Volume 1

Public health: a popular introduction to sanitary science : being a history of the prevalent and fatal diseases of the English population from the earliest times to the close of the war of the French revolution in 1815 / by William A. Guy.

  • Guy, William A. (William Augustus), 1810-1885.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Public health: a popular introduction to sanitary science : being a history of the prevalent and fatal diseases of the English population from the earliest times to the close of the war of the French revolution in 1815 / by William A. Guy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    months, their loss was hardly discernable.” But the next spring there appeared “some remains of the contagion,” which was easily conquered by the physicians j and the whole malignity ceasing, the city returned to perfect health, as, after the great fire, “a new city suddenly arose out of the ashes of the old, much better able to stand the like flames another time.” So much for the Plague in London. But the city became the focus of “ infection to surrounding districts, and, even, as I shall presently show, to remote places. We are told that the citizens who crowded into the adjacent towns, carried the infection with them, so that the Plague reigned over whole counties, leaving hardly any place free, attacking with extreme violence the towns on the Thames, not even sparing places “ of the most advantageous situation for a wholesome air.” It was not, as Hodges thought, the fault of the moist air of the river, but of the tainted goods that were carried upon it. I have just stated that the Plague was conveyed from London even to remote places. I may add that it was not by personal intercourse only, but also by goods and merchandize. Of this latter mode of communication, we have an admirable and most instructive example in what befell the inhabitants of Eyam, in Derbyshire, a place rendered for ever memorable by the heroism of its rector, Mompesson. Eyam, a hamlet secluded among the hills of the Peak of Derbyshire, is about 150 miles from London, and had a population of 350 souls. Quite early in the month of September, when the Plague was at its worst in London, there was sent from London to one George Vicars, a tailor, a box of clothes. He opened the box, and hung the clothes to the fire; and, while he watched them, was suddenly seized with violent sickness, and other alarming symptoms. On the second day he was worse j was deli-