Page:A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).djvu/190

 tragical, and which merited to have been conſider'd if there had been room for it; but it was authoriz’d by a Law, it had the publick Good in view, as the End chiefly aim’d at, and all the private Injuries that were done by the putting it in Execution, muſt be put to the account of the publick Benefit.

It is doubtful to this days whether in the whole it contributed any thing to the ſtop of the Infection, and indeed, I cannot ſay it did; for nothing could run with greater Fury and Rage than the Infection did when it was in its chief Violence; tho’ the Houſes infected were ſhut up as exactly, and as effectually as it was poſſible. Certain it is, that if all the infected Perſons were effectually ſhut in, no ſound Perſon could have been infected by them, becauſe they could not have come near them. But the Caſe was this, and I ſhall only touch it here, namely, that the Infection was propagated inſenſibly, and by ſuch Perſons as were not viſibly infected, who neither knew who they infected, or who they were infected by. A Houſe in White-Chapel was ſhut up for the ſake of one infected Maid, who had only Spots, not the Tokens come out upon her, and recover’d ; yet theſe People obtain’d no Liberty to ſtir, neither for Air or Exerciſe forty Days; want of Breath, Fear, Anger, Vexation, and all the other Griefs attending ſuch an injurious Treatment, caſt the Miſtreſs of the Family into a Fever, and Viſitors came into the Houſe, and ſaid it was the Plague, tho’ the Phyſicians declar’d it was not; however the Family were oblig’d to begin their Quarantine anew, on the Report of the Viſitor or Examiner, tho’ their former Quarantine wanted but a few Days of being finiſh'd. This oppreſs’d them ſo with Anger and Grief, and, as before, ſtraiten’d them alſo ſo much as to Room, and for want of Breathing and free Air, that moſt of the Family fell ſick, one of one Diſtemper, one of another, chiefly Scorbutick Ailments; only one a violent Cholick,