Within weeks, the disease had spread across Europe into the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, France and across the English Channel to the British Isles. When a Miles Joseph Berkeley of England received infected leaf samples from a friend in Paris, he remarked that his own crops in Northamptonshire were “never more abundant or finer.” In less than a week, the potato fields around his county too were blackening.
Crop diseases had struck before but never with such terrifying speed. Panic took hold across Europe, and theories began to spread that the disease was caused by static electricity generated by the new steam trains, or vapors of “bad air.” Or perhaps it was simply a judgement from God.
Watch Streaming Broadcast Live:
Share this page with your friends
on your favorite social network:
Loading...
