The epidemics of the Middle Ages / from the German of J.F.C. Hecker ; tr. by B.G. Babington.

  • Hecker, J. F. C. (Justus Friedrich Carl), 1795-1850.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The epidemics of the Middle Ages / from the German of J.F.C. Hecker ; tr. by B.G. Babington. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    grown up amid the illumination of knowledge and the gloom of ignorance; it has been nurtured by the storms of centuries ; its monuments of ancient and modern times cannot be numbered, and it speaks clearly to the initiated, in the languages of all civil- ized nations. Yet, hitherto, it has given an account only of in- dividual diseases, so far as the human mind can discern their nature. In this it has succeeded admirably, and its success be- comes every year greater and more extensive. But if we extend our inquiries to the diseases of nations, and of the whole human race, science is mute, as if it were not her province to take cognizance of them ; and shows us only an im- measurable and unexplored country, which many suppose to be merely a barren desert, because no one to whose voice they are wont to listen, gives any information respecting it. Small is the number of those who have traversed it; often have they arrested their steps, filled with admiration at striking phenomena; have beheld inexhaustible mines waiting only for the hand of the la- bourer, and, from contemplating the development of collective organic life, which science nowhere else displays to them on so magnificent a scale, have experienced all the sacred joy of the naturalist to whom a higher source of knowledge has been open- ed. Yet could they not make themselves heard in the noisy tu- C mult of the markets, and still less answer the innumerable ques- tions directed to them by many, as from one mouth, not indeed to inquire after the truth, but to obtain a confirmation of an ancient- ly received opinion, which originated in the fifth century before our era. Hence it is, that the doctrine of epidemics, surrounded by the other flourishing branches of medicine, remains alone unfruitful— we might almost say stunted in its growth. For, to the weighty opinions of Hippocrates, to the doctrines of Fracastoro which con- tain the experience of the much-tried Middle Ages, and lastly to the observations of Sydenham, only trifling and isolated facts have been added. Beyond these facts there exist, even up to the present times, only assumptions, which might, long since, have been reduced to their original nothingness, had that serious spirit of inquiry prevailed which comprehends space and penetrates ages. ]S o epidemic ever prevailed during which the need of more ac- curate information was not felt, and during which the wish of the learned was not loudly expressed, to become acquainted with the secret springs of such stupendous engines of destruction. Was the disease of a new character ?—the spirit of inquiry was roused b