THE BLACK DEATH
By I. F. C. HECKER
Translated
Chapter I.—General Observations
PREFACE.
We here find an important page of the history of the world laid open to
our view. It treats of a convulsion of the human race, unequalled in violence
and extent. It speaks of incredible disasters, of despair and unbridled
demoniacal passions. It shows us the abyss of general licentiousness, in
consequence of an universal pestilence, which extended from China to Iceland
and Greenland.
The inducement to unveil this image of an age, long since gone by, is
evident. A new pestilence has attained almost an equal extent, and though less
formidable, has partly produced, partly indicated, similar phenomena. Its
causes and its diffusion over Asia and Europe, call on us to take a
comprehensive view of it, because it leads to an insight into the organism of
the world, in which the sum of organic life is subject to the great powers of
Nature. Now, human knowledge is not yet sufficiently advanced, to discover the
connection between the processes which occur above, and those which occur
below, the surface of the earth, or even fully to explore the laws of nature,
an acquaintance with which would be required, far less to apply them to great
phenomena, in which one spring sets a thousand others in motion.
On this side, therefore, such a point of view is not to be found, if we
would not lose ourselves in the wilderness of conjectures, of which the world
is already too full: but it may be found in the ample and productive field of
historical research.
History, that mirror of human life in all its bearings, offers, even for
general pestilences, an inexhaustible, though scarcely explored, mine of facts;
here too it asserts its dignity, as the philosophy of reality delighting in
truth.
It is conformable to its spirit to conceive over the history of the world, is yet in its infancy. For the honor of that science which should everywhere guide the actions of mankind, we are induced to express a wish, that it may find room to flourish amidst the rank vegetation with which the field of German medical science is unhappily encumbered.
Chapter I—General Observations
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