1 66 Epidemics. 



566 in all countries bordering the Mediterranean, and south- 

 ward, apparently by the way of Aden, on to India and Bom- 

 bay. It visited Italy again in 614 if during this period it 

 had ever entirely left it. 



Though this disease broke out with such power and fatal 

 effects in the sixth century, no traces of it appear to be 

 found in Mid Europe, or to the North, till we reach the 

 second period, between 1177 and 1817 ; during the first four 

 centuries of which period it was a fatal scourge to every 

 city in Europe, breaking out with unequal violence, and at 

 unequal times, in this city or that country, and in this town 

 or that village, sweeping the population off as with the 

 besom of destruction. 



Though negative evidence is the weakest of all evidence, 

 yet the absence of all mention of Plague and Small-pox in the 

 earlier historic records of Mid and Northern Europe is the only 

 basis for supposing that they never reached these lands before 

 1177. It is still more to be regretted that history is more per- 

 fectly blank upon epidemics, which have slain their ten thou- 

 sands, than about war, which has slain its one thousand, 

 though the fears and customs of nations have received in their 

 domestic habits more moulding and fashioning, and their 

 destinies and successes have been more wrapped up in these 

 fatal scourges, than by successive warlike contests; yet, with 

 the exception of one or two historians, such as Thucydides 

 and Procopius, the world, through history, would scarcely 

 know that epidemics had ever existed, or they only existed 

 for a few weeks or months, for the purpose of disappointing, 

 some prince, or duke, or ambitious robber from carrying his, 

 ill-conceived schemes and worse designs into immediate: 

 execution. 



Leprosy is mentioned as known in Italy in 614, and in 

 Spain lazar-houses were erected, 1067 A.D. But history 

 is remarkably vacant in records of disease from no to 6oo r 



