Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/246

226 the same. They were all badly drained; the streets were narrow, dark, and dirty; the water was insufficient for the needs of the people. Cleanliness was little considered in these days. Rubbish from the houses was shot into the street, where it lay about in heaps with rotten fruit, ashes, dead cats and dogs, and other filth, till kindly rains swept all together into the nearest stream or river.

And if gross ignorance prevailed with regard to sanitary matters, gross ignorance likewise prevailed with regard to medical precautions. This is amply illustrated by the very inadequate remedies suggested to allay the plague when Englishmen were dying by hundreds, till "the nights were too short to bury the dead."

One lady beseeches her young nephew "to wear a quill as is filled up with quicksilver and sealed up with hard wax and served up in a silk thing with a string to wear about the neck; this is as sartine as anything is to keep from taking the