Mrs Simon, aged 20, had a burning fever, stifling of her breath, frequent vomiting and looseness, foul tongue, loss of sleep, restlessness, intermitting, low and irregular pulse. This terrible fever disappeared on the fourth day, and she thought herself recovered. But on the seventh day from her being taken ill the fever returned, she was light-headed, did not know her relatives, and was fevered in the highest degree. It looked like a malignant fever, but there were no spots.

The following table shows the very high mortality from fever (as well as from smallpox) in the epidemic to which the above case belonged.

London: Weekly deaths from fever, smallpox and all causes.

1710.

Week
ending		 Dead of
fever		 Dead of
spotted fever		 Dead of
smallpox		 Dead of
all diseases
May2 103 [illegible] 99 571
9 90 6 60 517
16 84 7 71 502
23 93 15 71 503
30 106 11 83 550
June6 93 2 98 508
13 79 8 84 509
20 106 12 99 574
27 105 15 86 503
July4 106 7 99 482
11 107 13 97 467
18 126 16 89 509
25 109 13 105 562
Aug.1 91 12 79 444
8 92 11 72 463
15 98 10 58 459
22 105 10 63 463
29 111 16 71 495
Sept.5 76 4 63 414
12[89]107 12 57 520
19 115 9 83 548
26 81 11 46 456
Oct.3 98 9 45 469
10 79 10 49 480
17 90 5 41 477
24 107 5 45 470
31 106 14 51 421
Nov.7 71 6 55 425
14 92 2 41 390
21 70 4 25 345

Throughout England, in country parishes and in towns, the first ten years of the 18th century were on the whole a period of good public health. In Short’s abstracts of the parish registers to show the excess of deaths over the births, those years are as little conspicuous as any in the long series. It was a time when there was a great lull in smallpox, and probably also in fevers. The figures for Sheffield may serve as an example[90]. It will be seen from the Table that the burials exceeded the baptisms in every decade from the Restoration to the end of the century; after that for twenty years the baptisms exceeded the burials, the marriages having increased greatly.

Vital Statistics of Sheffield.

Ten-year
periods		 Marriages Baptisms Burials
1661-70 585 2086 2266
1671-80 537 2240 2387
1681-90 540 2595 2856
1691-1700 688 2221 2856
1701-10 942 3033 2613
1711-20 991 3304 2765

Of particular epidemics, we hear of a malignant fever at Harwich in 1709. Harwich was then an important naval station, and the fever may have arisen in connexion with the transport of troops to and from the seat of war, just as camp- and war-fevers appeared at various ports in the next war, 1742-48.

There were rumours of a plague at Newcastle in 1710, which were contradicted by advertisement in the London Gazette[91]. But, as there was so much plague in the Baltic ports in 1710 it is possible that the Newcastle rumour may have been one of plague imported, and not a rumour suggested by the mortality from some other disease.