Note 246-10 — Chapter II

Sir W. Petty, Several Essays, 31 seq. Great regularity of epidemics in the tropical world: Humboldt, N. Espagne, II, 5. The great plague in the middle of the 14th century is said to have destroyed 2/3 of the population of Norway, of Upland, 5/6; in the mountain districts of Wermeland only 1 boy and 2 girls were left. (Geijer, Schwed. Gesch., I, 186.) According to Sismondi, Gesch. der Italien. Republiken, VI, 27, 3/5 of the whole population of Europe died at that time. How the cholera would have raged among our forefathers in the middle ages! Certainly, as it does now in the East Indies; since, when of those really attacked by the disease among ourselves so many die, we cannot attribute our small number of deaths from cholera to the smaller intensity of the disease or to the greater skill of our doctors, but chiefly to the better nourishment of our people, to their better dwellings and greater cleanliness. Compare Heberden, On the Increase and Decrease of Disease, 1801.