Читать книгу The Black Death in the Fourteenth Century онлайн

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The plague was, however, known in Europe before nations were united by the bonds of commerce and social intercourse;48 hence there is ground for supposing that it sprung up spontaneously, in consequence of the rude manner of living and the uncultivated state of the earth; influences which peculiarly favor the origin of severe diseases. Now, we need not go back to the earlier centuries, for the 14th itself, before it was half expired, was visited by five or six pestilences.49

If, therefore, we consider the peculiar property of the plague, that, in countries which it has once visited, it remains for a long time in a milder form, and that the epidemic influences of 1342, when it had appeared for the last time, were particularly favorable to its unperceived continuance, till 1348, we come to the notion, that in this eventful year also, the germs of plague existed in Southern Europe, which might be vivified by atmospherical deteriorations; and that thus, at least in part, the Black Plague may have originated in Europe itself. The corruption of the atmosphere came from the East; but the disease itself came not upon the wings of the wind, but was only excited and increased by the atmosphere where it had previously existed.