lOO History of Animal Plagues. 



air; and in no respect has nature been more careful in the pre- 

 servation of organic life. Never have naturalists discovered in 

 the atmosphere foreign elements, which, evident to the senses, 

 and borne by the winds, spread from land to land, carrying 

 disease over whole portions of the earth, as is recounted to have 

 taken place in the year 1348. It is, therefore, the more to be 

 regretted, that in this extraordinary period, which, owing to the 

 low condition of science, was very deficient in accurate observers, 

 so little can be depended on respecting those uncommon occur- 

 rences in the air, should have been recorded. Yet, German 

 accounts say expressly, that a thick, stinking mist advanced from 

 the east, and spread itself over Italy; and there could be no 

 deception in so palpable a phenomenon. Schnurrer and Chalin 

 mention this, and Spangenberg says, '■ There were also many 

 locusts, which had been blown into the sea by a hurricane, and 

 afterwards cast dead upon the shore, and produced a noxious 

 exhalation ; and a dense and awful fog was seen in the heavens, 

 rising in the east, and descending vpon Italy.' ^ The credibility 

 of unadorned traditions, however little they may satisfy physical 

 research, can scarcely be called in question when we consider 

 the connection of events; for just at this time earthquakes were 

 more general than they had been within the range of history. 

 In thousands of places chasms were formed, from whence arose 

 noxious vapours; and as at that time natural occurrences were 

 transformed into miracles, it was reported that a fiery meteor, 

 which descended on the earth far in the east, had destroyed 

 everything within a circumference of more than a hundred 

 leagues, infecting the air far and wide.'^ The consequences of 

 innumerable floods contributed to the same efl^ect ; vast river 

 districts had been converted into swamps; foul vapours arose 

 everywhere, increased by the odour of putrefied locusts, which 

 had never perhaps darkened the sun in thicker swarms spreading 

 from the east to the west, and of countless corpses, which even 

 in the well-regulated countries of Europe, they knew not how to 

 remove quickly enough out of the sight of the living. It is pro- 

 bable, therefore, that the atmosphere contained foreign, and 



1 Cyriac Spa7igcnl>crg. Mansfeld Chronicle, chap. 287, fol. 336. 

 2 Mczcray. Histoire de France, vol. ii. p. 418. Paris, 1685. 



