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The black death
I5o
THE
BLACK
Considerable light is thrcwn on the laws of water filtration by the results obtained at the Lawrence Station. More bacteria are able to pass the filters at high rates than at low rates; but varying rates (from 500,000 to 3,ooo,ooo gallons per acre per day) only cause a variation in the experiments of the fractional part of I per cent. of the bacteria applied. Increasing the depth of the filtering material beyond two feet appeared to exert but little influence upon the removal of bacteria, except with the higher rates of filtration. The effect of removing the clogged surface sand is a point of great importance in view of Koch's experimental results. These are confirmed by the Lawrence results, which showed an increase in the number of bacteria in the filtered water for three days after scraping. But even at this time of least purification t h e r e is still an average removal of more than 99'4 per cent. of the bacteria found in the applied water. T H E B L A C K D E A T H . ~" A COMPLETE account of the Great Pestilence (A.D, 1348 9), now commonly known as the Black .Death, has been long a desideratum. That want is now met, and the exhaustive history by Dr. Gasquet before us is an important addition to medical epidemiology. Two processes are involved in the production of a history like this ; the searching for and collation of material, and the weaving into a connected narrative of the material thus collected. In the former process the materials available in the British Museum and elsewhere have been utilized t o an extent never before attempted ; while in the latter process Dr. Gasquet has produced a narrative which is readable from the first page to the last. It is surprising, as the author remarks, that the story of the Great Pestilence, which appears to have carried off one half of the population, and which, in its far-reaching results, was one of the most important events in the history of our country, should never have been fully told. Coming, as it did, between Crecy and Poitiers, at a time when, judging by the ordinary manuals of history, England was at a point of greatest glory, even historians have failed to realize the enormous social and religious effects which are directly traceable to the pestilence. The author points out that for a time, on the announcement of Dr. Creighton's "Epidemics in Britain," he put aside his work; but finding, on the appearance of this work, that it " h a d not entered into his design to utilize the great bulk of material to be found in the various records of the period," and that he bad treated the subject from a wholly different point of view, he subsequently * "The Great Pestilence" (A.D. r348.9l now commonly known as the BIack Death. By Francis Aidan CasqueS, I).D., O.S.B. (Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., I893).
DEATH. decided to publish the large mass of contemporary material which he had extracted. This Dr. Ga~quet does, not treating of the pestilence as an item in the gene_ral series of epidemics, but considering it in detail (as it has' never been previously considered) from the mere point of view of the historian. The Great Pestilence was a turning point in the national life, "forming the real c'..ose of the medireval period, and the beginning of o u r modern age." A scarcity of labourers followed the sudden sweeping away of the population, and " t o use a modern expression, labour began then to. understand its value, and assert its power." Dr. Gasquet further contends that in 1.351 the whole ecclesiastical system was more than half ruined, and that everything had to be built up anew. Evet~ the most inadequately-prepared ministers of the rites of religion were to be obtained only in insufficient numbers. " Instead of turning men to God, the scourge turned them to despair, and this not only in England, but in all parts of Europe." T h e fifteenth century witnessed the beginnings of a great middle-class movement~ which is traced by t h e author to the effect of the Great Pestilence. The Great Pestilence first reached Europe in the autumn of ~347, having apparently originated Jr, the East some three or four years pre~iousty, and been spread by the great trade routes of the East. It would appear to have been some form of the ordinary Eastern or bubonic plague. It usually showed itself in swellings and carbuncles in the axilla and groin. These were in the plague of 1348- 9 generally accompanied by gangrenous inflammation of the throat and lungs, with vomiting and spitting of blood, and the foul odour whicl~ might he expected in gangrene of the lungs. Dr. Gasquet traces the progress of the pestilence from Constantinople by Italian trading ships, which everywhere spread the terrible contagion. T h e records agree as to the terror which the visitatior~ inspired, the people fearing to fly and yet not daring to remain. The infectivity of the clothes of the dead is strikingly instanced in the case of four soldiers at a plaee near Genoa. Returning to, their camp "they brought with them a wooller~ bed-covering they had found at Rivarolo on the sea coast, where the sickness had swept away the en ire population. The night following the fomr slept under the coverlet, and in the morning al~ were found to be dead." At Venice, out of 24 doctors 20 were soon carried off by the sickness ; and of the total population it is said that more than 70 out of every hundred died. The particulars of the outbreak at ?lorence are given in Boccaccio's graphical words. The awful suddenness of the death often inflicted by the scourge is noted by nearly all writers of the period. After devastating Italy and leaving it to the subsequent ravages of famine, the disease rapidi'y spread in France. It reached Avignon, where Pope Clement VI. held his Courh as early as January
THE
BLACK
r348 , and in the first three days LSoo people are reported to have died. Gui de Chauliac, the Pope's medical attendant, caught the disease, but was one of the few who survived. H e has left an account of the disease, in which he confesses (before his own attack), " A s for me, to avoid infamy, I did not dare to absent myself ; but still I was in continual fear." In acting thus he was braver than most of his contemporaries, for the sick were often deserted by their relatives, and, it being assumed that persons attacked would surely die, many were thrown alive into the pits prepared for burial on a large scale. While the plague was at its height, King Philip VI. instructed the medical faculty in Paris to report upon it. Nothing could more forcibly illustrate the greater humanity of modern times than the advice given by the doctors to " t h o s e who are always near those who are sick. We advise them to depart, for it is in this way that a great number have been infected by the plague." But perhaps this was only intended to apply to those who were unnecessarily within an infectious distance of the sick. ImSeptember, I349, at Amiens, we learn of what is perhaps the first inStance on record of a combination of workmen to secure a rise of wages. ' These workmen, who were employed at a tannery, are said to have combined to secure for themselves excessive wages " to the great hurt of the p e o p l e a t large; " a combination which was met in a manner that would not now be tolerated, the Mayor proclaiming and establishing a fixed rate of wages. At Tournay the deaths are stated" to have been more numerous about the market-places and in poor, narrow streets than in broader and more spacious areas. When a case occurred in a house the rest of the household were always attacked. I n many eases dogs and even cats died, apparently irom the same disease, Without attempting any summary of Dr. Gasquet's description of the course of the pestilence through other European countries, we pass to the much more detailed description of its ravages in England. It reached this country in the autumn of i348 , Calais, then in the possession of the Enghsh, being the connecting link. The chroniclers record that from June 24th to Christmas of that year it rained either b y night or day with hardly an exception. This possibly favoured the spread of contagion. Starting from W e y m o u t h - - t h e n a more important port than Bristol--the disease rapidly spread. In attempting to estimate the proportion of the population carried off by the pestilence, the author lays stress on the high importance of the ecclesiastical registers. H a adds, "possibly the mortality may have been greater among ecclesiastics than among lay persons; but only from the number of the clergy carried off by the epidemic can an estimate be formed as to the nurfiber of lay people who died." I n the diocese of Bath fully half the number of beneficed
DEATH.
I5~
clergy fell victims to the disease. Many livings were rendered vacant two and three times during its course ; while a n o t inconsiderable number had four changes of incumbents within these few months. In Bristol, as probably in most places, the cemeteries did not long suffice for the multitude of the dead. Dr. Gasquet gives one instance of this from the Patent Rolls. The parson of Holy Cross de la Temple obtained half an acre adjoining the old cemetery~ and so pressing was the need for this fresh accommodation that it was done without the required Royal license, for which subsequently a pardon had to be sued from the King. It is of interest to note how greatly the coast towns generally appeared to have suffered, the contagion being probably carried trom one place to another by fishing boats. A similar explanation may partially explain the passage (like cholera) along the track of rivers. Rapidly the disease spread in every direction from the western counties. Gloucestershire strove for a timei but in vain, to protect their city by prohibiting any intercourse with plague-stricken Bristol. An English contemporary writes that " the living scarcely sufficed- to tend the sick and bury the dead." Parliament, which was to have assembled a t Westminster in January, I349, was prorogued on account of the pestilence, and in March it was again prorogued, the pestilence being worse than ever. William Dene, a monk of Rochester, wrote, "Alas, for our sorrow [ This mortality swept away so vast a multitude of both sexes that none could be found to carry the corpses to t h e grave. Men and women bore their offspring on their shoulders to the church and cast them into a common pit: From these there proceeded so great a stench that hardly anyone dared to cross the cemeteries?' In Leicestershire a local record states that during the epidemic there was a great mortality of sheep, in one pasture more than 5,ooo sheep dying. Every kind of food at this time was extremely cheap ; but in the following year " n o one could get a harvester at a lower price than 8d., with food. For this reason many crops perished in the fields for lack of those to gather them." The plague reached York in February, i349, and an examination of the ecclesiastical records Shows that one-half of the clergy at least were carried off by it. In Northumberland the case of the people was so desperate that in i353 more than ~ 6 o o , which was owing to the King for taxes for 25 parishes named, was allowed to stand over, since it was hopeless to press for payment. Of Newcastle and Carlisle the same story is told. In Somersetshire, in i349, the total number of clergy instituted to vacant livings in the diocese was 232 , against an average in a normal year of 35. Dr. Gasquet appears to think that the people generally suffered as greatly as the clergy in proportion to total numbers. Is it not, however, likely
I52
D I A R R H ( E A I N L A N C A S H I R E A N D Y O R K S H I R E TOWNS I N I892.
that priests, in performing their duties (to which in England, unlike many continental countries, they appear to have bravely kept) of administration of the Sacrament, Absolution, and burial, were more exposed to infection than the average lay person? "But, allowing liberal deduction for this view, the picture of the desolation of the country drawn by the author in Chap. IX. is intensely an d painfully interesting. In the last chapter the author treats of " S o m e Consequences of the Great Mortality." Those who have examined the records themselves are practically unanimous in considering that the disease swept away fully one-half of the entire population of England and Wales. The most immediate effect of this mortality was to produce a complete social revolution. The Black Death comparatively speaking spared the rich and took the poor. Thus a premium was put upon the services of those that survived, and consequently the old methods of cultivation and the old tenures of land became impossible. The land owners, who hitherto had had it all their own way, now had a hard time of it. In vain did the K i n g a n d Council attempt to prevent the rise of wages by legislation. The frequent complaints of non.compliance with the regulated wages were eloquent proofs of the futility of the legislation. Gradually also the traditional system of cultivation of the land by the land owners and their bailiffs gave way to the land lease with a certain fixity of tenure The popular rising of ~38 ~ practically emancipated the labourers from the medieval s~stem of serfdom. The Great Pestilence left its traces on our language, English superseding French among the nobility and gentry, who had always previously spoken the latter. Traces of the pestilence are visible in the architecture of many churches, which having been partially built before it commenced, wero not completed until after a change had been made in the style in vogue. Upon the Church itself, Dr. Gasquet points out that the sudden removal of so large a proportion of the clerical body must have caused " a breach in the continuity of the best traditions of ecclesiastical usage and teaching." The dearth of priests is indmated by several striking examples. In the diocese of Bath and Wells a man was admitted to the first step to orders in the lifetime of his wife, she giving her consent and promising to keep chaste, but not, as was usually required under such circumstances, being compelled to e n t e r the cloister, "because she was aged, and could without suspicion remain in the world." Similarly another priest at his ordination was made to swear upon the Holy Gospels that within twelve months he would learn the Articles of Faith, the Ten Commandments, the seven mortal sins, the form of baptizing, etc. The demand for higher stipends was taken up by the survivors among the clergy, as well as among ]abourers. King Edward~ referring to this fact,
inveighed against " t h e unbridled cupidity of the human race," forgetting that owing to the paucity of labourers, the cost of subsistence had increased for priests as for the rest of the community. The foregoing sketch of the scope of Dr. Gasquet's work will probably tempt many hygienists to purchase it. Its interest is very great, whether from the hygienic or the historical standpoint. The value of the book is enhanced by a copious index. D I A R R H ( E A IN S O ~ E LANCASHIRE A N D Y O R K S H I R E T O W N S I N x89=.~" W I T H A NOTE ON AN EXPERIMENT IN SCAVENGING.
By J. SrOTTISWOODECAMERON,M.D., B.Sc., Edin., M.O.H. for Leeds. THE death-rate from diarrhoea in the 28 large towns in the decade i882-9i was o-88~ while for the year i892 it was o"71, an improvement of i9' 3 per cent. I n Leeds, while our death-rate had been x'r2 in the ten years, it was i ' o 9 in i892 , an improvement of less that 3 per cent. There was, therefore, in that year, somewhat of a check to the improvement which had been taking place in our diarrhoea death.rate during the two preceding ones. In a special report on this subject to the Sanitary Committee at the close of the autumn of x892 I showed by a chart how the larger Lancashire and Yorkshire towns had severally behaved during the quarter. In Salford a sudden rise in the death-rate to 8~ per thousand occurred in the week ended September 3rd, the average rate for the three months being 2'57. In Liverpool and Manchester the rates were respectively for the quarter 2'45 and 2'08 ; the highest rate for the former being 4 deaths per thousand of the population during the week ended August i3th, the curve for the quarter having a second but more gradual rise during the end of August and the beginning of September. In Manchester the curve began to rise somewhat steadily a week later than the Liverpool apex, and reached 4~ and nearly 5 deaths per thousand in the fourth and fifth weeks of August. In Bolton, with a death-rate for the quarter of 3'7~, while a rate of 4 per thousand was reached the same week as in Liverpool, a slight fall the following week was succeeded by a steady rise in the two weeks which followed. The death-rate for the week ended September 3rd was i i ' 7 , after which the rate fell steadily in two weeks to 4 per thousand. It was nearly five in the penultimate and 0"4 in the last week of the quarter. In Preston, with a death-rate for the period of 4'49, the mortality rose in the week ended August 27th , from i" 9 to 5"7, and in the following week tO i s per thousand, dropping in the week ended September ~oth to x i, and in the following week to 7, and two weeks later from 7 to 4. During the same period the death-rate in Oldham remained considerably below x per thousand to the end of August. In the * Chiefly from Dr. Cameron's Annual Report for x89z.
THE
BLACK
Considerable light is thrcwn on the laws of water filtration by the results obtained at the Lawrence Station. More bacteria are able to pass the filters at high rates than at low rates; but varying rates (from 500,000 to 3,ooo,ooo gallons per acre per day) only cause a variation in the experiments of the fractional part of I per cent. of the bacteria applied. Increasing the depth of the filtering material beyond two feet appeared to exert but little influence upon the removal of bacteria, except with the higher rates of filtration. The effect of removing the clogged surface sand is a point of great importance in view of Koch's experimental results. These are confirmed by the Lawrence results, which showed an increase in the number of bacteria in the filtered water for three days after scraping. But even at this time of least purification t h e r e is still an average removal of more than 99'4 per cent. of the bacteria found in the applied water. T H E B L A C K D E A T H . ~" A COMPLETE account of the Great Pestilence (A.D, 1348 9), now commonly known as the Black .Death, has been long a desideratum. That want is now met, and the exhaustive history by Dr. Gasquet before us is an important addition to medical epidemiology. Two processes are involved in the production of a history like this ; the searching for and collation of material, and the weaving into a connected narrative of the material thus collected. In the former process the materials available in the British Museum and elsewhere have been utilized t o an extent never before attempted ; while in the latter process Dr. Gasquet has produced a narrative which is readable from the first page to the last. It is surprising, as the author remarks, that the story of the Great Pestilence, which appears to have carried off one half of the population, and which, in its far-reaching results, was one of the most important events in the history of our country, should never have been fully told. Coming, as it did, between Crecy and Poitiers, at a time when, judging by the ordinary manuals of history, England was at a point of greatest glory, even historians have failed to realize the enormous social and religious effects which are directly traceable to the pestilence. The author points out that for a time, on the announcement of Dr. Creighton's "Epidemics in Britain," he put aside his work; but finding, on the appearance of this work, that it " h a d not entered into his design to utilize the great bulk of material to be found in the various records of the period," and that he bad treated the subject from a wholly different point of view, he subsequently * "The Great Pestilence" (A.D. r348.9l now commonly known as the BIack Death. By Francis Aidan CasqueS, I).D., O.S.B. (Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., I893).
DEATH. decided to publish the large mass of contemporary material which he had extracted. This Dr. Ga~quet does, not treating of the pestilence as an item in the gene_ral series of epidemics, but considering it in detail (as it has' never been previously considered) from the mere point of view of the historian. The Great Pestilence was a turning point in the national life, "forming the real c'..ose of the medireval period, and the beginning of o u r modern age." A scarcity of labourers followed the sudden sweeping away of the population, and " t o use a modern expression, labour began then to. understand its value, and assert its power." Dr. Gasquet further contends that in 1.351 the whole ecclesiastical system was more than half ruined, and that everything had to be built up anew. Evet~ the most inadequately-prepared ministers of the rites of religion were to be obtained only in insufficient numbers. " Instead of turning men to God, the scourge turned them to despair, and this not only in England, but in all parts of Europe." T h e fifteenth century witnessed the beginnings of a great middle-class movement~ which is traced by t h e author to the effect of the Great Pestilence. The Great Pestilence first reached Europe in the autumn of ~347, having apparently originated Jr, the East some three or four years pre~iousty, and been spread by the great trade routes of the East. It would appear to have been some form of the ordinary Eastern or bubonic plague. It usually showed itself in swellings and carbuncles in the axilla and groin. These were in the plague of 1348- 9 generally accompanied by gangrenous inflammation of the throat and lungs, with vomiting and spitting of blood, and the foul odour whicl~ might he expected in gangrene of the lungs. Dr. Gasquet traces the progress of the pestilence from Constantinople by Italian trading ships, which everywhere spread the terrible contagion. T h e records agree as to the terror which the visitatior~ inspired, the people fearing to fly and yet not daring to remain. The infectivity of the clothes of the dead is strikingly instanced in the case of four soldiers at a plaee near Genoa. Returning to, their camp "they brought with them a wooller~ bed-covering they had found at Rivarolo on the sea coast, where the sickness had swept away the en ire population. The night following the fomr slept under the coverlet, and in the morning al~ were found to be dead." At Venice, out of 24 doctors 20 were soon carried off by the sickness ; and of the total population it is said that more than 70 out of every hundred died. The particulars of the outbreak at ?lorence are given in Boccaccio's graphical words. The awful suddenness of the death often inflicted by the scourge is noted by nearly all writers of the period. After devastating Italy and leaving it to the subsequent ravages of famine, the disease rapidi'y spread in France. It reached Avignon, where Pope Clement VI. held his Courh as early as January
THE
BLACK
r348 , and in the first three days LSoo people are reported to have died. Gui de Chauliac, the Pope's medical attendant, caught the disease, but was one of the few who survived. H e has left an account of the disease, in which he confesses (before his own attack), " A s for me, to avoid infamy, I did not dare to absent myself ; but still I was in continual fear." In acting thus he was braver than most of his contemporaries, for the sick were often deserted by their relatives, and, it being assumed that persons attacked would surely die, many were thrown alive into the pits prepared for burial on a large scale. While the plague was at its height, King Philip VI. instructed the medical faculty in Paris to report upon it. Nothing could more forcibly illustrate the greater humanity of modern times than the advice given by the doctors to " t h o s e who are always near those who are sick. We advise them to depart, for it is in this way that a great number have been infected by the plague." But perhaps this was only intended to apply to those who were unnecessarily within an infectious distance of the sick. ImSeptember, I349, at Amiens, we learn of what is perhaps the first inStance on record of a combination of workmen to secure a rise of wages. ' These workmen, who were employed at a tannery, are said to have combined to secure for themselves excessive wages " to the great hurt of the p e o p l e a t large; " a combination which was met in a manner that would not now be tolerated, the Mayor proclaiming and establishing a fixed rate of wages. At Tournay the deaths are stated" to have been more numerous about the market-places and in poor, narrow streets than in broader and more spacious areas. When a case occurred in a house the rest of the household were always attacked. I n many eases dogs and even cats died, apparently irom the same disease, Without attempting any summary of Dr. Gasquet's description of the course of the pestilence through other European countries, we pass to the much more detailed description of its ravages in England. It reached this country in the autumn of i348 , Calais, then in the possession of the Enghsh, being the connecting link. The chroniclers record that from June 24th to Christmas of that year it rained either b y night or day with hardly an exception. This possibly favoured the spread of contagion. Starting from W e y m o u t h - - t h e n a more important port than Bristol--the disease rapidly spread. In attempting to estimate the proportion of the population carried off by the pestilence, the author lays stress on the high importance of the ecclesiastical registers. H a adds, "possibly the mortality may have been greater among ecclesiastics than among lay persons; but only from the number of the clergy carried off by the epidemic can an estimate be formed as to the nurfiber of lay people who died." I n the diocese of Bath fully half the number of beneficed
DEATH.
I5~
clergy fell victims to the disease. Many livings were rendered vacant two and three times during its course ; while a n o t inconsiderable number had four changes of incumbents within these few months. In Bristol, as probably in most places, the cemeteries did not long suffice for the multitude of the dead. Dr. Gasquet gives one instance of this from the Patent Rolls. The parson of Holy Cross de la Temple obtained half an acre adjoining the old cemetery~ and so pressing was the need for this fresh accommodation that it was done without the required Royal license, for which subsequently a pardon had to be sued from the King. It is of interest to note how greatly the coast towns generally appeared to have suffered, the contagion being probably carried trom one place to another by fishing boats. A similar explanation may partially explain the passage (like cholera) along the track of rivers. Rapidly the disease spread in every direction from the western counties. Gloucestershire strove for a timei but in vain, to protect their city by prohibiting any intercourse with plague-stricken Bristol. An English contemporary writes that " the living scarcely sufficed- to tend the sick and bury the dead." Parliament, which was to have assembled a t Westminster in January, I349, was prorogued on account of the pestilence, and in March it was again prorogued, the pestilence being worse than ever. William Dene, a monk of Rochester, wrote, "Alas, for our sorrow [ This mortality swept away so vast a multitude of both sexes that none could be found to carry the corpses to t h e grave. Men and women bore their offspring on their shoulders to the church and cast them into a common pit: From these there proceeded so great a stench that hardly anyone dared to cross the cemeteries?' In Leicestershire a local record states that during the epidemic there was a great mortality of sheep, in one pasture more than 5,ooo sheep dying. Every kind of food at this time was extremely cheap ; but in the following year " n o one could get a harvester at a lower price than 8d., with food. For this reason many crops perished in the fields for lack of those to gather them." The plague reached York in February, i349, and an examination of the ecclesiastical records Shows that one-half of the clergy at least were carried off by it. In Northumberland the case of the people was so desperate that in i353 more than ~ 6 o o , which was owing to the King for taxes for 25 parishes named, was allowed to stand over, since it was hopeless to press for payment. Of Newcastle and Carlisle the same story is told. In Somersetshire, in i349, the total number of clergy instituted to vacant livings in the diocese was 232 , against an average in a normal year of 35. Dr. Gasquet appears to think that the people generally suffered as greatly as the clergy in proportion to total numbers. Is it not, however, likely
I52
D I A R R H ( E A I N L A N C A S H I R E A N D Y O R K S H I R E TOWNS I N I892.
that priests, in performing their duties (to which in England, unlike many continental countries, they appear to have bravely kept) of administration of the Sacrament, Absolution, and burial, were more exposed to infection than the average lay person? "But, allowing liberal deduction for this view, the picture of the desolation of the country drawn by the author in Chap. IX. is intensely an d painfully interesting. In the last chapter the author treats of " S o m e Consequences of the Great Mortality." Those who have examined the records themselves are practically unanimous in considering that the disease swept away fully one-half of the entire population of England and Wales. The most immediate effect of this mortality was to produce a complete social revolution. The Black Death comparatively speaking spared the rich and took the poor. Thus a premium was put upon the services of those that survived, and consequently the old methods of cultivation and the old tenures of land became impossible. The land owners, who hitherto had had it all their own way, now had a hard time of it. In vain did the K i n g a n d Council attempt to prevent the rise of wages by legislation. The frequent complaints of non.compliance with the regulated wages were eloquent proofs of the futility of the legislation. Gradually also the traditional system of cultivation of the land by the land owners and their bailiffs gave way to the land lease with a certain fixity of tenure The popular rising of ~38 ~ practically emancipated the labourers from the medieval s~stem of serfdom. The Great Pestilence left its traces on our language, English superseding French among the nobility and gentry, who had always previously spoken the latter. Traces of the pestilence are visible in the architecture of many churches, which having been partially built before it commenced, wero not completed until after a change had been made in the style in vogue. Upon the Church itself, Dr. Gasquet points out that the sudden removal of so large a proportion of the clerical body must have caused " a breach in the continuity of the best traditions of ecclesiastical usage and teaching." The dearth of priests is indmated by several striking examples. In the diocese of Bath and Wells a man was admitted to the first step to orders in the lifetime of his wife, she giving her consent and promising to keep chaste, but not, as was usually required under such circumstances, being compelled to e n t e r the cloister, "because she was aged, and could without suspicion remain in the world." Similarly another priest at his ordination was made to swear upon the Holy Gospels that within twelve months he would learn the Articles of Faith, the Ten Commandments, the seven mortal sins, the form of baptizing, etc. The demand for higher stipends was taken up by the survivors among the clergy, as well as among ]abourers. King Edward~ referring to this fact,
inveighed against " t h e unbridled cupidity of the human race," forgetting that owing to the paucity of labourers, the cost of subsistence had increased for priests as for the rest of the community. The foregoing sketch of the scope of Dr. Gasquet's work will probably tempt many hygienists to purchase it. Its interest is very great, whether from the hygienic or the historical standpoint. The value of the book is enhanced by a copious index. D I A R R H ( E A IN S O ~ E LANCASHIRE A N D Y O R K S H I R E T O W N S I N x89=.~" W I T H A NOTE ON AN EXPERIMENT IN SCAVENGING.
By J. SrOTTISWOODECAMERON,M.D., B.Sc., Edin., M.O.H. for Leeds. THE death-rate from diarrhoea in the 28 large towns in the decade i882-9i was o-88~ while for the year i892 it was o"71, an improvement of i9' 3 per cent. I n Leeds, while our death-rate had been x'r2 in the ten years, it was i ' o 9 in i892 , an improvement of less that 3 per cent. There was, therefore, in that year, somewhat of a check to the improvement which had been taking place in our diarrhoea death.rate during the two preceding ones. In a special report on this subject to the Sanitary Committee at the close of the autumn of x892 I showed by a chart how the larger Lancashire and Yorkshire towns had severally behaved during the quarter. In Salford a sudden rise in the death-rate to 8~ per thousand occurred in the week ended September 3rd, the average rate for the three months being 2'57. In Liverpool and Manchester the rates were respectively for the quarter 2'45 and 2'08 ; the highest rate for the former being 4 deaths per thousand of the population during the week ended August i3th, the curve for the quarter having a second but more gradual rise during the end of August and the beginning of September. In Manchester the curve began to rise somewhat steadily a week later than the Liverpool apex, and reached 4~ and nearly 5 deaths per thousand in the fourth and fifth weeks of August. In Bolton, with a death-rate for the quarter of 3'7~, while a rate of 4 per thousand was reached the same week as in Liverpool, a slight fall the following week was succeeded by a steady rise in the two weeks which followed. The death-rate for the week ended September 3rd was i i ' 7 , after which the rate fell steadily in two weeks to 4 per thousand. It was nearly five in the penultimate and 0"4 in the last week of the quarter. In Preston, with a death-rate for the period of 4'49, the mortality rose in the week ended August 27th , from i" 9 to 5"7, and in the following week tO i s per thousand, dropping in the week ended September ~oth to x i, and in the following week to 7, and two weeks later from 7 to 4. During the same period the death-rate in Oldham remained considerably below x per thousand to the end of August. In the * Chiefly from Dr. Cameron's Annual Report for x89z.