It is 1665 in London. The streets are filthy; people routinely open their windows and throw out their waste. Some of this is rubbish, some human waste. Reeking sewage runs down the middle of the road, and everywhere you look, open drains gape.
Dead animals lie dumped in alleyways; it is cheaper than paying for their disposal. The only animals thriving are the rats, their sleek bodies darting through the sludge. Then someone walks past who looks flushed, perhaps they have a fever. You step aside, just in case.
However, it is too late: the bubonic plague has struck England, and the first major outbreak has gripped London.
The Invisible Enemy Spreads
Early on, the common belief was that the rats and their fleas spread the disease; after all, they were the only animals feasting in the filth. The close living conditions meant the bacteria could jump easily from rat to flea to human.
With housing desperately overcrowded, the illness passed rapidly as residents lived quite literally on top of one another. If one person developed symptoms in your shared living space, you simply counted down the days until you would perish. You were living in a giant Petri dish of infection.
This is not the first time this mystery illness has been seen; the 1300s boasted something similar called the Black Death.
Desperate Measures
Later, the authorities tried to stem the disease’s spread. They shut the city down: theatres closed, and pubs were shuttered. But all that did was force people to live even closer to each other.
Still, people thought they knew how to survive. They would carry posies of herbs with them, believing the smell would ward off the plague. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work.
The next drastic move was to put big red crosses on the doors of those infected and lock families inside their homes to perish. Whether they were infected or not, the family stayed with family. It wasn’t just the plague that decimated entire families; many also starved to death, unable to leave and unable to get food delivered.
The Genius of Isolation: Sir Isaac Newton
Not everyone suffered, though; some flourished. Trapped in the family home in the country, a young mathematician, physicist, and astronomer had plenty of time to research projects and watch apples drop.
This period of forced isolation, known as Newton’s Annus Mirabilis (Year of Wonders), was one of his most productive. In 1687, he would publish his Magnum Opus, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (the Principia). Here he detailed his laws and described how the force of gravity governs both planetary motion and objects on Earth.
These fundamental ideas were first developed when he discovered gravity whilst stuck in his house, avoiding the London Plague.
The Searchers and the Beaked Doctors
As with all events like this, there are always people who prosper from the suffering of others. They became known as the Searchers; their grim job was to inspect the dead and report the plague deaths. It was a time to prosper. Numbers were faked, and bribes were accepted to look the other way if a family was infected.
Doctors took on a sinister appearance with their beaked masks. The costume is now as famous as the plague itself; back then, it was a death sentence.
Fire and Fate
It was not to last forever, though. First, the cold weather started to suppress it in early 1666. Then extreme heat prevailed. The Great Fire of London later in the year finally burnt the disease out, destroying the rat-infested slums and the conditions that allowed the plague to thrive.
From the ashes, London rose again, minus the deadly disease. This was the last time the plague would ever cause a major epidemic in England.
It did not disappear because people got smarter or a pharmaceutical company found a cure, but because fire and fate had their say.
We weren’t the only generation to survive a pandemic.
Until next Wednesday: Stay safe, stay curious, and beware the shadows of the past.
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I cannot imagine what it must have been like living in those conditions. The odor must have been unbearable.
Sam, I've always been interested in the Plagues. And, this year, in a parallel here in West Texas.
Our town of 6,000 was the highest count of measles for months. Why? Parents not vaccinating children.