Volume - The Clarence Darrow Collection

88
FROM FETICH TO HYGIENE.
ories were thus propounded theories which led to spasms
of severity ; and, in some of these, offences generally punished
much less severely were visited with death. Every
pulpit interpreted the ways of God to man in such seasons
so as rather to increase than to diminish the pestilence. The
effect of thus seeking supernatural causes rather than natural
may be seen in such facts as the death by plague of onejll
fourth of the whole population of the city of Perth in a sin-~"
gle year of the fifteenth century, other towns suffering similarly
both then and afterward.
Here and there, physicians more wisely inspired endeavoured
to push sanitary measures, and in 1585 attempts were
made to clean the streets of Edinburgh ; but the chroniclers
tell us that " the magistrates and ministers gave no heed."
One sort of calamity, indeed, came in as a mercy the great
fires which swept through the cities, clearing and cleaning
them. Though the town council of Edinburgh declared the
noted fire of 1700 "a fearful rebuke of God," it was observed
that, after it had done its work, disease and death were
greatly diminished.*
III. THE TRIUMPH OF SANITARY SCIENCE.
But by those standing in the higher places of thougm
some glimpses of scientific truth had already been obtainedt
and attempts at compromise between theology and science
in this field began to be made, not only by ecclesiastics, but
first of all, as far back as the seventeenth century, by a ma^j
of science eminent both for attainments and character Robert
Boyle. Inspired by the discoveries in other fields, which
had swept away so much of theological thought, he could no I
* For the plague at Marseilles and its depopulation, see Henri Martin, HisUnri
de France, vol. xv, especially document cited in appendix ; also Gibbon, Dedifu
and Fall, chap, xliii ; also Rambaud. For the resort to witch-doctors in Austrii
against pestilence, down to the end of the eighteenth century, see Biederinann
Deutschland im Achtzehnten Jahrhundert. For the resort to St. Sebastian, see th
widespread editions of the Vita et Gesta Sancti Selmstiatii, contra pestem patrom
prefaced with commendations from bishops and other high ecclesiastics. The edi
tion in the Cornell University Library is that of Augsburg, 1693. For the reign
filth and pestilence in Scotland, see Charles Rogers, D. D., Social Life in Scotlam
Edinburgh, 1884, vol. i, pp. 305-316 ;
see also Buckle's second volume.