28 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the dominant language, and will be almost exclusively used in scien- 

 tific works. 



There are also short hut very interesting essays on methods of 

 teaching drawing and developing the observing powers of children, on 

 statistics and free-will, and on a few other subjects of less importance, 

 all of which are treated in a thoughtful manner, and illustrate one of 

 the views on which much stress is laid in this work, viz., that the 

 mental faculties which render a man great in any science are not spe- 

 cial, but would enable him to attain equal eminence in many other 

 branches of science or in any professional or political career. Nature. 



THE BLACK DEATH IN NEW ENGLAND. 



By HEZEKIAH BUTTER WORTH, Esq. 



THE ancient leprosy, the red plague, and the disease known in Eu- 

 rope as the Black Death, have ceased to afflict mankind. They 

 seem to belong to the evils of the past ; their banishment is due to 

 human progress, to a better knowledge of hygiene, and a clearer under- 

 standing of the causes that develop infection and produce contagious 

 and epidemic diseases. It is an interesting question to ask, " Will not 

 the small-pox and the cholera, whose effects science has already modi- 

 fied, become extinct diseases ? " 



The disease known as the black death made its first appearance in 

 Europe at Constantinople in 1347. It was brought there from Asia, 

 probably from the northern coasts of the Black Sea. From Turkey it 

 gradually 6pread over Europe, almost depopulating w r hole districts as 

 it travelled north. Florence was terribly smitten. Boccaccio, in the 

 preface to his "Decameron," has left us an account of the sweeping 

 destruction of the Florentines by the scourge, which one w T ho reads can 

 never forget. From Florence it travelled into Spain, swept over 

 France, and crossed the Straits of Dover. 



It made its appearance in England late in the summer of 1348. 

 From June to December of that year there was an almost incessant 

 fall of rain. The ground was continually damp, and the streams were 

 polluted by surface drainage. When the sun shone, it was through a 

 misty sky, producing a vapory heat, particularly unhealthy and ener- 

 vating. In August, a few cases of a disease supposed to be the black 

 death we/e reported. In September the plague was surely among the 

 people. In November it reached London, and from the capital it rap- 

 idly spread into all parts of the kingdom. 



The symptoms of this terrible disease, which usually proved fatal, 

 were inflammatory boils and swelling of the glands, similar to those 



