The Philosopher's Mite to the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Date:
[1851?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Philosopher's Mite to the Great Exhibition of 1851. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    It would be a mere senseless display of book- knowledge were we to refer you to the hundreds of instances of pestilence accruing upon great inter¬ national meetings. Take up what history you like; choose any quarter of the globe, any siecle, any nation, any metropolis, any great city, and still the fact will en¬ counter you. You have near you good and truly learned men, who will refer you to the historic proofs that the most widely-spreading and most exterminating pesti¬ lences of Great Britain followed upon, and were trace¬ able to, sudden and enormous influx of foreigners. But if you will judge for yourself, read the reign of Edward III., and there vou will trace the tragic conse- quences of such influx at the founding of the order of the Garter. What followed at Windsor? The Black Death, the early history of which is still the subject of intense curiosity among the learned, and has been, within the last few years, reprinted both in Germany and in England. That freak of Edward cost England more than a third of its population. Again, in 1483, Richmond brought with him, to deliver his country from a so-called tyrant, a motley army of aliens, and thus introduced the Sweating Sickness, developed in the invading army soon after their landing at Milford Haven. In some towns one- half of the population perished by it. If the work of the learned Cains, the founder of Caius College, be too professional for your perusal, you will find that my Lord Bacon, at a subsequent period, embodied an account of it in his great work. Will you go with us to the East? What have