The acute penetrating nature of the disease itself was such,and the infection was received so imperceptibly,that the most exact caution could not secure us while in the place.But I must be allowed to believe -and I have so many examples fresh in my memory to convince me of it,that I think none can resist their evidence -I say,Imust be allowed to believe that no one in this whole nation ever received the sickness or infection but who received it in the ordinary way of infection from somebody,or the clothes or touch or stench of somebody that was infected before.
The manner of its coming first to London proves this also,viz.,by goods brought over from Holland,and brought thither from the Levant;the first breaking of it out in a house in Long Acre where those goods were carried and first opened;its spreading from that house to other houses by the visible unwary conversing with those who were sick;and the infecting the parish officers who were employed about the persons dead,and the like.These are known authorities for this great foundation point -that it went on and proceeded from person to person and from house to house,and no otherwise.In the first house that was infected there died four persons.
A neighbour,hearing the mistress of the first house was sick,went to visit her,and went home and gave the distemper to her family,and died,and all her household.A minister,called to pray with the first sick person in the second house,was said to sicken immediately and die with several more in his house.Then the physicians began to consider,for they did not at first dream of a general contagion.But the physicians being sent to inspect the bodies,they assured the people that it was neither more or less than the plague,with all its terrifying particulars,and that it threatened an universal infection,so many people having already conversed with the sick or distempered,and having,as might be supposed,received infection from them,that it would be impossible to put a stop to it.
Here the opinion of the physicians agreed with my observation afterwards,namely,that the danger was spreading insensibly,for the sick could infect none but those that came within reach of the sick person;but that one man who may have really received the infection and knows it not,but goes abroad and about as a sound person,may give the plague to a thousand people,and they to greater numbers in proportion,and neither the person giving the infection or the persons receiving it know anything of it,and perhaps not feel the effects of it for several days after.
For example,many persons in the time of this visitation never perceived that they were infected till they found to their unspeakable surprise,the tokens come out upon them;after which they seldom lived six hours;for those spots they called the tokens were really gangrene spots,or mortified flesh in small knobs as broad as a little silver penny,and hard as a piece of callus or horn;so that,when the disease was come up to that length,there was nothing could follow but certain death;and yet,as I said,they knew nothing of their being infected,nor found themselves so much as out of order,till those mortal marks were upon them.But everybody must allow that they were infected in a high degree before,And must have been so some time,and consequently their breath,their sweat,their very clothes,were contagious for many days before.
This occasioned a vast variety of cases which physicians would have much more opportunity to remember than I;but some came within the compass of my observation or hearing,of which I shall name a few.
A certain citizen who had lived safe and untouched till the month of September,when the weight of the distemper lay more in the city than it had done before,was mighty cheerful,and something too bold (as Ithink it was)in his talk of how secure he was,how cautious he had been,and how he had never come near any sick body.Says another citizen,a neighbour of his,to him one day,'Do not be too confident,Mr -;it is hard to say who is sick and who is well,for we see men alive and well to outward appearance one hour,and dead the next.'
'That is true',says the first man,for he was not a man presumptuously secure,but had escaped a long while -and men,as I said above,especially in the city began to be over-easy upon that score.'That is true,'says he;'I do not think myself secure,but I hope I have not been in company with any person that there has been any danger in.''No?'says his neighbour.'Was not you at the Bull Head Tavern in Gracechurch Street with Mr -the night before last?''Yes,'says the first,'I was;but there was nobody there that we had any reason to think dangerous.'Upon which his neighbour said no more,being unwilling to surprise him;but this made him more inquisitive,and as his neighbour appeared backward,he was the more impatient,and in a kind of warmth says he aloud,'Why,he is not dead,is he?'Upon which his neighbour still was silent,but cast up his eyes and said something to himself;at which the first citizen turned pale,and said no more but this,'Then I am a dead man too',and went home immediately and sent for a neighbouring apothecary to give him something preventive,for he had not yet found himself ill;but the apothecary,opening his breast,fetched a sigh,and said no more but this,'Look up to God';and the man died in a few hours.
Now let any man judge from a case like this if it is possible for the regulations of magistrates,either by shutting up the sick or removing them,to stop an infection which spreads itself from man to man even while they are perfectly well and insensible of its approach,and may be so for many days.
End of Part 5
