The effect of thus seeking
supernatural causes rather than natural may be seen in such
facts as the death by plague of one fourth of the whole
population of the city of Perth in a single 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.[[88]]
III. THE TRIUMPH OF SANITARY SCIENCE.
But by those standing in the higher places of thought some
glimpses of scientific truth had already been obtained, 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 man of science eminent
both for attainments and character--Robert Boyle.
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