Medicine through time

Medicine through time - content, activities and blog for teachers and learners of medicine through time

A case study of the 1665 Plague in London

 Learning Objective: To identify elements of continuity with the Middle Ages in the understanding of the causes and treatments of plague.

Activities:

* Students identify and summarise beliefs about the causes of plague and its treatment in 1665 from a variety of primary sources.
* Students identify elements of similarity with medical understanding of the Black Death in the Middle Ages.

Task: Use the POINTERS to the right of the source to help you answer the question ‘How did people in London react to the Plague?’

	Pointers: Look at the headline, it suggests fear. What does the illustration show us? Is it people fleeing the city? The pages border is illustrated with skulls, skeletons and shovels. Think about the reasons for this. To both sides of the page are columns. What might you expect to find in these columns?
Use the data in the table to the left (below) and from the newspaper account to the right to compile a spreadsheet of Plague related deaths.
Total deaths from disease and deaths from plague: selected years 1592-1665 Year 1592   1603   1665       Total Plague Total Plague Total Plague   Mar 877 87 246 11 0 0 Ma April 1253 140 352 26 398 2 Apr May 1499 200 446 83 1872 43 May June 3531 1333 838 362 2258 590 June July 6011 2986 4042 2996 6820 4127 July Aug 6080 2404 17267 8922 25447 19066 Aug Sept 3318 1820 14009 12500 30599 26220 Sept Oct 1382 1236 4534 3943 17201 14373 Oct Nov 1280 503 1904 1390 1787 1414 Nov Dec 1046 196 286 160 0 0 Dec                 Total 26277 10905 43924 30393 86382 65835
	The plague of 1665 is often referred to as being the ‘Great Plague’. The evidence that you have seen so far makes it clear that the plague itself was serious, but does not make the true extent of the outbreak clear. The evidence to the left shows that the plague of 1665 was much worse than earlier outbreaks in 1625 and 1630. Other, contemporary evidence is available to show us how the people of the day reacted to the Plague. Consider the words used by Samuel Pepys in his diary: This day, much against my Will, I did in Drury-lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and "Lord have mercy upon us" writ there - which was a sad sight to me, being the first of that kind that to my remembrance I ever saw. It put me into an ill conception of myself and my smell, so that I was forced to buy some roll tobacco to smell to and chaw - which took away the apprehension. [Houses infected by the Plague had to have a red cross one foot high marked on their door and were shut up - often with the victims inside. Tobacco was highly prized for its medicinal value, especially against the Plague. It is said that at Eton one boy was flogged for being discovered not smoking.] (Samuel Pepys diary 7th June 1665) Questions: What evidence is there in Samuel Pepys diary of people having superstitious beliefs about the spread of the Plague? Did people in the seventeenth century deal with the spread of disease in a scientific manner? The number of deaths caused by things OTHER than the plague rose rapidly during the outbreak. Records show us that the cause of these deaths ranged from ‘Fright’, through to ‘fever’. How reliable are the records on plague deaths?
Revise it: use primary source materials from the National Archives to complete the activities on this page.

 

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