THE PLAGUE

In 1665, bubonic plague hit London, and spread to other towns. It became known as the Great Plague. The plague seems to have started in the parish of St-Giles-in-the-Fields outside of London's walls in 1664. The hot summer seems to have caused it to become an epidemic. It was raging in the city by July 1665, and reached a peak of 7,000 deaths a week by August, but then died out during the cold winter.

Observers noticed two strains of the plague: Bubonic plague, with painful buboes. This was spread by fleas on rats. Pneumonic plague was airborne, and spread by sneezing. People who caught pneumonic plague often died within a day.

Doctors were powerless against infectious disease. The population was weakened by war and economic difficulties. Germs, the fleas which carried them, and the rats which carried the fleas, flourished in the dirty towns. Cloth traders and people fleeing the plague carried the plague from one place to another.

THE CAUSES

Medicine in the 17th century was backward. Knowledge about disease was poor (most people thought that bad smells caused illness), and doctors were too expensive for ordinary people to be able to afford.

Towns (especially the houses of the poor) were filthy, and few people took much care of their personal hygiene. As a result, early modern London was a very unhealthy place the average life expectancy in 1721 was only 32 years old.

After 1600, there were a number of economic problems historians have suggested that the 17th century was a time of crisis and economic breakdown. The Civil War had been a time of economic and social disruption, and in 1665 England was at war with the Dutch. It is possible that, when the plague hit, people were not healthy and strong enough to resist it.

There was an epidemic of the plague in Amsterdam in 16631664, and some historians have suggested that the plague perhaps came over from Holland in a bale of wool. Other historians have pointed out that King Charles II had forbidden all trade with the Dutch because of the war, and that the plague only became an epidemic in summer 1665.

The plague was endemic in London in the 17th century there were only three years before 1665 when someone had not died of the plague. There had been epidemics of the plague in 1603, 1609, 1625 (when 35,000 Londoners died) and 1636. It is most likely that the 1665 plague originated in London itself. Something in the summer of 1665 caused the plague to become an epidemic. The summer of 1665 was very hot, and it may be that the rats and fleas multiplied.

THE STORY OF THE PLAGUE

The first officially recorded death of the plague occurred in April 1665. By mid-July, a thousand people a week were dying.

In July, King Charles left the city and went to Oxford. Thousands of other people fled from the city, taking the plague with them. However, unlike the Black Death, which had affected the whole countryside, the 1665 epidemic was mainly confined to the towns. The plague arrived at the village of Eyam in Derbyshire in August 1665. It is thought to have been brought from London in a bale of cloth infested with fleas. Led by their vicar, the villagers voluntarily quarantined themselves so that the plague might not spread to the surrounding villages. The plague lasted in Eyam for more than a year and is said to have killed three-quarters of the inhabitants. By September 1665, 7,000 people were dying of the plague every week in London. The plague was especially bad in poorer areas of the city, which had more rats.

The plague continued until winter, which was very cold. By December most people who had fled were returning to the city. Some people claim the nursery rhyme 'Ring-a-ring-aroses' is about the plague: The 'roses' are the red blotches on the skin. The 'posies' are the sweet-smelling flowers people carried to try to ward off the plague. 'Atishoo' refers to the sneezing fits of people with pneumonic plague. 'We all fall down' refers to people dying. Others believe that it's just a nonsense rhyme. The fact that people are willing to believe that the nursery rhyme is about the plague shows how much importance it is still given today.

CURES

Measures against the plague were often extreme. Public The city authorities reacted firmly and responsibly. The Mayor ordered: Public prayers, and days of confession. Closure of public places like theatres and dancing-houses. Fires in the streets to purify the air. The killing of cats and dogs, which were thought to carry the plague. It was estimated that 40,000 dogs and 200,000 cats were killed. Doctors were appointed to look after the poor. Houses where someone got the plague were shut up, and marked with a red cross. 'God have mercy upon us' was written on the door. Burial of the dead in mass graves.

Personal Many people just stayed indoors. Others fled to the countryside. Doctors advised people to fumigate their houses, and keep the windows closed. People refused to touch other people. Money was dropped into jars of vinegar. People carried bottles of perfume. 'Cures' for the plague included the letters 'abracadabra' written in a triangle, a lucky hare's foot, smoking tobacco, dried toad, leeches, and pressing a plucked chicken against the plague-sores until it died.

CONSEQUENCES

Perhaps 70,000 Londoners died of the plague in 1665. One historian has suggested that as many as three-quarters of a million people died nationwide, and that many more became ill and recovered. Coping with this placed a strain on the economy and society. Modern historians, however, have suggested that the plague had little effect on England scientific and economic growth continued unaffected, and even the worst-affected towns recovered quickly. The Great Fire of 1666 destroyed a lot of the old, ratinfested buildings. Apart from a small outbreak in 1703, the plague of 1665 was the last plague

INTERPRETATIONS

Historians have good data about the plague because careful records of the deaths were kept at the time on the weekly Bills of Mortality although the doctors of the time might have misdiagnosed some of the deaths. A number of Londoners recorded the events of the plague at the time. The most famous of these is the diarist Samuel Pepys, who could not stop himself going out and wandering round the streets to see what was happening. In 1722, the writer Daniel Defoe wrote A Journal of Plague Year. It reads as though it is a personal account, but in fact it was a fictional story based on records of the time, although it may also have been based on a diary kept by his uncle.