land, and were succeeded by an epidemic of a severe type: it is supposed to have originated from the corrupt and irregular habits of the soldiery, who were composed of different nations; its form was that of a malignant exanthematous fever, attended with delirium. Escobar speaks of the disease as being contagious. Pestilential angina, says Bruno Fernandes, in his recent observations, was so fatal to children, that at the commencement of this century but few escaped its ravages, and the disease was in every way the most fatal that had been experienced for a long time: it was called miliary or sweating pestilence, at Breslau; and was very destructive to the inhabitants of the island of Milo, in the Levant. In the North of Europe it was followed by small-pox. During the subsequent seven years of this century, epidemic pestilence prevailed in various parts of the world,—England, Scotland, Friesland, the United States of America, &c.

A.D. 1701, there happened an eruption of Vesuvius: the year following, 1702, the family seat of Borge, near Frederickstadt, in Norway, sunk, with all its towers and battlements, into an abyss one hundred fathoms deep, and its site was instantly filled with water, which formed a lake three hundred ells long and one hundred and thirty broad. Many persons, together with upwards of 200 head of cattle, perished. A comet was seen about this period; and in the next year, 1703, small-pox and scarlatina raged at Boston, United States; in other of the States they were attended with fever of a most malignant type. During this period the drought was extreme; the autumn was sultry, with cold damp nights, north winds, and frequent showers; bilious plague broke out in the city of New York, and was more fatal than at any other previous period; it was termed ‘the great sickness.’ Ergotism prevailed throughout the whole country of Freiburg. A dreadful thunder-storm was experienced in England on the 26th and 27th of November of this year, which frightened the whole kingdom; the houses in London were violently shaken, and many fell; the water rose to a great height at Westminster Hall, and London Bridge was choked up with the wrecks of boats, &c.; fourteen ships of war were lost during the storm, with great numbers of seamen. The damage done by it in London alone was computed at one million pounds sterling: at the same time Rome was shaken by an earthquake, and the city of Aquila, in the kingdom of Naples, was destroyed; many thousand persons were buried in its ruins. The year following, 1704, there was an eruption of Vesuvius.