A journal of the plague year, or, Memorials of the great pestilence in London, in 1665 / by Daniel De Foe. Revised edition with historical notes by E. W. Brayley ... Also, some account of the great fire in London in 1666, by Gideon Harvey ... with an appendix containing the Earl of Clarendon's account of the fire. With illustrations on steel by George Cruikshank.

  • Defoe, Daniel, 1661?-1731.
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A journal of the plague year, or, Memorials of the great pestilence in London, in 1665 / by Daniel De Foe. Revised edition with historical notes by E. W. Brayley ... Also, some account of the great fire in London in 1666, by Gideon Harvey ... with an appendix containing the Earl of Clarendon's account of the fire. With illustrations on steel by George Cruikshank. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    sliould increase. Yet when the next week's bill signifieth to them the decrease, from nine to three, their minds are something appeased; discourse of that subject cools; fears are hushed, and hopes take place, that the black cloud did but threaten, and give a few drops; but the wind would drive it away. But when in the next bill the number of the dead by the Plague is mounted from three to fourteen, and in the next to seventeen, and in the next to forty-three, and the disease begins so much to increase and disperse, sinners begin to be startled. The Plague is so deadly, it kills where it comes without mercy; it kills, I had almost said certainly : very few do escape especially upon its first entrance, and before its malignity be spent. Few are touched by. it, but they are killed by it; and it kills suddenly. As it gives no warning before it comes, suddenly the arrow is shot which woundeth unto the heart; so it gives little time for pre- paration before it brings to the grave. Under other diseases, men may linger out many weeks and months; under some, divers years : but the Plague usually killeth within a few dales; sometimes, within a few hours after its first approach, though the body were never so strong and free from disease before. Speaking of the month of June, he says,— Now the citizens of London are put to a stop in the career of their trade; they begin to fear whom they converse withall, and deal withall, lest they should have come out of infected places : now roses and other sweet flowers wither in the gardens, are disregarded in the markets, and people dare not offer them to their noses, lest with their sweet savour, that which is infectious should be attracted. Rue and wormwood are taken into the hand; myrrh and zedoary into the mouth, and without some antidote few