If this exposure of plague-stricken corpses were at all general, it will readily be perceived how greatly it must have aided the propagation of the pestilence.
Another important agent in the diffusion of
the plague must have been the infected clothing, whether of the dead or of those who had been in near or close contiguity to them. On this part of our subject Dr Guy, remarks:—“Nor will this surprise us if we imagine the frantic and successful efforts that must have been made by the non-infected to escape, and the temptation to servants and nurses to appropriate and remove the property of the dying and the dead. Indeed, Dr Hodges accuses the nurses of strangling their patients, and secretly conveying the pestilential taint from sores of the infected to those who were well; and he justifies his accusations ‘of these abandoned miscreants’—the Gamps and Prigs of the seventeenth century—by two instances; the one, of a nurse who, ‘as she was leaving the house of a family, all dead, loaded with her robberies, fell down dead under her burden in the streets,’ the other, of a worthy citizen who, being considered dying by his nurse, was beforehand stripped by her, but recovering again, he came a second time into the world naked.”
Lastly, in endeavouring to account for the great prevalence and excessively fatal character of this pestilence, we must not leave out of consideration one important factor—viz. fear.
We can easily conceive how powerfully the appalling incidents by which the plague was accompanied must have affected the imaginations of those who were in its midst, and thus have stimulated the fear, which, acting by its depressing mental effect, would predispose and prepare men and women for the reception of the contagion.
In ‘Pepys’ Diary’ we find a circumstance recorded corroborative of this. A certain alderman, stumbling at night over a dead body in the street, when he reaches home tells his wife of his adventure, and she is forthwith seized with the plague and dies of it. Furthermore, the belief derived from knowledge of the deadly character of the disease, operating upon the minds of those who were attacked by it, would greatly diminish the chances of their recovery, since they would most likely regard seizure and death as synonymous.
There is an old Eastern fable which tells of a traveller journeying from an infected city, and overtaking the plague, who had not long left it. The traveller accosts the plague and reproaches him for having slain thirty thousand people in the city. “You are in error there,” replied the plague, “I slew only ten thousand, fear slew the rest.”
Tropical climates are never visited by plague. In those countries which suffer from its ravages it prevails most during the hot months of the year, and its virulence and spread appear to be commensurate with increase of temperature. In northern climates it diminishes with the approach of cold weather. In Europe it has always been most fatal during the summer and autumn, and in the great
plague of London the greatest mortality prevailed during the months of August and September.
PLAICE. The Platessa vulgaris, a well-known flat fish, common to both the English and Dutch coasts. Its flesh is good, and easy of digestion, but more watery than that of the flounder.