Barthold Georg Niebuhr wrote the following in 1816: "The plague not only depopulates and kills, but corrodes moral resistance and often destroys it completely..." (qtd. in Nohl Preface). Barthold further states that "Times of plague are always those in which the bestial and diabolical side of human nature takes over" (qtd. in Nohl's Preface). The times of the plague destroyed many social bonds and made close relationships non-existent. Wheeler states that "people abandoned their friends and family, fled cities, and isolated themselves from the world." The plague also made people terrified of any contact with strangers and foreigners. In Wheeler's categorization of psychological effects it was noted that "many people have become more xenophobic and isolationist". The feelings of the people affected by the immense death and desolation led many people to wander homeless through the countryside and abandoned farmlands, while others took advantage of the surplus of material goods and robbed and stole. Many people, devastated by the effects of the Black Death, wandered the countryside homeless, while others robbed and stole. Each person during the plague felt differently about how to deal with the disease. Some considered the disease a more religious issue and "thought it was God's wrath