o be brought,
which he fastened to his mouth. He caused his assistants to do
likewise, and carry the sick to the Gutleuthaus, a hospital lying
outside Heidelberg, which in former days had been founded for the use
of the returning Crusaders affected with leprosy. The inns, in which
the filthy guests had tarried were closed, the rooms disinfected with
alkalines, the beds were burnt, and the doors nailed up. No one was to
be permitted to enter the infected rooms for six weeks, with the
exception of the medical assistants, who were from time to time to
renew the means employed for purification. The population of the
afflicted district was severely visited. The matter was hushed up so as
not to injure trade, but every one knew that it was the plague, and the
unclean guests who had introduced it were shunned. The eight patients
lay together in the Gutleuthaus at Schlierbach, six died and but two
recovered. These two were inhabitants of the neighbouring villages
Schoenau and Petersthal. Thoroughly fumigated and provided with entirely
new clothing they were permitted to return to their homes. They found
it to be to their own advantage not to speak about the malady from
which they had recovered, as otherwise no one would have taken them in.
But one of them had placed his infected worthless clothing in a bundle
which he brought back with him to his home. The other had exchanged the
new boots of one of the dead for the inferior pair given him by the
authorities of the hospital. Eight days after their return the pest
broke out in these two villages with unheard of violence. The mother of
the Schoenau patient was the first to take the sickness and die,
followed by the sister who had watched over her, the clergyman who had
administered the sacraments, the women who had dressed out the corpse
and those who had attended the burial. The guilty wretch who had caused
all this evil, naturally kept silent. He quickly packed up his bundle
and left for Schwaben. The same thing occurred in Petersthal.
Inhabitants of these villages went from house to house in Heidelberg,
offering fruit, vegetables, pine wood, cones, and straw-mats for sale.
The physicians reported fresh cases of the plague in all parts of the
town. A general fear seized the population. One morning it became known
that the court had left for Mosbach. Great was the discouragement of
the citizens at this ruthless step, for which the young wife of the
Kurfuerst was blamed. Whoever c