Даниэль Дефо - History of the Plague in London

Had not this particular of the sick being restrained as above been our case at that time, London would have been the most dreadful place that ever was in the world. There would, for aught I know, have as many people died in the streets as died in their houses: for when the distemper was at its height, it generally made them raving and delirious; and when they were so, they would never be persuaded to keep in their beds but by force; and many who were not tied threw themselves out of windows when they found they could not get leave to go out of their doors.

It was for want of people conversing one with another in this time of calamity, that it was impossible any particular person could come at the knowledge of all the extraordinary cases that occurred in different families; and particularly, I believe it was never known to this day how many people in their deliriums drowned themselves in the Thames, and in the river which runs from the marshes by Hackney, which we generally called Ware River or Hackney River. As to those which were set down in the weekly bill, they were indeed few. Nor could it be known of any of those, whether they drowned themselves by accident or not; but I believe I might reckon up more who, within the compass of my knowledge or observation, really drowned themselves in that year than are put down in the bill of all put together, for many of the bodies were never found who yet were known to be lost; and the like in other methods of self–destruction. There was also one man in or about Whitecross Street burnt himself to death in his bed. Some said it was done by himself, others that it was by the treachery of the nurse that attended him; but that he had the plague upon him, was agreed by all.

It was a merciful disposition of Providence, also, and which I have many times thought of at that time, that no fires, or no considerable ones at least, happened in the city during that year, which, if it had been otherwise, would have been very dreadful; and either the people must have let them alone unquenched, or have come together in great crowds and throngs, unconcerned at the danger of the infection, not concerned at the houses they went into, at the goods they handled, or at the persons or the people they came among. But so it was, that excepting that in Cripplegate Parish, and two or three little eruptions of fires, which were presently extinguished, there was no disaster of that kind happened in the whole year. They told us a story of a house in a place called Swan Alley, passing from Goswell Street near the end of Old Street into St. John Street, that a family was infected there in so terrible a manner that every one of the house died. The last person lay dead on the floor, and, as it is supposed, had laid herself all along to die just before the fire. The fire, it seems, had fallen from its place, being of wood, and had taken hold of the boards and the joists they lay on, and burned as far as just to the body, but had not taken hold of the dead body, though she had little more than her shift on, and had gone out of itself, not hurting the rest of the house, though it was a slight timber house. How true this might be, I do not determine; but the city being to suffer severely the next year by fire, this year it felt very little of that calamity.

Indeed, considering the deliriums which the agony threw people into, and how I have mentioned in their madness, when they were alone, they did many desperate things, it was very strange there were no more disasters of that kind.

It has been frequently asked me, and I cannot say that I ever knew how to give a direct answer to it, how it came to pass that so many infected people appeared abroad in the streets at the same time that the houses which were infected were so vigilantly searched, and all of them shut up and guarded as they were.

I confess I know not what answer to give to this, unless it be this: that, in so great and populous a city as this is, it was impossible to discover every house that was infected as soon as it was so, or to shut up all the houses that were infected; so that people had the liberty of going about the streets, even where they pleased, unless they were known to belong to such and such infected houses.

It is true, that, as the several physicians told my lord mayor, the fury of the contagion was such at some particular times, and people sickened so fast and died so soon, that it was impossible, and indeed to no purpose, to go about to inquire who was sick and who was well, or to shut them up with such exactness as the thing required, almost every house in a whole street being infected, and in many places every person in some of the houses. And, that which was still worse, by the time that the houses were known to be infected, most of the persons infected would be stone dead, and the rest run away for fear of being shut up; so that it was to very small purpose to call them infected houses and shut them up, the infection having ravaged and taken its leave of the house before it was really known that the family was any way touched.

This might be sufficient to convince any reasonable person, that as it was not in the power of the magistrates, or of any human methods or policy, to prevent the spreading the infection, so that this way of shutting up of houses was perfectly insufficient for that end. Indeed, it seemed to have no manner of public good in it equal or proportionable to the grievous burthen that it was to the particular families that were so shut up; and, as far as I was employed by the public in directing that severity, I frequently found occasion to see that it was incapable of answering the end. For example, as I was desired as a visitor or examiner to inquire into the particulars of several families which were infected, we scarce came to any house where the plague had visibly appeared in the family but that some of the family were fled and gone. The magistrates would resent this, and charge the examiners with being remiss in their examination or inspection; but by that means houses were long infected before it was known. Now, as I was in this dangerous office but half the appointed time, which was two months, it was long enough to inform myself that we were no way capable of coming at the knowledge of the true state of any family but by inquiring at the door or of the neighbors. As for going into every house to search, that was a part no authority would offer to impose on the inhabitants, or any citizen would undertake; for it would have been exposing us to certain infection and death, and to the ruin of our own families as well as of ourselves. Nor would any citizen of probity, and that could be depended upon, have staid in the town if they had been made liable to such a severity.

Seeing, then, that we could come at the certainty of things by no method but that of inquiry of the neighbors or of the family (and on that we could not justly depend), it was not possible but that the uncertainty of this matter would remain as above.

It is true, masters of families were bound by the order to give notice to the examiner of the place wherein he lived, within two hours after he should discover it, of any person being sick in his house, that is to say, having signs of the infection; but they found so many ways to evade this, and excuse their negligence, that they seldom gave that notice till they had taken measures to have every one escape out of the house who had a mind to escape, whether they were sick or sound. And while this was so, it was easy to see that the shutting up of houses was no way to be depended upon as a sufficient method for putting a stop to the infection, because, as I have said elsewhere, many of those that so went out of those infected houses had the plague really upon them, though they might really think themselves sound; and some of these were the people that walked the streets till they fell down dead: not that they were suddenly struck with the distemper, as with a bullet that killed with the stroke, but that they really had the infection in their blood long before, only that, as it preyed secretly on their vitals, it appeared not till it seized the heart with a mortal power, and the patient died in a moment, as with a sudden fainting or an apoplectic fit.