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Bubonic plague doctor4/24/2024 Quarantines were not being enforced, and people gathered in places like the Royal Exchange. A week later, he noted the official number of 6,978 in one week, “a most dreadfull Number.”īy mid-September, all attempts to control the plague were failing. Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty ImageĪt the end of August, he cited the bill of mortality as having recorded 6,102 victims of the plague, but feared “that the true number of the dead this week is near 10,000,” mostly because the victims among the urban poor weren’t counted. ‘Bills of mortality’ were regularly posted. Just as we follow these numbers closely today, Pepys documented the growing number of plague victims in his diary. In London, the Company of Parish Clerks printed “ bills of mortality,” the weekly tallies of burials.īecause these lists noted London’s burials – not deaths – they undoubtedly undercounted the dead. He soon observed corpses being taken to their burial in the streets, and a number of his acquaintances died, including his own physician.īy mid-August, he had drawn up his will, writing, “that I shall be in much better state of soul, I hope, if it should please the Lord to call me away this sickly time.” Later that month, he wrote of deserted streets the pedestrians he encountered were “walking like people that had taken leave of the world.” Tracking mortality counts Pepys continued to live his life normally until the beginning of June, when, for the first time, he saw houses “shut up” – the term his contemporaries used for quarantine – with his own eyes, “marked with a red cross upon the doors, and ‘Lord have mercy upon us’ writ there.” After this, Pepys became increasingly troubled by the outbreak. If you want to experience what it was like, head on down to the depths of The Blackpool Tower Dungeon.ĭisclaimer: The Blackpool Tower Dungeon takes no responsibility for dirty scoundrels attempting any of these cures.Portrait of Samuel Pepys by John Hayls (1666). There you have it, a list of cures for that ‘orrible Black Death. ![]() Bet they poked a few eyes out with those! Plague Doctors wore beaked masks which were believed to protect the wearer and provide distance between the doctor and the infected. That’s right scoundrels…the only real effective way to prevent the spread of the plague was to social distance or quarantine for 40 days. If you had some extra pennies, lying around you could afford to gobble down some crushed emeralds…TASTY! Peasants like you who couldn’t afford it though had to resort to arsenic or mercury but that only killed them quicker than the plague. Bet it wasn’t hard to find pigeons around these parts!ĭid you know that clean urine has healing properties? Infected patients would bathe in it or even drink it…DOWN IN ONE LASS! ![]() What a bloody mess!Īnother bad attempt to cure the plague was to kill and chop up a pigeon then rub the bloody parts all over buboes. It was thought that the leeches would draw out the bad blood that caused the disease and leave the good blood in the body. Leeches anyone? The most popular attempt to cure the plague was bloodletting using leeches. ![]() Greetings peasant! That Black Death caused havoc in Lancashire in the 1300s and we’re here to tell you how they cured the infected.
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