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September. The following are the entries in the bills of mortality

for this period:

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August 22 to August 29.....

7496

6102

August 29 to September 5........

8252

6988

September 5 to September 12....................................

7690

6544

September 12 to September 19...

8297

7165

September 19 to September 26..

6460

5533

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It will be observed from this table that there was a considerable decrease in the number of deaths for the week ending 26th September as compared with the four weeks preceding; and although the number was still enormously great, this symptom was eagerly grasped at by the citizens as perhaps indicating the abatement of the plague, and the next week's returns were looked for with extraordinary anxiety. What delight, what hope spread through the city when it was known that the return stood as follows:

September 26 to October 3..........................

Burials.
5720

Deaths by Plague.

4929

But we must leave Defoe to describe the gradual abatement, of which these diminished returns were the proof. The last week in September,' he says, 'the plague being come to a crisis, its fury began to assuage. I remember my friend Dr Heath, coming to see me the week before, told me he was sure that the violence of it would assuage in a few days; but when I saw the weekly bill of that week, which was the highest of the whole year, being 8297 of all diseases, I upbraided him with it, and asked him what he had made his judgment from? His answer, however, was not so much to seek as I thought it would have been. "Look you," says he, "by the number which are at this time sick and infected, there should have been 20,000 dead the last week instead of 8000, if the inveterate mortal contagion had been as it was two weeks ago; for then it ordinarily killed in two or three days, now not under eight or ten; and then not above one in five recovered, whereas I have observed that now not above two in five miscarry; and, observe it from me, the next bill will decrease, and you will see many more people recover than used to do; for though a vast multitude are now everywhere infected, and as many every day fall sick, yet there will not so many die as there did, for the malignity of the distemper is abated;" adding that he began now to hope, nay, more than hope, that the infection had passed its crisis, and was going off and accordingly so it was; for the next week being, as I said, the last in September, the bill decreased almost 2000.

"It is true the plague was still at a frightful height, and the next bill was no less than 6460, and the next to that 5720; but still my

friend's observation was just, and it did appear the people did recover faster, and more in number, than they used to do. And, indeed, if it had not been so, what had been the condition of the city of London? for, according to my friend, there were not fewer than 60,000 people at that time infected, whereof, as above, 20,477 died, and near 40,000 recovered; whereas, had it been as it was before, 50,000 of that number would very probably have died, if not more, and 50,000 more would have sickened; for, in a word, the whole mass of people began to sicken, and it looked as if none would escape.

'But this remark of my friend appeared more evident in a few weeks more; for the decrease went on, and another week in October it decreased 1843, so that the number dead of the plague was but 2665; and the next week it decreased 1413 more, and yet it was seen plainly that there was abundance of people sick; nay, more than ordinary, and many fell sick every day, but, as above, the malignity of the disease abated.'

The best idea of the rapidity of the progress of the city towards health will be obtained from the bills of mortality, which, continued from the last entry quoted, were as follows :

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from which period the numbers decreased regularly; till, on the week ending the 5th of December they stood thus-burials, 428; deaths from plague, 210.

Those who had left town now began to flock in again; the shops began to be opened, and the bustle of trade recommenced. 'It is impossible,' says Defoe, 'to express the change that appeared in the very countenances of the people that Thursday morning when the weekly bill came out. It might have been perceived in their countenances that a secret surprise and smile of joy sat on everybody's face; they who would hardly go on the same side of the way with one another before, now shook each other by the hands in the streets. Where the streets were not too broad, they would open their windows and call from one house to another, and ask how they did, and if they had heard the good news that the plague was abated; some would return, when they said good news, and ask: "What good news?" And when they answered that the plague was abated, and the bills decreased almost 2000, they would cry out: "God be praised!" and would weep aloud for joy, telling them they had heard nothing of it; and such was the joy of the people, that it was, as it were, life

to them from the grave. I could almost set down as many extravagant things done in the excess of their joy as of their grief, but that would be to lessen the value of it.'

Counting from the 20th of December 1664, when it was first rumoured that the plague had broken out in Drury Lane, to the 19th of December 1665, when the plague had so far abated that the weekly deaths were about 250, the entire number of victims swept off by the pestilence in the city of London in these twelve months was, according to the official returns, 68,596; but according to the computation of Defoe and others, at least 100,000. In order to give as accurate a notion as possible of the symptoms, and its mode of attacking people, we may add, in conclusion, one or two particulars of an interesting kind, from a manuscript account of the plague preserved in the British Museum, and written by Mr William Boghurst, a medical practitioner in London during the fatal period.

'In the summer before the plague,' he says, 'there was such a multitude of flies, that they lined the insides of the houses; and if any threads or strings did hang down in any place, they were presently thick-set with flies, like ropes of onions; and swarms of ants covered the highways, that you might have taken up a handful at a time, both winged and creeping ants; and such a multitude of croaking frogs in ditches, that you might have heard them before you saw them. The plague was ushered in with seven months of dry weather and westerly winds. It fell first upon the highest grounds, as St Giles's and St Martin's, Westminster; but afterwards it gradually insinuated and crept down Holborn and the Strand, and then into the city; and at last to the east end of the suburbs; so that it was half a year at the west end before the east end and Stepney were affected. The disease spread not altogether by contagion at first, nor began only at one place, and spread farther and farther, as an eating and spreading sore doth all over the body; but fell upon several places of the city and suburbs like rain, even at the first. Almost all that caught the disease with fear died with tokens (spots on the body) in two or three days. About the beginning, most men got the disease with drinking, surfeiting, overheating themselves, and by disorderly living. Some died eight, ten, twelve, or twenty days after they had been sick; yet the greatest part died before five or six days. In the summer, about half of those who were taken sick died; but towards winter, three parts in four lived. None died suddenly, as though struck with lightning or apoplexy. I saw none die under twenty or twenty-four hours.* Spots appeared not much till the middle of June, and carbuncles not till the latter end of July, and seized mostly on old people, choleric and melancholy people, and generally on dry and lean bodies. Children had

*There is an apparent contradiction on this point between Boghurst and Defoe; probably, however, Defoe's cases of sudden deaths were cases of persons who had been ill for some time without being fully aware of it,

none.

If very hot weather followed a shower of rain, the disease increased. Many people, after a violent sweat, or taking a strong cordial, presently had the tokens come out, so that every nurse would say: "Cochineal was a fine thing to bring out the tokens." Authors speak of several kinds of plagues-some which took only children, others maids, others young people under thirty; but this of ours took all sorts. Yet it fell not very thick upon old people till about the middle or slack of the disease. Old people that had the disease, many of them were not sick at all; but they that were sick, almost all died. I had one patient fourscore and six years old. Though all sorts of people died very thick, both young and old, rich and poor, healthy and unhealthy, strong and weak, men and women, of all constitutions, of all tempers and complexions, of all professions and places, of all religions, of all conditions, good or bad-yet, as far as I could discern, more of the good people died than of the bad, more men than women, and more of dull complexions than of fair. Black men of thin and lean constitutions were heavyladen with this disease, and died, all that I saw, in two or three days; and most of them thick with black tokens. People of the best complexions and merry dispositions had least of the disease; and, if they had it, fared best under it. This year in which the plague hath raged so much, no alteration nor change appeared in any element, vegetable or animal, besides the body of man. All other things kept their common integrity, and all sorts of fruit, all roots, flowers, and medicinal simples were as plentiful, large, fair, and wholesome, and all grain as plentiful and good as ever. All kine, cattle, horses, sheep, swine, dogs, wild beasts and tame were as healthful, strong to labour, and wholesome to eat as ever they were in any year. Hens, geese, pigeons, turkeys, and all wild-fowl were free from infection.* The summer following the plague, very few flies, frogs, and such like appeared. Great doubting and disputing there is whether the plague be infectious or not; because some think if it were infectious, it would infect all, as the fire heats all it comes near; but the plague leaves as many as it takes. Generally, every one is apt to judge by his own experience; and if any one may draw his conclusion from this, I have as much reason

*There would seem to be a difference in this respect between the plague of London and the plague of 1348 at Florence, regarding which Boccaccio tells us that such was the quality of the pestilential matter, as to pass not only from man to man, but, what is more strange, and has been often known, that anything belonging to the infected, if touched by any other creature, would certainly infect, and even kill that creature in a short space of time and one instance of this kind I took particular notice of: namely, that the rags of a poor man just dead, being thrown into the street, and two hogs coming by at the same time, and rooting amongst them, and shaking them about in their mouths, in less than an hour turned round and died on the spot. Of the plague at Athens also, Thucydides tells us that the birds and beasts which usually prey on human flesh either never approached the dead bodies, of which many lay about uninterred, or if they tasted, died.' Possibly, however, Mr Boghurst did not mean to deny that, under certain circumstances, the infection might be communicated from a sick patient to any brute with whom he might come in contact, but only that the contagion did not spread among the lower animals.

as any to think it not infectious, having passed through a multitude of continual dangers, being employed every day till ten o'clock at night, out of one house into another, dressing sores, and being always in the breath of patients, without catching the disease of any, through God's protection; and so did many nurses that were in like danger. Yet I count it to be the most subtle infectious disease of

any.

Strange as it may appear, the doubts which were entertained in 1665 respecting the contagious nature of the plague remain till the present day unsettled; some inquirers arguing that the disease is communicated by touch, or infection from proximity with the diseased, while others consider it extends its influence by other means. The subject of this controversy is of little practical consequence. It is sufficient to know that plague, like its modern prototype cholera, is aggravated by insalubrious conditions of the atmosphere, and is intimately connected with neglect of cleanliness. In old London, as till the present day in eastern cities, it found scope for its ravages in confined alleys and courts, or wherever there was any lack of ventilation, sewerage, or a plenteous supply of water. The great fire which half destroyed London in 1666, twelve months after the disappearance of the pestilence, may be said to have banished plague from the metropolis; for the city was rebuilt on a more open scale, with some degree of reference to the health of the inhabitants. Of recent years, much has been effected in the way of still farther improvement. Many thoroughfares have been opened up in densely crowded neighbourhoods, streets and lanes have been widened, and slaughter-houses removed; besides not a little as respects improved dwellings for the humbler classes of society. Although much still remains to be done, a conviction of the importance of sanitary regulations is daily deepening and spreading, and will not much longer tolerate many things that continue to disgrace our civilisation.

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