The arrow

pestilence

been, and I could give many particular cases where it has been so; if then, the blow is thus insensibly striking; if the arrow of Divine flies thus unseen, and cannot be discovered; to what purpose flies unseen. are all the schemes for shutting up or removing the sick people? those schemes cannot take place but upon those that appear to be sick, or to be infected; whereas there are among them, at the same time, thousands of people who seem to be well, but are all that while carrying death with them into all companies which they come into.

ries, and

This frequently puzzled our physicians, and especially the Physicians, apothecaries and surgeons, who knew not how to discover the apothecasick from the sound; they all allowed that it was really so, that surgeons puzzled. many people had the plague in their very blood, and preying upon their spirits, and were in themselves but walking putrefied carcases, whose breath was infectious, and their sweat poison; and yet were as well to look on as other people, and even knew it not themselves: I say, they all allowed that it was really true in fact, but they knew not how to propose a discovery.

opinion.

My friend, Dr. Heath, was of opinion, that it might be Dr. Heath's known by the smell of their breath; but then, as he said, who durst smell to that breath for his information? since to know it, he must draw the stench of the plague up into his own brain, in order to distinguish the smell! I bave heard, it was the opinion of others, that it might be distinguished by the party's breathing upon a piece of glass, where the breath condensing, there might living creatures be seen by a microscope, of strange, monstrous, and frightful shapes, such as dragons, snakes, serpents, and devils, horrible to behold; but this I very much question the truth of, and we had no microscopes at that time, as I remember, to make the experiment with.

of a learned

man.

It was the opinion also of another learned man that the An opinion breath of such a person would poison and instantly kill a bird; not only a small bird, but even a cock or hen, and that if it did not immediately kill the latter, it would cause them to be roupy, as they call it; particularly that if they had laid any eggs at that time they would be all rotten; but those are opinions which I never found supported by any experiments, or heard of others that had seen it; so I leave them as I find them, only with this remark, namely, that I think the probabilities are very strong for them.

Some have proposed that such persons should breathe hard upon warm water, and they would leave an unusual scum

The distemper broke out in April.

Frost does

pestilence.

upon it, or upon several other things, especially such as are of a glutinous substance, and are apt to receive a scum and support it.

But from the whole I found that the nature of this contagion was such, that it was impossible to discover it at all, or to prevent its spreading from one to another, by any human skill.

Here was indeed one difficulty, which I could never thoroughly get over to this time, and which there is but one way of answering that I know of, and it is this, viz., the first person that died of the plague was on December 20th, or thereabouts, 1664, and in or about Long Acre; whence the first person had the infection was generally said to be from a parcel of silks imported from Holland, and first opened in that house.

But after this we heard no more of any person dying of the plague, or of the distemper being in that place, till the 9th of February, which was about seven weeks after, and then one more was buried out of the same house: then it was hushed, and we were perfectly easy as to the public for a great while; for there were no more entered in the weekly bill to be dead of the plague till the 22nd of April, when there were two more buried, not out of the same house, but out of the same street; and, as near as I can remember, it was out of the next house to the first; this was nine weeks asunder, and after this we had no more till a fortnight, and then it broke out in several streets, and spread every way. Now the question seems to lie thus:Where lay the seeds of the infection all this while? how came it to stop so long, and not stop any longer? Either the distemper did not come immediately by contagion from body to body, or if it did, then a body may be capable to continue infected, without the disease discovering itself, many days, nay, weeks together, even; not a quarantine of days only, but a soixantine, not only forty days, but sixty days, or longer.

It is true, there was, as I observed at first, and is well known not control to many yet living, a very cold winter, and a long frost, which continued three months, and this, the doctors say, might check the infection; but then the learned must allow me to say, that if, according to their notion, the disease was, as I may say, only frozen up, it would, like a frozen river, have returned to its usual force and current when it thawed, whereas the principal recess of this infection, which was from February to April, was after the frost was broken, and the weather mild and warm.

But there is another way of solving all this difficulty, which I

think my own remembrance of the thing will supply; and that is, the fact is not granted, namely, that there died none in those long intervals, viz., from the 20th December to the 9th of February, and from thence to the 22nd of April. The weekly bills are the only evidence on the other side, and those bills were not of credit enough, at least with me, to support an hypothesis, or determine a question, of such importance as this; for it was our received opinion at that time, and I believe upon very good grounds, that the fraud lay in the parish officers, searchers, and persons appointed to give account of the dead, and what diseases they died of; and as people were very loth at first to have the neighbours believe their houses were infected, so they gave money to procure, or otherwise procured, the dead persons to be returned as dying of other distempers; and this I know was practised afterwards in many places, I believe, I might say in all places where the distemper came, as will be seen by the vast increase of the numbers placed in the weekly bills under other articles of diseases during the time of the infection; for example, in the months of July and August, when the plague was coming on to its highest pitch, it was very ordinary to have from a thousand to twelve hundred, nay, to almost fifteen hundred a week, of other distempers: not that the numbers of those distempers were really increased to such a degree; but the great number of families and houses where really the infection was, obtained the favour to have their dead Weekly be returned of other distempers, to prevent the shutting up distemper. their houses. For example:-

Dead of other diseases beside the Plague.

bills of the

Now it was not doubted but the greatest part of these, or a great part of them, were dead of the plague, but the officers were prevailed with to return them as above, and the numbers

of some particular articles of distempers discovered, is as follows:

From the 1st to
Fever.

8th Aug. to 15th, to 22nd, to 29th.

Spotted Fever

174

Surfeit

85

From Aug. 29th to Sept. 5th, to 12th, to 19th, to 26th.

Weekly bills discover the truth.

There were several other articles which bore a proportion to these, and which it is easy to perceive were increased on the same account, as aged, consumptions, vomitings, imposthumes, gripes, and the like, many of which were not doubted to be infected people; but as it was of the utmost consequence to families not to be known to be infected, if it was possible to avoid it, so they took all the measures they could to have it not believed; and if any died in their houses to get them returned to the examiners, and by the searchers, as having died of other distempers.

This, I say, will account for the long interval which, as I have said, was between the dying of the first persons that were returned in the bill to be dead of the plague, and the time when the distemper spread openly, and could not be concealed.

Besides, the weekly bills themselves, at that time, evidently discover the truth; for, while there was no mention of the plague, and no increase after it had been mentioned, yet it was apparent that there was an increase of those distempers which bordered nearest upon it; for example, there were eight, twelve, seventeen of the spotted fever in a week when there were none or but very few of the plague; whereas before one, three, or four, were the ordinary weekly numbers of that distemper. Likewise, as I observed before, the burials increased weekly in that particular parish, and the parishes adjacent, more than in

any other parish, although there were none set down of the plague; all which tell us that the infection was handed on, and the succession of the distemper really preserved, though it seemed to us at that time to be ceased, and to come again in a manner surprising.

It might be also that the infection might remain in other parts of the same parcel of goods which at first it came in, and which might not be perhaps opened, or at least not fully, or in the clothes of the first infected person; for I cannot think that anybody could be seized with the contagion in a fatal and mortal Defoe's opinion as degree for nine weeks together, and support his state of health to the so well as even not to discover it to himself; yet, if it were contagion. so, the argument is the stronger in favour of what I am saying, namely, that the infection is retained in bodies apparently well, and conveyed from them to those they converse with, while it is known to neither the one nor the other.

Sudden

exit of

Great were the confusions at that time upon this very account; and when people began to be convinced that the infection was received in this surprising manner from persons apparently well, they began to be exceeding shy and jealous of every one that came near them. Once on a public day, whether a Sabbath day or not I do not remember, in Aldgate church, in a pew full of people, on a sudden, one fancied she smelt an ill smell; imme- persons diately she fancies the plague was in the pew, whispers her Aldgate notion or suspicion to the next, then rises and goes out of the Church. pew; it immediately took with the next, and so to them all; and every one of them, and of the two or three adjoining pews, got up and went out of the church, nobody knowing what it was offended them, or from whom.

from

This immediately filled everybody's mouths with one prepara- Churches tion or another, such as the old women directed, and some, are highly perfumed. perhaps, as physicians directed, in order to prevent infection by the breath of others; insomuch, that if we came to go into a church when it was anything full of people, there would be such a mixture of smells at the entrance, that it was much more strong, though perhaps not so wholesome, than if you were going into an apothecary's or druggist's shop; in a word, the whole church was like a smelling-bottle. In one corner it was all perfumes, in another aromatics, balsamics, and a variety of drugs and herbs; in another salts and spirits, as every one was furnished for their own preservation; yet I observed that after people were possessed, as I have said, with the belief or rather assurance.