…But what greatly contributed to the loss of people thus shut up, was
the wicked practices of the nurses (for they are not to be mentioned but
in the most bitter terms): these wretches, out of greediness to plunder
the dead, would strangle their patients, and charge it to the distemper
in their throats; others would secretly convey the pestilential taint from
the sores of the infected to those who were well; and nothing indeed deterred
these abandoned miscreants from prosecuting their avaricious purposes by
all the methods their wickedness could invent; who, although they were
without witness to accuse them, yet it is not doubted but divine vengeance
will overtake such wicked barbarities with due punishment: nay, some were
remarkably struck from heaven in the perpetration of their crimes, and
one particularly amongst many, as she was leaving the house of a family,
all dead, loaded with her robberies, fell down dead under her burden in
the streets: and the case of a worthy citizen was very remarkable, who
being suspected dying by his nurse, was beforehand stripped by her; but
recovering again, he came a second time into the world naked. And so many
were the artifices of these barbarous wretches, that it is to be hoped
posterity will take warning how they trust them again in like cases; and
that their past impunities will not be a means of bringing on us again
the like Judgment.
Moreover, this shutting
up infected houses, made the neighbours fly from theirs, who otherwise
might have been a help to them on many accounts; and I verily believe that
many who were lost might have not been alive, had not the tragical mark
upon their door drove proper assistance from them.
And this is confirmed by the examples of other pestilential contagions,
which have been observed not to cease until the doors of the sick were
set open, and they had the privilege of going abroad; of the same authority
is the custom of other nations who have due regard to that liberty that
is necessary for the comforts of both body and mind.
It now remains noticed
that we take notice of all that is of any weight on the other side; as
therefore it is not at all deemed cruel to take off a mortified limb to
save the whole, by a parity of reason is the conduct of a community justifiable,
who, out of regard to the public good, put hardships upon particular persons;
in a pestilential contagion therefore, what can be of more immediate service
than securing those that are well from the infection? And the more especially
in a disease that reaches not only for the body, but taints the very breath;
for in this case the infected breathe poisons upon the healthful, and even
at the point of death endeavors them. From this delirious pleasure arises
those tricks of transplanting the corruption of a pestilential tumour to
another; not to say anything of that woman, who with her importunities
drew her unhappy husband into her embraces, which ended his life with hers.
Again, to take away
all the doubtings in this case, I am not ignorant of what moment it is
to shut up the houses of all those who are infected, according to custom;
for by this means a contagion may at first be stifled, which otherwise
would go beyond any remedy; and with equal advantage might gunpowder be
fired, if too much time is not wasted in deliberation, before these things
are put into practice.
But if hereafter again
the plague should break out (which God forbid), with submission to superiors,
I should think it not improper to appoint proper accommodations out of
the city, for such as are yet untouched in infected families; and who should
continue there for a certain time; the sick in the meantime to be removed
to convenient apartments provided on purpose for them. For by this means,
that practice so abhorrent to religion and humanity, even in the opinion
of a Mahometan, of shutting up the sick and well together, would be avoided.
But to return: the
infection had long doubtfully reigned, and continued through May and June,
with more or less severity; sometimes raging in one part, and then in another,
as in running sort of flight; as often as the number of funerals decreased,
great hopes were conceived of its disappearance; then in a sudden again
their increase threw all in dejection, as if the whole city was soon to
be unpeopled ---- which uncertainty gave advantage to the distemper; because
persons were more remiss in their provisions against it, during such fluctuation.
It must not however
be omitted, with what precipitation the trembling inhabitants left the
city, and how they flocked in such crowds out of town, as if London had
quite gone out of itself, like the hurry of a sudden conflagration, all
doors and passages are thronged for escape: yet after the chief of the
people were fled, and thereby the nourishment of this cruel enemy had been
in a great measure taken away, yet it raged still; and although it seemed
once to slay as Parthians in their flight, it soon returned with redoubled
fury, and killed not by slow paces, but almost immediately upon seizure;
not unlike what is often seen in battle, when after some skirmishes of
wings, and separate parties, the main bodies come to engage; so did this
contagion at first only scatter about its arrows, but at last covered the
whole city with dead.
Thus therefore in
the space of one week were eighty persons cut off, and when things came
to extremity, all helps were called in; though it began now to be solely
the magistrates’ business, how to put a stop to this cruel devastation,
and save some part of the city at last from the grave; first then therefore
were appointed a monthly fast for public prayers, to deprecate the anger
of heaven; nor proved it on vain, or were their supplications altogether
fruitless; for if we have any regard to the temperature of the season,
the whole summer was refreshed with moderate breezes, sufficient to prevent
the sir’s stagnation and corruption, and to carry off the pestilential
streams; the heat was likewise too mild to encourage such corruption and
fermentation as helps to taint the animal fluids, and prevent them from
their natural state.
The Government, however,
to the duty of the public prayers, neglected not to add what assistance
might be had from medicines; to which purpose His Majesty, with the Divine
helps, called in also all that was human, and by his Royal authority commanded
the College of Physicians of London jointly to write somewhat in English
that might be a general directory in this calamitous exigence. Nor was
it satisfactory to that honoured Society to discharge their regards for
the public with that only, but some were chose out of their number, and
appointed particularly to attend the infected on all occasions; two also
out of the court of Aldermen were required to see this hazardous task executed;
so that encouraged with all proper means, this province was cheerfully
undertaken, and all possible caution was used fully to answer the intention;
but this task was too much for four persons, and wanted rather the concurrence
of the whole Faculty; we were however ashamed to give it up, and used our
utmost application therein; but all our care and pains were eluded, for
the disease, like the hydra’s heads, was no sooner extinguished in one
family, but it broke out in many more with aggravations, so that in a little
time we found our task too great, and despaired of putting an entire stop
to the infection.
Nor was there at this
time wanting the help of very great and worthy persons who voluntarily
contributed their assistances in this dangerous work; amongst the number
of which the learned Dr. Glisson, Regius Professor at Cambridge, Dr. Nath.
Paget, Dr. Wharton, Dr. Nerwick, Dr. Brookes, and many other who are yet
alive, deserve very honourable mention; but eight or nine fell in this
work, who were too much loaded with the spoils of the enemy; and amongst
these was Dr. Conyers whose goodness and humanity claim an honourable remembrance
with all who survive him.
After then all endeavors
to restrain the contagion proved of no effect, we applied ourselves to
the care of the diseased; and in the prosecution of which, it may be affirmed
without boasting, no hazards to ourselves were avoided. But it is incredible
to think how the plague raged amongst the common people, insomuch that
it came by some to be called “the poor’s plague.” Yet, although the more
opulent had left the town, and that it was almost left uninhabited, the
commonality that were left felt little of want; for their necessities were
relieved with a profusion of good things from the wealthy, and their poverty
was supported with plenty. Amore manifest cause therefore for such a devastation
amongst then I shall assign for another place.
In the months of August
and September, the contagion changed its former slow and languid pace,
and having as it were got master of all, made a most terrible slaughter,
so that three, four, or five thousand died in a week, and once eight thousand.
Who can express the calamities of such times? The whole British nation
wept for the miseries of her metropolis. In some houses carcasses lay waiting
for burial, and in others persons in their last agonies; in one room might
be heard dying groans, in another the raving of delirium, and not so far
off relations and friends bewailing both their loss and the dismal prospect
of their own sudden departure. Death was the sure midwife to all children,
and infants passed immediately from the womb to the grave. Who would not
burst with grief to see the stock for a future generation hanging upon
the breast of a dead mother? Or the marriage-bed changed the first might
into a sepulchre, and the unhappy pair meet with death in their first embraces?
Some of the infected ran into the streets; while others lie half-dead and
comatose, but never to be waked but by the last trumpet; some lie vomiting
as if they had drunk poison; and others fell dead in the market, while
they were buying necessaries for the support of life. Not much unlike was
it in the following conflagration, where altars themselves became so many
victims, and the finest churches in the whole world carried up to the heaven
supplications in flames, while their marble pillars wet with tears melted
like wax; nor were monuments secure from the inexorable flames, where many
of their venerable remains passed a second martyrdom; the most august palaces
were soon laid to waste, and the flames seemed to be fatal engagement to
destroy the great ornament to commerce; and the burning of all the commodities
of the world together seemed a proper epitome of this conflagration; neither
confederate crowns nor the drawn swords of kings could restrain its phanatic
and rebellious rage; large halls, stately houses, and the sheds of the
poor were together reduced to ashes; the sun blushed to see himself set,
and envied those flames the government of the night, which had rivaled
him so many days. As the city, I say, was afterwards burnt without any
distinction, in like manner did this plague spare no order, age or sex.
The divine was taken in the very exercise of his priestly office to be
enrolled amongst the saints above; and some physicians, as before imitated,
could not find assistance in their own antidotes, but died in the administration
of them to others; and although the soldiery retreated from the filed of
death, and encamped out of the city, the contagion followed and vanquished
them. Many in their old age, others in their prime, sunk under its cruelties.
Of the female sex most died; and hardly any children escaped; and it was
not uncommon to see an inheritance pass successively to three or four heirs
in as many days. The number of sextons was not sufficient to bury the dead;
the bells seemed hoarse with the continual tolling, until at last they
quite ceased; the burying places would not hold the dead, but they were
thrown into large pits dug in waste grounds, in heaps, thirty of forty
together; and it often happened that those who tended the funerals of their
friends one evening were carried the next to their long home….