Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/175

Rh PLAGUE 1G5 disease originated locally; and, indeed, considering previous history, no importation of plague would seem necessary to explain its pres ence in Europe. Italy suffered severely (Venice, in!576, lost 70,000); the north of Europe not less, though later ; London in 1580-82. In 1585 Breslau witnessed the most destructive plague known in its history. The great plague of 1592 in London seems to have been a part of the same epidemic, which was hardly extinguished by the end of the century, and is noted in London again in 1599. On the whole, this century shows a decrease of plague in Europe. In the first half of the 17th century plague was still prevalent in Europe, though considerably less so than in the Middle Ages. In the second half a still greater decline is observable, and by the third quarter the disease had disappeared or was disappearing from a great part of western Europe. The epidemics in England will be most conveniently considered in one series. From this time onwards we have the guidance of the &quot; Bills of Mortality &quot; issued in London, which, though drawn up on the evidence of ignorant persons, are doubtless roughly true. The accession of James I. in 1603 was marked by a very destructive plague which killed 38,000 in Loud HI. In this and subsequent years the disease was widely diffused in England for instance, Oxford, Derbyshire, Newcastle. It prevailed at the same time in Holland, and had done so some years previously in northern Germany. In the same year (1603) one million persons are said to have died of plague in Egypt. This plague is said to have lasted eight years in London. At all events in 1609 we have the second great plague year, with a mortality of 11,785. After this there is a remission till about 1620, when plague again began to spread in northern Europe, especially Germany and Holland, which was at that time ravaged by war. In 1625 (the year of the siege of Breda in Holland) is the third great London plague with 35,417 deaths, though the year 1624 was remarkably exempt, and 1626 nearly so. In 1630 was the great plague of Milan, described by Ripamonti. 1 In 1632 a severe epidemic, apparently plague, was in Derbyshire. 1636 is the fourth great plague year in London with a mortality of 10,400, and even in the next year 3082 persons died of the same disease. The same year 7000 out of 20,000 inhabitants of Newcastle died of plague; in 1635 it was at Hull. About the same time, 1635-37, plague was prevalent in Holland, and the epidemic of Nimeguen is celebrated as having been described by Diemerbroeck, whose work (Tractatus de Pestc, 4to, 1641-65) is one of the most important on the subject. The English epidemic was widely spread and lasted till 1647, in which year, the mortality amount ing to 3597, we have the fifth epidemic in London. The army diseases of the Civil Wars were chiefly typhus and malarial fevers, but plague was not unknown among them, as at Wallingford Castle (Willis, &quot;OfFeaveiV/ForA;, *, ed. 1681, p. 131) and Dunstar Castle. From this time till 1664 little was heard of plague in England, though it did not cease on the Continent. In Ireland it is said to have been seen for the last time in 1650.- In 1656 one of the most destructive of all recorded epidemics in Europe raged in Naples ; it is said to have carried oft 300,000 persons in the space of five months. It passed to Rome, but there was much less fatal, making 14,000 victims only a result attri buted by some to the precautions and sanitary measures introduced by Cardinal Gastaldi, whose work, a splendid folio, written on this occasion ( Tractatus de avertenda et pro/Uganda peste politico- legalls, Bologna, 1684) is historically one of the most important on the subject of quarantine, &c. Genoa lost 60,000 inhabitants from the same disease, but Tuscany remained untouched. The comparatively limited spread of this frightful epidemic in Italy at this time is a most noteworthy fact. Minorca is said to have been depopulated. Nevertheless the epidemic spread in the next few years over Spain and Germany, and a little later to Holland, where Amsterdam in 1663-64 was again ravaged with a mortality given as 50,000, also Rotterdam and Haarlem. Hamburg suffered in 1664. The Great Plague of London. The preceding enumeration will have prepared the reader to view the great plague of 1664-65 in its true relation to others, and not as an isolated phenomenon. The preceding years had been unusually free from plague, and it was not mentioned in the bills of mortality till in the autumn of 1664 (November 2d) a few isolated cases were observed in the parishes of St Giles and St Martin s, AVestminster, and a few occurred in the following winter, which was very severe. About May 1665 the disease again became noticeable, and spread, but somewhat slowly. Boghurst, a contemporary doctor, notices that it crept down Hoi- born and took six months to travel from the western suburbs (St Giles) to the eastern (Stepney) through the city. The mortality rapidly rose from 43 in May to 590 in June, 6137 in July, 17,036 in August, 31,159 in September, after which it began to decline. The total number of deaths from plague in that year, according to the bills of mortality was 68,596, in a population estimated at 460,000, 3 1 Josephus Kipamonti s, Dt Pett?. anni Ifl30, Milan, 1641, 4to. 2 For this period see Index to liemembrancia in Archives of City of London. 157H-1664, Lond., 187S; Kichardson, Plague and Pestilence in North of Enyland Newcastle, 1852. 3 Graunt, Obsercations on the Bills of Mortality, 3d ed., London, 1665. out of whom two-thirds are supposed to have fled to escape the contagion. This number is likely to be rather too low than too high, since of the 6432 deaths from spotted fever many were pro bably really from plague, though not declared so to avoid painful restrictions. In December there was a sudden fall in the mortality which continued through the winter ; but in 1666 nearly 2000 deaths from plague are recorded. According to some authorities, especially Hodges, the plague was imported into London by bales of merchandise from Holland, which came originally from the Levant ; according toothers it was intro duced by Dutch prisoners of war ; but Boghurst regarded it as of local origin. It is in favour of the theory that it spread by some means from Holland that plague had been all but extinct in London for some seventeen years, and prevailed in Holland in 1663-64. But from its past history and local conditions, London might well be deemed capable of producing such an epidemic. In the bills of mortality since 1603 there are only three years when no deaths from plague are recorded. The uncleanliness of the city was comparable to that of Oriental cities at the present day, and, according to contemporary testimony (Garencieres, Anglias Flagel- lum, London 1647, p. 85), little improved since Erasmus wrote his well-known description. The spread of the disease only partially supported the doctrine of contagion, as Boghurst says: &quot;The disease spread not altogether by contagion at first, nor began only at one place and spread further and further as an eating sore doth all over the body, but fell upon several places of city and suburbs like rain.&quot; In fact dissemination seems to have taken place, as usual, by the conversion of one house after another into a focus of disease, a process favoured by the fatal custom of shutting up infected houses with all their inmates, which was not only almost equivalent to a sentence of death on all therein, but caused a dangerous con centration of the poison. The well-known custom of marking such houses with a red cross and the legend &quot; God have mercy upon us !&quot; was no new thing: it is found in a proclamation in the possession of the present writer dated 1641 ; and it was probably older still. Hodges testifies to the futility and injurious effects of these regu lations. The lord mayor and magistrates not only carried out the appointed administrative measures, but looked to the cleanliness of the city and the relief of the poor, so that there was little or no actual want ; and the burial arrangements appear to have been well attended to. The college of physicians, by royal command, put forth such advice and prescriptions as were thought best for the emergency. But it is clear that neither these measures nor medical treatment had any effect in checking the disease. Early in November with colder weather it began to decline ; and in December there was so little fear of contagion that those who had left the city &quot;crowded back as thick as they fled.&quot; As has often been observed in other plague epidemics, sound people could enter infected houses and even sleep in the beds of those who had died of the plague &quot;before they were even cold or cleansed from the stench of the diseased &quot; (Hodges). The symptoms of the disease being such as have been generally observed need not be here considered. The disease was, as always, most destructive in squalid, dirty neighbour hoods and among the poor, so as to be called the &quot; poor s plague.&quot; Those who lived in the town in barges or ships did not take the disease ; and the houses on London Bridge were but little affected. Of those doctors who remained in the city some eight or nine died, not a large proportion. Some had the rare courage to investi gate the mysterious disease by dissecting the bodies of the dead. Hodges implies that he did so, though he left no full account of his observations. Dr George Thomson, a chemist and a disciple of Van Helmont, followed the example, and nearly lost his life by an attack which immediately followed. 4 The plague of 1665 was widely spread over England, and was generally regarded as having been transmitted from London, as it appeared mostly later than in the metropolis, and in many cases the importation by a particular person could be traced. Places near London were earliest affected, as Brentford, Greenwich, Deptford ; but in July or August 1665 it was already in Southampton, Sunder- land, Newcastle, &c. A wider distribution occurred in the next year. Oxford entirely escaped, though the residence of the court and in constant communication with London. The exemption was attributed to cleanliness and good drainage. After 1666 there was no epidemic of plague in London or any part of England, though sporadic cases appear in bills of mortality up to 1679 ; and a column filled up with &quot;0&quot; was left till 1703, Plague in the City of London, by William Boghurst, apothecary in St Giles s-in- the-Fields, London, 1660. a MS. in British Museum (Sloane 349), containing which should tie read and admired as a fiction, but accepted with caution ss history T Vincent (minister of the gospel), God s Terrible Voice in the Oil,/, 8vo London 1UG7; Calendar of State Papers, 16U5-6 (Domestic Series), by SI. E. Green.