A.D. 1705, in the city of Ceuta, an epidemic malignant fever broke out, and raged with dreadful violence, causing great mortality. The appearances on dissection, as reported by Don Antonio de la Locha, proto-medicus of the army, were as follow: “The blood was observed to be coagulated in the ventricles of the heart, especially in that of the right side, and also in the vena cava (in the immediate neighbourhood of the heart); the pulmonary artery was similarly engorged. In the aorta the blood was also very thick, but in moderate quantity: the pulmonary veins were nearly empty. These phenomena were not observed in all cases, since in the majority the blood was only thickened and not coagulated; and the cause of this difference,” observes the reporter, “was according to the greater or less degree of power of the malignant ferment.” In the month of April, pestilential disease broke out at Tunis: in the May following, Malaga was attacked by it; and in August, the island of Cerdena suffered greatly from its violence.
A.D. 1706, a comet was visible, and thunderstorms were experienced in many parts of England. The next year an eruption of Vesuvius occurred, and an island, five miles round, rose from the bottom of the sea in the Archipelago:
A.D. 1708, a severe storm, with thunder and lightning, was experienced at Ipswich and Harrogate. A universal catarrh overspread all Europe and America, and was followed by pestilential fevers. Lanciscus relates that a similar epidemic appeared and raged with much severity in Italy, principally at Rome: he describes the malady as beginning with a running at the nose, or coryza, attended with pains in the limbs, extending over the whole body, but felt more especially in the chest. In the spring, peripneumoniæ prevailed; chills and flushes suddenly seized persons, and were accompanied by severe cough, spitting of blood, and turbid, scanty urine; the respiration was laborious, and a general yellowness of the body was observed. In the years following, A.D. 1709, 1710, and 1711, various parts of the coast of South America suffered from putrid or yellow pestilence, especially in the Brazilian territory; vast numbers were carried off of all complexions, from the mulatto to the black. Seville and various other parts of Spain were visited by dire pestilence at this period; it caused great consternation amongst the inhabitants throughout Andalusia. The celebrated Spanish physician, Dr. Don Diego Villalon, was famous for its treatment. Plague or pestilence raged at Dantzic; a prodigious number of insects, especially of spiders, had been noted in the city of Seville the year previously. This pestilence continued for some time; in fact, the five following years may be said to have been remarkable for general and aggravated epidemic disease all over Europe. Horned cattle and horses were observed to suffer greatly from an epizootic. In Holland alone it is reported that 300,000 head of cattle were destroyed by it.
A.D. 1709, Sologne was again visited by gangrenous ergotism, a fourth part of the rye crop having been infected with the ergot or spur. About this period, memorable for hard frosts, this disease appeared in the cantons of Lucerne, Zurich, and Berne; it also prevailed in those places in the years 1715 and 1716, and also epidemically four or five times within the space of ten years at Orleans.
A.D. 1710. Copenhagen and many parts of Sweden suffered from sweating sickness this year: its victims at Stockholm were 30,000; and it is reported that 25,000 died of it in Copenhagen in six months. Pestilence raged in Lithuania; and the troops under General Nicholson, destined to cooperate with the fleet of England in the reduction of Canada in North America, encamped at a place called Wood Creek, in the province of New York, were affected with a sore epidemic distemper, which carried off great numbers.
A.D. 1711, a murrain broke out among cattle in Italy and Germany; the disease was supposed to be a sort of typhus fever, but was in fact, more properly speaking, a fatal dysentery. The following year, A.D. 1712, a miliary or sweating pestilence raged at Mümpelgart. There was an eruption of Vesuvius that year.
A.D. 1713, in consequence of small-pox being rife at Constantinople, inoculation was practised: the following year, a fatal epidemic raged among the horses and horned cattle in England, by which 70,000 head were destroyed: it was supposed to have been occasioned by the excessive heat and drought during the summer months: great numbers of insects were generated.
A.D. 1715, small-pox and measles were epidemic in many parts of Europe, and malignant yellow pestilence raged in the United States of America. Thomas Hacket, of Duck Creek, states that the disease was equal in intensity to that which raged in London in 1665. Miliary fever prevailed at Breslau and at Turin.
A.D. 1716, a dreadful storm, with heavy rains, thunder and lightning, did much damage throughout England. On the 6th of March, an aurora borealis was visible for three days. The noble city of Aguilar de Campo, situated on the seashore, having suffered about this time from cold and damp weather, epidemic variola broke out in the month of March, and was the prelude to a pestilential sore-throat, or quinsy, which lasted until December, 1719.
A.D. 1717, there was another eruption of Vesuvius, and Friesland was again inundated. Half the province of Groningen was ruined by it, and 2500 of its inhabitants perished: it occurred on the 24th and 25th of December. Various parts of the country suffered: all the Lower Elbe was under water, and it is stated that fully 20,000 persons were drowned. From this period until the year 1721, according to Dr. Casal, southern winds prevailed, with dry, cold weather, which suddenly changed to a dry heat, lasting for weeks; after this, copious rains fell, accompanied by frequent changes in the direction of the winds. In the autumn, an epidemic jaundice became so general, that nearly a tenth part of the population of the Asturias suffered from it. Pestilence in the shape of the true plague carried off 80,000 persons in Aleppo. We are told by Didier that this year the fields were barren and the fruits bad, so that the poor, among whom the disease chiefly raged at Marseilles, were almost starved during its prevalence. Mr. Secretary Craggs applied to Dr. Mead to be advised as to the most effectual remedy for or preventive of the plague.
A.D. 1718. A comet made its appearance this year, and a severe shock of an earthquake was experienced in China. In the following year, an aurora borealis was observed, which was supposed to have been not more than thirty-eight miles high.
A.D. 1720, Marseilles was visited by a dreadful plague, which raged with great fury. In order to mitigate the disease, the king’s ministers commissioned Don Josef Fornés, a native of Hostal-Rich, to proceed to the university of Montpelier, in order to consult with the physicians of that university as to the best means of prevention and cure. All social affection became extinct, the consequences being as dreadful as those of the disease itself. Husbands and wives, parents and children, and the dearest friends and connexions, hastened to escape from each other, and an exclusive selfishness took possession of every heart. The symptoms of this terrible scourge were variable: shiverings were often followed by a quick pulse, which soon gave way under pressure. The warmth of the skin was generally natural, whilst a burning heat was felt within, and an almost inextinguishable thirst. The tongue became white, the speech faltering, eyes glaring, face red or congested, and sometimes livid; pains at the heart were frequent; nausea and bilious vomitings, with looseness of the bowels and hemorrhage, were always fatal symptoms. The most characteristic sign of the malady was buboes in the groin or arm-pit, but these were not always attendant, especially when the disease proved rapidly fatal, as was the case in many instances. Toulon, Aix, and Arles also suffered greatly from this pestilence: the deaths were estimated at one-third of the whole population! In a district of Provence where the population amounted to 247,899 persons, 87,659 perished. Miliary fever was exceedingly prevalent and fatal in the canton de Bray, in Lower Seine.
A.D. 1722, Port Royal, Jamaica, was destroyed by an inundation. Deadly yellow pestilence succeeded, the year following. Hoffman, Schenckius, and other authors give an account of an epizootic which prevailed this year in several parts of Spain. About the same time, an epidemic pestilence, much more malignant than that which had occurred in 1706, broke out in Granada, accompanied with exanthematous eruptions. The city of Placentia was also visited by pestilential fever, the best remedy for which Dr. Morena found to be stimulants, such as wine, &c. Inoculation for small-pox was introduced into England this year by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. The Princesses Amelia and Caroline were among the first thus treated. A sore throat, attended with dizziness and pain in the limbs, prevailed in London and was fatal to numbers; measles were rife in America.
Plague did much mischief at Vienna, Hungary, and in the East: it continued for two years. Dysentery raged in Upper Saxony, and ergotism in Silesia.
A.D. 1723, yellow pestilence prevailed in many parts of Spain, especially in the cities on the coast. Lisbon also suffered from pestilence, the predominant symptom of which was black vomit. Miliary fever prevailed at Frankfort on the Maine. Don Vincente Boibid, a celebrated physician of Madrid, published a work entitled ‘Breve Reflexion ό crisis medica sobre el Dolor Colico, con animo de remediar tan continuos y largos tormentos como suele excitar quando molesta por medio de un anticolico especifico, que le vence en media hora: y á veces en una.’ This physician attributed the pestilence prevalent in Spain to the use of fruit and snow-water. The year following, epidemic catarrh prevailed chiefly amongst children in the principality of the Asturias. Palermo was nearly destroyed by an earthquake; 6000 persons perished. From this period unto 1727, malignant fevers prevailed all over Europe and America. Louis, king of Spain, died this year from small-pox, as did also the Duchess of Bedford. In the latter year, inoculation was practised on criminals.
A.D. 1726, a series of anomalous diseases was prevalent in Granada, and caused great mortality. Leprosy began to spread in the city of Lebrija, in Andalusia; it lasted until 1764. About this period a severe earthquake shook Palermo in September, and upwards of 6000 persons were buried in the ruins.
A.D. 1727, epidemic mania prevailed in Spain. Dr. Casal makes mention of its having carried off many members of the Council of Pilona. Carthage was visited by pestilence, similar to that which prevailed in the year 1637.
A.D. 1728, influenza was epidemic in Spain: it was named by Pedro de Rotundis, ‘un catarro sufocativo.’ Yellow fever was very fatal to the inhabitants of Charleston, United States: it was termed ‘a bilious plague,’ from its severity. A similar disease carried off great numbers of the population of Carthagena and Portobello, in South America: the most fatal symptom was black vomit. This disease made great havoc among the crews of the vessels under Don Domingo Justiniani, and of the galleons under Lopez Pintado. Epidemic pestilence was rife in Poland, Austria, and Siberia. The island of Bourbon, as described by Don Ulloa, was afflicted with plague, as was also Tripoli, Damascus, and Aleppo. Scarlet fever raged in Edinburgh, and chincough in England. About this period, miliary fever, or sweating pestilence, prevailed, with great mortality, at Chambery, Annecy, St. Jean de Maurienne (Savoy), at Carmagnola, Vercelli, Ivrea, and Biella. The seven following years, 1729–1735, pestilence raged in Vienna, Pignerol, Fossano, Nizza, Rivoli, Asti, Larti, Acqui, Basle, Silesia, Thrasburg (Lower Rhine), Trino, Frésneuse (Lower Seine), Vimeux (Seine-et-Oise), Orleans (Loiret), Plouviers (Loiret), Meaux, Villeneuve, St. George (Seine et Maine), Bohemia, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia.
A.D. 1730, the Thames rose to an uncommon height, and inundated Westminster. An earthquake nearly destroyed the whole of Chili. Epidemic pestilence commenced at Cadiz; the disorder was called ‘el vomito negro,’ and it was supposed to have been imported from South America; at least so states Dr. Don Francisco Fernandez Navarette: it extended in all directions to various parts of the Continent, and persisted unto 1738, in which year a frightful dysentery invaded the coast of Malaga and Seville, and, in fact, all the seaboard of Andalusia. During the prevalence of this pestilence, animals were first affected, especially those that were domesticated; birds which fed on grain also suffered severely, such as poultry, pigeons, &c. Numerous insects, called by the Spaniards ‘largostus,’ were generated previously to the breaking out of this epidemic disease.
A.D. 1731, a shock of an earthquake was felt, on the 29th of July, in China; and on the 20th of the March previous, Naples was so shaken, that many houses were thrown down, and upwards of 2000 persons were destroyed.
A.D. 1732, 1500 persons died, in London, of pestilential fever, in one week, during the month of April; yellow fever was destructive to the inhabitants of many of the States of America. The year following, influenza overspread Spain and many other parts of Europe. The island of Mallorca suffered greatly. This epidemic gave rise to many excellent dissertations, which were published in the city of Palma.
A.D. 1734, an earthquake destroyed many houses and five churches in China, and many persons also lost their lives; it occurred in the month of August. About the latter end of this year, in the month of October, according to Albrecht, an epidemic dysentery, with swelling of the head, attacked poultry, especially geese, in the environs of the town of Coburg: they died with their bills open.
A.D. 1735, plague destroyed thousands in Egypt; various pestilential epidemics raged for more than ten years, afflicting France, England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Calabria, Switzerland, New Spain, Aleppo, Tangiers, and Smyrna; yellow pestilence, or fever, ravaged the United States of America, especially the cities of New York, Boston, Charleston, Philadelphia, and Albany; it extended also to the tribe of the Mohigan Indians, and was rife in the West Indies: in Barbados it caused great mortality. During the winter, in North America, which was cold and wet, a distemper, affecting the throat and respiratory organs, nearly exterminated the young children.
A.D. 1736, the lower orders of the population of Seville suffered from privations and disease, especially in the suburban districts, at St. Roque, Calzada, and Bernardo. In the same year, epidemic pestilence raged with great violence, at Grand Cairo, from the 1st of February to the 12th of March: more than 100,000 persons were carried off; 7000 were buried daily for some days. On the 24th of December, the river rose to an extraordinary height. The summer of this year was intensely hot in England, and swarms of gnats were so immense all over the country, especially in Salisbury in Wiltshire, as almost to constitute a plague; they appeared in dense clouds, and ascended above the height of the steeple of the cathedral. Ergotism again broke out in Silesia, in Suborth, and at Wealtemburgh, in Bohemia. Dr. Saine describes the disease as beginning with a disagreeable titillation of the feet, as if ants were creeping on them (formication), which was soon succeeded by a violent cardialgia, or pain in the stomach; the hands were next affected, then the head—many cried out that their hands and feet were on fire: epilepsy was one of the concomitants of the disease.
A.D. 1737, a comet was seen, and there was an eruption of Vesuvius.
A.D. 1738, another comet was seen in February; drought prevailed in Spain, and famine and pestilence followed: the malady, however, was not of a mortal character.
A.D. 1740, epidemic disease was rife in Ireland; it proved fatal to great numbers in the city of Dublin, and continued throughout the following year. Lord Chancellor Jocelyn, writing from Ireland, in the year 1741, to his brother Chancellor, Lord Hardwicke, in England, mentions the distressed state of the country at this period, owing to the entire failure of the potato crops, which was followed by famine and disease to a frightful extent: fevers, attended with convulsions, were epidemic in Germany: and the vomito negro was destructive to the inhabitants of Spain; it prevailed at Malaga, and in many other of its provinces. Pestilence broke out at Tobolsk, in Siberia, first attacking horned cattle and horses, and afterwards human beings; it prevailed in the form of pestilential carbuncle.
A.D. 1742–3, two comets were seen. In the archives of the Franciscan Convent of San Diego de Carthagena it is recorded that pestilence prevailed amongst the members, nearly all of whom suffered severely, three only escaping.
A.D. 1745, a murrain broke out amongst the cattle in Turkey, and was succeeded by a dire plague, which raged with great violence, especially in Constantinople. This murrain among the cattle spread and afflicted various parts of Europe; it was very destructive in Switzerland, then diffused itself through Germany, Poland, and Holland, and ultimately reached England: its progress was marked by the appearance of a bluish mist in the atmosphere. Professors Sauvages and Chaumel speak of a murrain as occurring about this period in the Viverais district of France: puerperal fever was epidemic there at the same time. An earthquake destroyed Lima and Callao, in Peru, on the 28th of October; out of 3000 inhabitants at Lima, only one individual escaped.
A.D. 1747, a comet was seen; and on the 14th of October the Thames rose to a very great height. In the spring of this year, there broke out in the territory of Huesca of Aragon, an epidemic of malignant catarrh, which was succeeded by petechial fever. In the Asturias, in March, the weather was variable and inclement, and an epidemic icterus, or jaundice, attended with fever of a malignant type, broke out, and continued unto the following May: it caused great mortality. Two hundred thousand of the inhabitants were taken off by pestilence in Constantinople about this time. Dysentery prevailed in various parts of the United States of America, especially at Hartford and Newhaven; yellow fever succeeded, and continued unto the year 1755.
A.D. 1748, swarms of locusts settled down in and about London, doing much damage to the vegetation. Two comets were seen this year.
A.D. 1750, two earthquakes were experienced in London, the one on the 8th of February, the other a month after, on the 8th of March. The then lord mayor, one alderman, two judges, and the greater part of the jury, with a number of spectators, caught the jail distemper in the month of May at the Old Bailey. About this period, a shock from an earthquake was felt at Philippoli in Romania, by which more than 4000 persons were destroyed. Two years after, in the month of August, 200 mosques and a great part of the city of Adrianople were destroyed by a similar catastrophe.
A.D. 1751, there was an eruption of Vesuvius; famine and pestilence were rife in the kingdoms of Isen and Cordova; the breaking out of the pestilence being attributed to the arrival of mendicants at the ports of Malaga. The year following, a terrific storm was experienced in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, on the 15th of September, during which the town and neighbourhood were inundated, from which there resulted much loss of life and destruction of property. Two years subsequently, there was an eruption of Vesuvius; and on the 15th of July, a severe earthquake was felt in the Morea: it swallowed up many villages and their inhabitants. Constantinople and Grand Cairo suffered from a similar catastrophe on the 2nd of September; two-thirds of their houses were destroyed, and upwards of 40,000 persons. A mortal distemper seized on cattle in England; 30,000 cows were reported to have died of it in Cheshire alone. From this period until 1760, epidemic pestilence prevailed in various parts of the globe; dysentery of a malignant type in the Northern States of America, malignant fever in Normandy, gangrenous sore-throat in Ireland and France, and a petechial fever in Constantinople, which destroyed 150,000 persons. Famine and plague carried off great numbers in Syria, Smyrna, and Cyprus: in the latter place disease destroyed 30,000 victims; Aleppo, Jerusalem, and Damascus also suffered from epidemic pestilence. In the former place (Aleppo) the winter had been severe, and had destroyed all vegetation; the cold was very intense; the mercury in Fahrenheit’s thermometer, exposed in the open air, sunk entirely into the ball of the tube; millions of olive-trees that had hitherto withstood the blast of fifty winters were blighted, and thousands of persons perished from cold. The failure of the crop in the succeeding harvest occasioned a universal famine with all its attendant miseries. In many places the inhabitants were driven to such extremities, that women ate their own children as soon as they had expired in their arms from the want of nourishment; and numbers of persons from the mountains and adjacent villages came daily to Aleppo to offer their wives and children for sale for a few dollars, to procure a temporary subsistence for themselves, and dogs and human creatures might hourly be seen scratching together on the same dunghill, and contending for a bone or a piece of carrion. Pestilence followed closely on the heels of this famine, which lasted till 1758; 60,000 persons were swept away by it in the city and its environs. Vast numbers of horses during this year died in London and in the neighbourhood from a murrain. Yellow fever of extreme malignity swept the West Indian Islands and the coast of Africa, as recorded by Lind, who describes the mortality to have been produced by a pestilential vapour, which arose in the south-east of the Guinea coast, and traversed immense swamps: in several towns, among the negro population, the mortality was so great that there were not sufficient left to bury the dead, and the gates at Cape Coast Castle were shut for the want of sentinels to guard them, the whites suffering equally with the blacks from the fatal scourge. Yellow fever was also rife in the United States of America during this and the following year, especially in New York and Philadelphia. An atrabilious fever raged at Senegal.
A.D. 1755, on the 24th of April, an earthquake was felt in Peru; it destroyed the city of Quito and great numbers of its inhabitants. On the 27th of the following May, the island of Mitylene, in the Archipelago, was destroyed by an earthquake, and about the same period the city of Lisbon was shaken, and 70,000 persons perished in the ruins. Half the island of Madeira was laid waste by an earthquake. This awful commotion extended 5000 miles, even to Scotland.
A.D. 1757, on the 29th of October, an earthquake was felt in the island of Malta: a severe frost was experienced in England during this and the following year; a comet was also visible. About the same time a severe shock of an earthquake was felt in the Azores. The year following, 1759, three comets were seen; an earthquake on the 5th of December destroyed Tripoli, and was as severely felt at Balbec.
A.D. 1760, a violent earthquake occurred on the 30th of October in Syria; it did a great deal of mischief: there was an eruption of Vesuvius. Until this time, extraordinary as it may appear, there was not any such thing as a privy in Madrid: it was customary to throw the ordure out of the windows at night, and it was removed by scavengers the next day. An ordinance having been issued by the king that every householder should build a privy, the people violently opposed it as an arbitrary proceeding, and the physicians remonstrated against it, alleging that the filth absorbed the unwholesome particles of the air, which otherwise would be taken into the human body! His Majesty, however, persisted, but many of the citizens, in order to keep their food wholesome, erected their privies close to their kitchen fireplaces.
During this year the city of Carthagena again suffered from epidemic pestilence, which persisted until 1763; the disease was a tertian fever, which became very virulent during the dog-days, and caused great mortality amongst the inhabitants of that city and the adjoining provinces. The island of Cyprus suffered from plague about this time. It also prevailed generally over the Ottoman empire; Constantinople, Aleppo, Smyrna, Salonica, Broussa, Aden, Antioch, Antab, Killis Ourfah, Diarbekr, Monsol, and many other large towns and villages experienced its severity. Scanderoon, for the first time this century, suffered considerably; the other Frank settlements on the sea-coast of Syria being exempt, with the exception of Tripoli.
A.D. 1761, in the northern parts of the United States of America, severe catarrh or influenza prevailed in the spring; it changed its character to malignant yellow fever during the summer and autumn. This disease was also prevalent in the West Indies. The symptoms were slight cold, followed by extraordinary prostration of strength, laborious respiration, cough, obtuse pains at the precordia and in the chest and limbs. The malady presented the signs of a bilious distemper, the countenance becoming yellow; insensibility or coma, and sometimes delirium, supervened, when the patient was taken off with all the symptoms of a regular bilious plague or yellow fever. About this period a deadly epizootic broke out among the dogs in Madrid; it extended over the entire kingdom: the disease, it would appear, was confined to the canine race, no other kind of domestic animal having suffered from it.
The Paving Act, which may be regarded as a useful sanitary measure, was passed in England. A tremendous shock of an earthquake, attended with volcanic eruptions, was experienced in the Azores in the month of April.
The year following, A.D. 1762, a comet was visible; and on the 9th of February the river Thames rose to a very great height. The heat and drought this year in the United States of America exceeded all the extraordinary seasons hitherto noticed. The inhabitants were greatly distressed for want of water; bilious remittent fever raged in many of the States in the following autumn, especially in Philadelphia. At the Havannah, about the same period, great mortality was occasioned by a similar epidemic. Pestilence also raged in Siam and in Bengal, in Syria, and in various parts of Egypt. The influence of similar seasons was experienced in England and Ireland, and also in France, where pestilence was rife.
The summer of 1763 was moist and sultry; the Indians of Massachusetts and at a place called Martha’s Vineyard in the United States of America were swept away in vast numbers by a yellow or bilious pestilence. An epidemic catarrh called ‘the snuffles’ was very destructive to cattle, especially to horses, in Denmark. Pestilence again prevailed among the canine race at Madrid; the poultry died of it at Genoa, and horned cattle in France, as also in Sweden. This extensive prevalence of epizootic disease indicated a pestilential condition of the atmosphere and a disturbed state of the seasons: the disease first attacked and proved fatal to dumb animals, and afterwards man became its victim: its ravages were attended with great mortality.
Malignant fever at this period assailed all Naples, destroying, as has been asserted, 20,000 inhabitants: it was preceded by famine. An earthquake was felt at Comorra, in Hungary; 1500 houses were thrown down, and many lives were lost, the sufferers being buried under the ruins.
A.D. 1764, on the 26th of December, a severe shock of an earthquake was felt at Lisbon: a comet was visible. The treatment of small-pox was greatly modified about this time by the introduction of the cooling regimen, which was first recommended in England by the Suttons. In the same year epidemic pestilence broke out in the principality of Estremadura, and was very fatal: various other parts of Spain suffered from the invasion of a similar disease; it carried off great numbers at Cadiz, and its outbreak was attributed in a great measure to the distresses occasioned by the Portuguese war; it was a miliary fever, attended with glandular swellings, especially of the parotids. Rain fell heavily during the months of April and May in Carthagena, and consequently tertian fevers were prevalent; and there perished of that disease upwards of 2000 persons in the city during those two months. Pestilential disease ravaged Suabia, and both Scotland and Ireland suffered greatly at this time from epidemic pestilence.
Lethal epidemic disease prevailed in Austria; and in the greater part of the United States of America bilious remittent fever, similar to that prevalent in the West Indian Islands, carried off vast numbers. The pestilence in Ireland was marked by all the symptoms of bilious remittent or yellow fever.
A.D. 1765, on the 4th of June, an earthquake was felt along the banks of the Ganges: a shock was experienced on the 19th of May previously in the Pyrenean mountains. A severe storm occurred on the east coast of Britain, and many seamen perished in consequence. Spital, near Berwick, suffered greatly from this catastrophe.
A.D. 1766, there was an eruption of Vesuvius: earthquakes were felt in various quarters this year; at Constantinople on the 22nd of May, when 880 persons were buried in the ruins of the fallen houses; a severe shock was experienced at Cuba, and St. Jago was completely demolished, on which occasion hundreds lost their lives. The earth opened in the Abruzzi in Naples, and many thousands were engulphed. The river Taina on the 14th of November overflowed its banks, and destroyed more than 12,000 houses with their occupants at Montauban in France. Two comets were visible about this period. The summer was hot and dry all over Europe, and in both the Americas; vegetable productions were scarce in all these countries, and the winter following was severe in both hemispheres; the mercury fell in many places 20° below zero. Malignant catarrh swept over Europe; a murrain destroyed cattle in the United States of America, the horses and horned cattle, &c. perishing, especially in New England and New Jersey. A similar murrain attacked cattle in Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Mecklenburg in Germany. The following year, puerperal fever was fatal in Normandy. Small-pox carried off at Pekin nearly 100,000 persons, principally young children. There was about this period an eruption of Vesuvius; Spain suffered from severe epidemic pestilence. In the month of December a catarrh of a peculiar type broke out in Madrid, extending far and wide over the Continent: it was not particularly fatal.
A.D. 1768, a severe storm destroyed ninety-six public edifices and 4048 private houses on the 25th of October at the Havannah; many lives were lost in the ruins. Pestilence again broke out in the city of Carthagena, and raged with great violence and fatality. Vast numbers of caterpillars infested Northampton and Massachusetts, in the United States, and destroyed all traces of verdure. The summer following was hot and rainy; small-pox, dysentery, and hydrophobia prevailed in Boston and in other parts of the States: anginas were also rife. Yellow pestilence raged in the island of Jamaica. In Holland, about this period, 30,000 head of horned cattle and sheep were destroyed by a murrain.
Irregular seasons deteriorated the produce of the earth, and famine and pestilence were the consequence. A dreadful famine and pestilence in the year 1769 carried off, as has been recorded, three millions and upwards of the inhabitants of Bengal. The falls of rain had been unfrequent and of short duration, so that every thing in the shape of vegetation was parched up and unproductive. The grain crop was almost a total failure, and as the two former crops had been scanty, the unfortunate people in the hour of extremity had no resource; they were driven by the cravings of hunger to the woods, where they perished in thousands, after devouring the bark of trees and the remains of putrefying vegetables.
Various parts of Spain suffered from epidemic pestilence this year. Don Manuel Antonio Bela, a physician of some eminence, wrote and published a work entitled ‘Una Disertacion sobre los cometas que no causan ni anuncian enfermedades publicas,’ for the purpose of refuting the idea that comets and other meteoric phenomena influence the production of epidemic disease.
A comet was noticed this year; and the year following, 1770, was remarkable for the severity of an earthquake which was experienced in the island of St. Domingo. There was also an eruption of Vesuvius, and deadly pestilence raged in many parts of Europe, carrying off great numbers. The mortality from murrain at this period was great among cattle in Sardinia, Holland, Flanders, &c. In Poland and Russia alone upwards of 20,000 persons died of famine and disease: it is recorded that 168,000 fell victims to a dire pestilence which prevailed in Bohemia. In the city of Constantinople, during this year, 1000 bodies were buried daily for some weeks. During this and the following year, 1771, a singular epidemic destroyed the foxes in the United States of America. Tertian fevers of a malignant type again broke out in the city of Carthagena, and the persons residing in the convent of St. Diego again suffered from pestilence, which continued the two following years: out of fifty-three padres of the convent, one only escaped. Puerperal fever was fatally epidemic at Vienna.
A.D. 1771, there was an inundation in the North of England, and there occurred also an eruption of Vesuvius. A.D. 1772, strange phenomena were observed with regard to the body of Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, which had been buried 345 years in the abbey at St. Edmund’s Bury; when the leaden coffin was opened, the flesh, hair, and toe and finger nails appeared perfect and sound, as though he had not been interred many hours. On an incision being made on the breast, the flesh cut as firm as in a living subject, and there was even an appearance of blood. A similar phenomenon was observed A.D. 1494, when the body of one Alice Hackney, which had been interred 175 years, was accidentally dug up in the churchyard of St. Mary’s Hill, London: the skin was whole, and the joints of the arms, legs, &c. were pliable, the parts exhibiting a natural appearance, as though she were but recently dead. A dreadful hurricane happened this year in the Caribbean Islands. Plague raged at Moscow, and, it is stated, carried off 133,299 persons within eighteen months. Epidemic catarrh and measles prevailed in the United States of America; small-pox was rife in Scotland; and the pestilence, which was still raging in Carthagena, extended to other provinces of Spain. Plague carried off great numbers in Bassora; 80,000 persons are said to have fallen victims to the frightful pestilence; in short, famine and disease about this time, induced by long and continued drought and excessive heat, destroyed an incredible number of lives in the peninsula of the Ganges. Baraillon gives an account of a most singular pestilence with which France was afflicted in the year 1774: it was termed Epidemic Convulsions, ‘sur une epue d’epilepsie qui reconnoit pour cause le virus exanthematique malaire.’ A similar malady about this period was rife in the United States of America. In England, epidemic catarrh prevailed to a great extent; it was attended with sore throat. Blight or mildew destroyed the oats in Scotland, and in the United States of America wheat suffered from blast or blight; a bed of oysters perished from disease at Wellflat Harbour, at Cape Cod, and the lobsters disappeared from York Island, in the United States. In the month of July, a murrain broke out among the horned cattle in the province of Labourd, in France, and proved very destructive. It was a sort of ramollissement of the brain, according to the authority of Ignacio de Michelena, Juan de Ordoi, and Martin de Lorz. Dr. Alsinet, a celebrated physician of Aranjuez, wrote a work this year on the treatment of the tertian fever, which had been so prevalent all over Spain: his plan of treatment consisted in giving emetics during the intervals of the paroxysms, and bark immediately on the approach of the cold fit; in cases of pernicious and malignant tertian, he gave double doses. Puerperal fever was again epidemic at Vienna, and was attended with great mortality.
A.D. 1773, the town of Guatimala in Mexico, with all its riches and eight thousand families, was swallowed up by an awful earthquake, and every vestige of its former existence obliterated, the spot being now indicated by a frightful desert four leagues distant from the nearest town.
The Severn this year was turned from its natural course by a great mass of land moving from its place across the current near Bildewas Bridge in Shropshire: this happened on the 27th of May. The year following, a severe earthquake was felt at Altdorf in Switzerland on the 10th of September.
A.D. 1775, on the 8th of September, a severe earthquake shook Wales and its neighbourhood. On the 19th of October, thunderstorms did much damage in the North of England; it was about this time that the three Dublin packets foundered at sea: and on the 14th of November, a tremendous hurricane was experienced on the coast of Holland.
A.D. 1776, on the 10th of July a shock of an earthquake was experienced at Andries in Italy, which overthrew the town, and destroyed vast numbers of its inhabitants.
A.D. 1777, a dreadful hurricane visited St. Petersburgh; it was attended by an inundation on the 14th of September, which did much damage.
A.D. 1778, an earthquake did much harm at Smyrna on the 3rd of July. This same year, after the British army had vacated the city of Philadelphia, United States, bilious, yellow, or remittent fever prevailed to a great extent amongst the inhabitants. The plague was rife at Constantinople; an epidemic angina ravaged Manchester and various other parts of England, and the city of Carthagena in Spain again suffered from pestilence, similar to that which was observed A.D. 1771; it continued, in fact, in an aggravated form, the following years until 1779, and caused great mortality.
A.D. 1780, the winter was severe, both in Europe and America. In England, on the 14th of January, the mercury fell 26° below zero, and in Glasgow 46° below the same point. The summer of this year was very hot; bilious remittent fevers raged in Philadelphia and in other parts of the States; a ‘break-bone fever,’ as it was called, also prevailed extensively, but was not fatal. The thermometer at times stood at 102°. At this time cholera prevailed in the East Indies, and is reported to have carried off at Hurdwar, during a festival which is annually held there, some 20,000 persons, and during the following year, 1781, to have assailed, in its most malignant form, a division of the Bengal troops stationed at Garigani. During the summer of 1780, epidemic pestilence broke out in various parts of Spain: it first made its appearance in a village of Passages in the month of May, and continued for some time; it was supposed to have arisen from intramural burial, the stench from the overcrowded graveyards being intolerable. The burning heats, this year, may be said to have caused much suffering in several parts of Europe, there having been scarcely any rain; the summer having been succeeded by a heavy, cloudy winter, predisposed the inhabitants of various parts of Europe to catarrhal fevers: pernicious epidemics also prevailed in many parts of Spain; and a malignant fever was rife amongst the inhabitants of Pampeluna: the city of Olite was also similarly affected; after a time it extended to Bericayú, Andosella, Mendaira, Toledo, Vidaurreta, and other cities and places. In Pampeluna it persisted for six years, until 1787. A disease termed ‘Andalusian fever’ prevailed this year in South America among the Spanish colonists, and also at Rio de Janeiro and other Brazilian settlements. At Tauris, 15,000 dwellings were demolished, and vast multitudes were swallowed up by an earthquake.
From the year 1781 down to 1789, epidemic pestilence committed great havoc in various parts of the world. In England, an epizootic was fatal to horses and horned cattle: of one hundred and sixteen horses located in one barrack stable, all but thirteen were attacked; seventy-eight died. The Channel fleet were great sufferers from epidemic disease; 11,732 sick were sent to Haslar Hospital; 1457 had scurvy; 240 dysentery, and 5539 suffered from severe fever. This may be taken as a specimen of the health of the British navy down to the close of the eighteenth century. Epidemic puerperal fever, about this period, was very fatal in London. Measles raged in New York, Philadelphia, and in other parts of the United States; and numerous cases of hydrophobia occurred in the more southern States. In the month of July the weather was so hot that the thermometer in the shade stood at 103°. In the state of Maryland there was great mortality among horses and horned cattle; and fish at this period died in vast quantities on the coasts of Lapland and Norway.
A.D. 1782, in the month of July, there was a dreadful fire at Constantinople, which destroyed upwards of 7000 houses; and in the following month, a similar catastrophe caused the destruction of 20,000 more, many lives being lost: from the consequent crowding together of the inhabitants, and from other suffering, famine and pestilence followed. The epidemic pestilence which attacked the Bengal troops the year previously at Garigani, extended to Sir E. Hughes’ squadron then stationed in the East, and caused great mortality. The inhabitants of the provinces of Languedoc and Roussillon were attacked with a terrific epidemic, which caused great devastation. The governor of Catalonia, in consequence of the great mortality, sent Dr. Masdevall to inquire into the character of the epidemic, whether it was, as it was publicly reported to be, the true plague, and whether it was or was not contagious. Earthquakes during this year were frequent in Calabria; they continued from time to time for four years, until the end of 1786, producing many fissures, landslips, lakes, ravines, falls of the sea-cliffs, and other changes, which taken together afford one of the finest examples of the complicated alterations which may result from a series of subterranean movements, even though of no great apparent violence at the time. During this calamitous period, the city of Messina in Sicily was destroyed, and 40,000 persons perished by an earthquake; the city of Thessalonica suffered from a similarly severe shock. A most intense frost commenced this year in England on Christmas-day; it continued until the end of February in the following year. A frightful epidemic broke out in the city of Lerida, which ran rapidly through the extent of Tarragona, Manresa, Llasanes, Solsona, Igualada, and Villafranca del Panades; it soon after prevailed over nearly the whole of Catalonia. Pestilence broke out also in Tortosa and in several of its districts; it soon extended all over the kingdom of Aragon. This disease was principally variola.
A.D. 1784, nearly all the districts in the province of Alcarria, especially Pastrana, suffered from pestilence,—an epidemic tertian fever, which commenced in the month of November. About this period, there was a great scarcity of water occasioned by the previous hot and burning weather during a dry summer. The following spring was rainy and damp, and there broke out exanthematous fevers, rheumatisms, and intermittent quotidians, throughout all Spain; the small-pox, which had prevailed the year before, and which at first appeared in a benign form, soon degenerated, and assumed a malignant character. Dr. Don Felix Ibañez, a physician of the city of Huete, but long resident at Pastrana, describes the various diseases of this period in a work entitled ‘Topographia Hipocratica ó Descripcion de la Epidemia de Calenturas, tercianas intermittentes, malignas, continuo-remittentes perniciosas, complicadas que re han padecido en la provincia de la Alcarria desde el año 1784, hasta 1790, y 1791, y riguentes,’ &c.
The following year, 1785, epidemic tertian prevailed in Andalusia. Dr. Don Juan Manuel Alvarez, of Constantina, wrote a work on the pernicious intermittent fevers of this and the previous years, which had been so extensively prevalent in the Peninsula: the disease was felt more severely in Carthagena than during any other previous year; it was exceedingly malignant, and destroyed vast numbers. Intemperate seasons were attended with inundations from rains, so heavy as to form lakes in some places. The city of Lerida suffered from variola.
A.D. 1786, in the city del Viso, on the confines of the province of La Mancha, a frightful epidemic broke out, and destroyed great numbers of the inhabitants. The city of St. Roque suffered in the autumn from a similar pestilence: it proved to be a form of pernicious intermittent. Dr. Don Josef Masdevall’s practice was adopted in its treatment, and proved as successful as it had hitherto done; it consisted of what he termed ‘la opiata antifebril y mixtura antimonial.’ This year, Brother Miguel de Acero y Aldovera wrote a work on the pernicious effects of intramural interments. The vomito negro prevailed this year in the Havannah; its outbreak was attributed to the emanations from putrid hides. In the Madras Reports, it is stated that pestilential cholera was very destructive at Arcot.
A.D. 1787, there took place on the coast of Coromandel an inundation proceeding from a severe hurricane; a district called Uppora was overflowed by the sea on the 20th of May, when upwards of 12,000 persons lost their lives, and much property in cattle and houses was destroyed. There was a violent storm that did much damage in England and Ireland. There was also an eruption of Vesuvius.
A.D. 1788, severe frost occurred in England, commencing in November, and continuing till the following March.
In the month of October, A.D. 1789, an almost universal darkness overspread the land in America, and the most severe pestilences on record occurred all over the United States, in the form of anginas, croup, ulcerated sore-throat, putrid bilious fevers, &c. Dr. Manson describes one of the epidemics thus; “slight influenza, stinging pain in the jaws and limbs, soreness of the muscles of the neck, attended with severe fever.” The measles, which occurred the year previously, appear to have been the prelude to a series of epidemics which raged for thirty years. Influenza was very severe in the cities of New York and Philadelphia, and rapidly affected the other parts of the States, wherever the same conditions of weather and atmosphere prevailed: this disease also traversed the barren wilderness, seizing on the Indian population, attacked seamen at sea, and raged with great mortality through the western hemisphere, from the 15° to 45° of northern latitude. Scarlet fever was also prevalent at Philadelphia, and carried off great numbers of the young. These epidemics generally exhibited as the predominant feature the superabundance of biliary secretions, which were vomited.
A.D. 1790, the winter was very mild in America, there having been but little frost until the month of February. In spring, catarrhs prevailed; plethoric and consumptive persons suffered most, and were the principal victims: measles appeared in autumn. The year following, 1791, the winter commenced early, and was very severe; the spring and summer were dry and cold: catarrhs again prevailed: yellow fever broke out in New York, and carried off numbers: scarlatina and hooping-cough were also rife. About this period a kind of black worm, resembling a caterpillar, appeared in Maryland, and destroyed the grass and corn; they were represented as appearing in legions. At the same time a blight destroyed the fruit and other vegetable productions; and another distinct species of worm, called the palmer-worm, answering to the description given in Sacred History, infested the land, devouring even the forest trees, and destroying all woodwork. The thermometer at Salem rose to 80° for fifty days, and for twelve days stood at 90°: in various other parts of the States it varied from 90° to 102°. The bilious plague, as reported by Dr. Rush, prevailed at Philadelphia. The island of Grenada in the West Indies suffered from a similar pestilence. Bilious remittent fever was also prevalent on the coast of Africa: the plague raged in Egypt, and typhus fever committed great ravages in England: yellow pestilence laid waste the Havannah; and a severe murrain afflicted the horned cattle in Hungary, Servia, and other European countries.
A.D. 1791, a tremendous earthquake was felt in Sicily, which destroyed many lives and much property; it was equal in severity to the shock experienced the year before at Borgo di San Sepolcro, during which an opening in the earth swallowed up many houses with their inhabitants. On the 2nd of February, this year, the Thames rose to an extreme height, and overflowed many parts of Westminster.
A.D. 1792. This was a pestilential year in Egypt; it is recorded that 800,000 persons died from plague. The winter of the previous year, 1791, was very severe, and the spring wet and rainy in the southern parts of the United States; the summer was cold up to June, cold north-west winds prevailing. In May and June, locusts appeared in the State of New York, and devoured the grain; the wheat insect continued its ravages with great destruction to the crops in Long Island and also in Maryland and north of the Elk ridge. In the month of July, yellow fever raged terribly, causing great mortality in the city of Charleston. A kind of caterpillar destroyed the lime-trees in Philadelphia, and in the month of August, scarlet fever carried off numbers in that city, as well as in New York, and in a place called Bethlem.
A.D. 1793, the spring was dry, the summer intensely hot and showery, with hail, and the autumn dry and cold. A fatal dysentery swept off vast numbers in Georgetown, Coventry; a nervous fever was prevalent at a place called Fairfield. Yellow fever raged to an alarming extent in Philadelphia, carrying off in the course of four or five months upwards of 4000 persons: it was also fatal in Boston. In the following year it prevailed in Baltimore, and at Norfolk in Virginia. About this period a similar epidemic caused great destruction in the island of Dominica and other of the West Indian islands: in Dominica it continued for three years, until 1796.
A.D. 1794, an awful earthquake was felt at Naples, and Vesuvius, pouring forth its flames, overwhelmed the city of Torre del Greco. The following year, the weather was uncommonly bad, the spring cold and late, the summer suffocatingly hot, damp, and rainy, whilst south winds were prevalent,—the fruits perished from mould. There was a disease among vegetables, especially the potatoes and cabbages. A dense moisture penetrated into the inmost recesses of the houses, even into desks, bureaux, &c., and the walls appeared covered with a damp white mould, which destroyed the paper-hangings. Millions of mosquitoes and other insects were generated; in fact, a pestilential constitution of the air, answering to the description given by Hippocrates and other writers, was evidenced by these signs. Yellow fever raged with great violence in many parts of the United States of America, viz. in Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, &c., and continued until 1800. “In the whole course of my life,” says Professor Kemp, writing to Dr. Baily on yellow fever, “I never experienced a state of air so distressingly debilitating, and unfriendly to my spirits.” On the 6th of February, this year, a severe shock of an earthquake was felt at Vienna. At this period 10,000 persons lost their lives in three towns of Turkey by a similar catastrophe.