Black Death

Black Death Ravages Europe : By J .F .C . Hecker Hecker , J .F .C

History of the World 01-01-1992

Translation : Babington , B .G

By J .F .C . Hecker

1348

Different parts of the oriental world have been mentioned as the probable

locality of the first appearance of the plague or pestilence known as the "black death " but its origin is most generally referred to China where , at

all events , it raged violently about 1333 , when it was accompanied at its

outbreak by terrestrial and atmospheric phenomena of a destructive

br character

such as are said to have attended the first appearance of Asiatic cholera and

other spreading and deadly diseases from which it has been conjectured that

through these convulsions deleterious foreign substances may have been

projected into the atmosphere

But while for centuries the nature and causes of the black death have

been subjects of medical inquiry in all countries , it remained for our own

time to discover a more scientific explanation than those previously advanced

The malady is now identified by pathologists with the bubonic plague which at

intervals still afflicts India and other oriental lands , and has in recent

years been a cause of apprehension at more than one American seaport

It is called bubonic - from the Greek boubon "groin ) - because it

attacks the lymphatic glands of the groins , armpits , neck , and other parts of

the body . Among its leading symptoms are headache , fever , vertigo vomiting

prostration , etc , with dark purple spots or a mottled appearance upon the

skin . Death in severe cases usually occurs within forty-eight hours

Bacteriologists are now generally agreed that the dis is due to a

bacillus identified by investigators both in India and in western countries

The first historic appearance of the black death in Europe was at

Constantinople , A .D . 543 . But far more widespread and terrible were its

ravages in the fourteenth century , when they were almost world-wide . Of the

dreadful visitation in Europe then , we are fortunate to have the striking

account of Dr . Hecker , which follows

The name "black death " was given to the disease in the more northern

parts of Europe - from the dark spots on the skin above mentioned - while in

Italy it was called la mortalega grande "the great mortality . From Italy

came almost the only credible accounts of the manner of living , and of the

ruin caused among the people in their more private life , during the

pestilence and the subjoined account of what was seen in Florence is of

special interest as being from no less an eye-witness than Boccaccio

Text

The nature of the first plague in China is unknown . We have no certain

intelligence of the disease until it entered the western countries of Asia

Here it showed itself as the oriental plague with inflammation of the lungs

in which form it probably also may have begun in China - that is to say as a

malady which spreads , more than any other , by contagion a contagion that in

ordinary pestilences requires immediate...