The Black Death and The Dancing Mania | Page 2

torpor and depression to the consciousness of an intellectual existence.
Were it in any degree within the power of human research to draw up,
in a vivid and connected form, an historical sketch of such mighty
events, after the manner of the historians of wars and battles, and the
migrations of nations, we might then arrive at clear views with respect
to the mental development of the human race, and the ways of
Providence would be more plainly discernible. It would then be
demonstrable, that the mind of nations is deeply affected by the
destructive conflict of the powers of nature, and that great disasters lead
to striking changes in general civilisation. For all that exists in man,
whether good or evil, is rendered conspicuous by the presence of great
danger. His inmost feelings are roused--the thought of self-preservation
masters his spirit--self-denial is put to severe proof, and wherever
darkness and barbarism prevail, there the affrighted mortal flies to the
idols of his superstition, and all laws, human and divine, are criminally
violated.

In conformity with a general law of nature, such a state of excitement
brings about a change, beneficial or detrimental, according to
circumstances, so that nations either attain a higher degree of moral
worth, or sink deeper in ignorance and vice. All this, however, takes
place upon a much grander scale than through the ordinary vicissitudes
of war and peace, or the rise and fall of empires, because the powers of
nature themselves produce plagues, and subjugate the human will,
which, in the contentions of nations, alone predominates.
CHAPTER II
--THE DISEASE

The most memorable example of what has been advanced is afforded
by a great pestilence of the fourteenth century, which desolated Asia,
Europe, and Africa, and of which the people yet preserve the
remembrance in gloomy traditions. It was an oriental plague, marked
by inflammatory boils and tumours of the glands, such as break out in
no other febrile disease. On account of these inflammatory boils, and
from the black spots, indicatory of a putrid decomposition, which
appeared upon the skin, it was called in Germany and in the northern
kingdoms of Europe the Black Death, and in Italy, la mortalega grande,
the Great Mortality.
Few testimonies are presented to us respecting its symptoms and its
course, yet these are sufficient to throw light upon the form of the
malady, and they are worthy of credence, from their coincidence with
the signs of the same disease in modern times.
The imperial writer, Kantakusenos, whose own son, Andronikus, died
of this plague in Constantinople, notices great imposthumes of the
thighs and arms of those affected, which, when opened, afforded relief
by the discharge of an offensive matter. Buboes, which are the
infallible signs of the oriental plague, are thus plainly indicated, for he
makes separate mention of smaller boils on the arms and in the face, as
also in other parts of the body, and clearly distinguishes these from the

blisters, which are no less produced by plague in all its forms. In many
cases, black spots broke out all over the body, either single, or united
and confluent.
These symptoms were not all found in every case. In many, one alone
was sufficient to cause death, while some patients recovered, contrary
to expectation, though afflicted with all. Symptoms of cephalic
affection were frequent; many patients became stupefied and fell into a
deep sleep, losing also their speech from palsy of the tongue; others
remained sleepless and without rest. The fauces and tongue were black,
and as if suffused with blood; no beverage could assuage their burning
thirst, so that their sufferings continued without alleviation until
terminated by death, which many in their despair accelerated with their
own hands. Contagion was evident, for attendants caught the disease of
their relations and friends, and many houses in the capital were bereft
even of their last inhabitant. Thus far the ordinary circumstances only
of the oriental plague occurred. Still deeper sufferings, however, were
connected with this pestilence, such as have not been felt at other times;
the organs of respiration were seized with a putrid inflammation; a
violent pain in the chest attacked the patient; blood was expectorated,
and the breath diffused a pestiferous odour.
In the West, the following were the predominating symptoms on the
eruption of this disease. An ardent fever, accompanied by an
evacuation of blood, proved fatal in the first three days. It appears that
buboes and inflammatory boils did not at first come out at all, but that
the disease, in the form of carbuncular (anthrax-artigen) affection of the
lungs, effected the destruction of life before the other symptoms were
developed.
Thus did the plague rage in Avignon for six or eight weeks, and the
pestilential breath of the sick, who expectorated blood, caused