Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/88

 82 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

cepted as inevitable what might conceivably have been prevented. Petrarch in Italy thus wrote to his brother in June, 1348 :

Alas! my beloved brother, what shaU I sajf How ahaU I begin? Whither BhaU I tumf On aU sides is sorrow; everywhere is fear. I would, mj brother, that I had never been born, or, at least, had died before these times. . . . When has any such thing been ever heard or seen; in what annals has it ever been read that houses were left vaeant, cities deserted, the country neglected, the fields too small for the dead, and a fearful and universal solitude over the whole earth f Consult your historians, they are silent; question your doctors, they are dumb; seek an answer from your philosophers, they shrug their shoulders and frown, and with their fingers to their lips bid you be silent. WiU posterity ever believe these things when we, who see, can scarcely credit themf We should think we were dreaming if we did not with our eyes, when we walk abroad, see the city in mourning with funerals, and returning to our home, find it empty, and thus know that what we lament is real. Oh, happy people of the future, who have not known these miseries and perchance wiU class our testimony with the fables. We have, indeed, deserved these (punishments) and even greater; but our forefathers also have deserved them, and may our posterity not also merit the same.

In France, in many places, two thirds or more of the population died.

In many towns, small and great, priests retired through fear, leaving the administration of the sacraments to religious, who were more bold.

At the hospital in Paris, for a long time more than fifty corpses were carried in carts to burial daily. The devout sisters of the hospital, like those of to-day,

worked piously and humbly, not out of regard for any worldly honor. A great number of these said sisters were very frequently sununoned to their reward by death, and rest in peace with Christ, as is piously believed.

The chronicler (William of Nangis) notes disastrous after effects:

Alas! the world by this renovation [after the plague] is not changed for the better. Por people were afterwards more avaricious and grasping, even when they possessed more of the goods of this world, than before.

Moreover, all things were much dearer; furniture, food, merchandise of all sorts doubled in price, and servants would work only for higher wages.

Philip VI. of Prance did indeed at the eleventh hour take a wise step. He called the medical faculty of Paris together to consult as to methods for combating the disease. Apparently the only advice the doctors could give was to avoid the sick. The king of Sweden, Magnus II., was more in accord with the spirit of the times. He issued a preparedness procla- mation, advising every one to abstain on Friday from all food but bread and water, ^^ or at most to take only bread and ale,^' to walk with bare feet to church, and to go in procession around the cemeteries carrying the holy relics.

The approach of the plague to the shores of England soon caused

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