in no respect has nature been more careful in the preservation 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 that
can be depended on respecting those uncommon occurrences 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. 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 effect;
vast river districts had been converted into swamps; foul vapours
arose everywhere, increased by the odour of putrified locusts,
which had never perhaps darkened the sun in thicker swarms, 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 probable, therefore, that the
atmosphere contained foreign, and sensibly perceptible, admixtures