family have perished, and the bearers been obliged to go in to fetch
out the dead bodies, not being able to bring them to the door, and at
last none left to do it.
(3) This put it out of question to me, that the calamity was spread by
infection; that is to say, by some certain steams or fumes, which the
physicians call effluvia, by the breath, or by the sweat, or by the
stench of the sores of the sick persons, or some other way, perhaps,
beyond even the reach of the physicians themselves, which effluvia
affected the sound who came within certain distances of the sick,
immediately penetrating the vital parts of the said sound persons,
putting their blood into an immediate ferment, and agitating their
spirits to that degree which it was found they were agitated; and so
those newly infected persons communicated it in the same manner to
others. And this I shall give some instances of, that cannot but
convince those who seriously consider it; and I cannot but with some
wonder find some people, now the contagion is over, talk of its being
an immediate stroke from Heaven, without the agency of means,
having commission to strike this and that particular person, and none
other – which I look upon with contempt as the effect of manifest
ignorance and enthusiasm; likewise the opinion of others, who talk of
infection being carried on by the air only, by carrying with it vast
numbers of insects and invisible creatures, who enter into the body
with the breath, or even at the pores with the air, and there generate or
emit most acute poisons, or poisonous ovae or eggs, which mingle
themselves with the blood, and so infect the body: a discourse full of
learned simplicity, and manifested to be so by universal experience;
but I shall say more to this case in its order.
I must here take further notice that nothing was more fatal to the
inhabitants of this city than the supine negligence of the people
themselves, who, during the long notice or warning they had of the
visitation, made no provision for it by laying in store of provisions, or
of other necessaries, by which they might have lived retired and
within their own houses, as I have observed others did, and who were
in a great measure preserved by that caution; nor were they, after they
were a little hardened to it, so shy of conversing with one another,
when actually infected, as they were at first: no, though they knew it.
I acknowledge I was one of those thoughtless ones that had made so
little provision that my servants were obliged to go out of doors to buy
every trifle by penny and halfpenny, just as before it began, even till
my experience showing me the folly, I began to be wiser so late that I
had scarce time to store myself sufficient for our common subsistence
for a month.
I had in family only an ancient woman that managed the house, a
maid-servant, two apprentices, and myself; and the plague beginning
to increase about us, I had many sad thoughts about what course I
should take, and how I should act. The many dismal objects which
happened everywhere as I went about the streets, had filled my mind
with a great deal of horror for fear of the distemper, which was indeed
very horrible in itself, and in some more than in others. The
swellings, which were generally in the neck or groin, when they grew
hard and would not break, grew so painful that it was equal to the
most exquisite torture; and some, not able to bear the torment, threw
themselves out at windows or shot themselves, or otherwise made
themselves away, and I saw several dismal objects of that kind.
Others, unable to contain themselves, vented their pain by incessant
roarings, and such loud and lamentable cries were to be heard as we
walked along the streets that would pierce the very heart to think of,
especially when it was to be considered that the same dreadful
scourge might be expected every moment to seize upon ourselves.