584 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



stantinople thus became infected early in 1347. During the summer 

 Greece, Sardinia, Corsica and parts of the Italian coast developed the 

 disease. In the fall it reached Marseilles. The following year it spread 

 inland into Italy, France, Spain, and even into England. In another 

 year or two it spread over Germany, Eussia, and crossed to the Scandi- 

 navian peninsula. Within four years it had completed the circuit of 

 Europe, spreading untold death and misery. No greater catastrophe 

 has been recorded in the history of the world. 



The rapidity with which the disease spread among the fugitives 

 from Gaffa, and in the cities visited by their ships, is despairingly nar- 

 rated by De Mussis, who, returning in one of the ships to Genoa, says: 

 "After landing we entered our homes. Inasmuch as a grave disease 

 had befallen us, and of the thousands that journeyed with us scarcely 

 ten remained, the relatives, friends and neighbors hastened to greet us. 

 Woe to us who brought with us the darts of death, who scattered the 

 deadly poison through the breath of our words." According to this 

 writer 40,000 died in Genoa, leaving scarcely a seventh of the original 

 population. Venice was said to have lost 100,000, Naples 60,000, 

 Sienna 70,000, Florence 100,000. All told, Italy lost half of its popu- 

 lation. 



Of the contemporaneous writers none has printed the horrors of 

 the plague more vividly than does Boccaccio in his introduction to the 

 'Decameron.' 



"What magnificent dwellings, what notable palaces were then de- 

 populated to the last person! What families extinct! What riches and 

 vast possessions left, and no known heir to inherit! What numbers of 

 both sexes in the prime and vigor of youth, whom in the morning either 

 Galen, Hippocrates, or iEsculapius himself but would have declared in 

 perfect health, after dining with their friends here have supped with 

 their departed friends in the other world!" 



From Marseilles the plague spread through Provence with disas- 

 trous results. In some monasteries not even a single survivor was left. 

 In one of these Petrarch's brother buried thirty-four of his companions. 

 At Avignon, the seat of the Pope, 1,800 deaths occurred in three days. 

 In Paris more than fifty thousand died of the plague. 



In England the black death appeared in August, 1348, and con- 

 tinued till the autumn of 1349, when it disappeared. London, which 

 at that time probably had a population of 45,000, had a mortality of 

 about 20,000. No exact statement can be made of the relative mortality 

 in England, although many undoubtedly extravagant guesses are 

 recorded by contemporaneous writers. 



It is estimated that the population of Europe previous to the out- 

 break of the black death was about one hundred and five millions. One 

 quarter of the population, or about twenty-five millions, are said to 



