The cross of St. Anthony was a crutch, such as was used by the Crutched Friars. It was painted in blue on canvas or board, and the legend under or over the cross was ‘Lord have mercy upon us.’
In the plague of 1563 it was ordered, on the 3rd of July, that two hundred blue headless crosses be made with all convenient speed by the Chamberlain, and again, on the 6th of the same month, two hundred more were ordered. On the 8th of July blue crosses were delivered to the Bailiff of Finsbury to be used there.[175]
Dr. Creighton says that before the plague of 1603 the colour of the crosses had been changed to red. The white rod or wand was used in France as well as in England, as we learn from a letter of the Venetian Ambassador to France (20th November 1580): ‘This city [Paris] I hear is in a very fair sanitary condition, notwithstanding that as I entered a city gate, which is close to where I reside, I met a man and a woman bearing the white plague wands in their hands, and asking alms; but some believe that this was merely an artifice on their part to gain money.’[176]
The white wand was afterwards retained as the peculiar badge of the searchers of infected houses and of the bearers of the dead. In 1603 it had become a red wand, just as the blue cross had become a red one.
The regulation about dogs is of great interest, as it incidentally shows that dogs were commonly kept in London houses for the purpose of protection. It was believed that dogs carried infection in their hair. Brasbridge, in his Poor Man’s Jewel, 1578, relates how, ‘not many years since, I knew a glover in Oxford who, with his family, to the number of ten or eleven persons, died of the plague, which was said to be brought into the house by a dogge skinne that his wife bought when the disease was in the citie.’
The plague orders contained the clause against dogs to the last, and thousands of them were killed. A proclamation during the London plague of 1563 was directed against cats as well as dogs.[177]
The early literature of the plague is very unsatisfactory, and we have to come to a time much later than the mediæval period for information as to treatment. The main points of the various regulations were isolation of the infected and special attention to sanitation. These in principle are in accord with the best opinion of to-day, but the way in which they were carried out left much to be desired. Those who were imprisoned in their houses must have felt that they were given over to death. Yet some of these patients did recover, and we naturally ask what was the treatment which caused these cures? Was the cure due to the doctor or to nature alone? The answer is not easy to find.
Dr. Payne, in his Inaugural Address as President of the Epidemiological Society in 1893, specially alludes to the literature of the plague, of which he says: ‘The number of publications relating to the plague in Europe during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is very large, those in Germany being probably the most numerous, while those published in England are comparatively few. We might expect, however, that those works published at the time of great epidemics would furnish us with valuable material for epidemic history. It is very disappointing, therefore, to find how very seldom these writings, whether of continental or English origin, have any historical value. What generally happened was this. When an epidemic broke out, or was expected in any particular place, some local physician thought it his business to furnish the public with a tract on the subject, and he accordingly compiled from the best authorities a pamphlet, good or bad as the case might be. Such a physician, if he survived, would no doubt have been able to acquire some experience of the disease during its continuance, and if he had chosen to put this down in plain words when the epidemic was over he might have done some service to medical history, but unfortunately when the disease had once disappeared the physicians seemed to have lost all interest in the subject, and it is only in rare instances that the medical literature of the plague contains any account of contemporary epidemics. One exception is Guy de Chauliac’s well-known account of the “Black Death” at Avignon, but we have nothing in English literature to compare at all with this till much later. The only medical work on the plague in the Elizabethan times which has much value is that of Thomas Lodge, and this cannot be called original.... It is not till after the great plague of 1665 that we have, in the well-known work of [Nathanael] Hodges [Loimologia, sive Pestis Narratio, 1672], some attempt at a scientific description of the epidemic.’
Dr. Furnivall has printed in his edition of Vicary some extracts from the Guildhall Repertories relating to the appointment and payment of surgeons and physicians to attend to the plague-stricken folk. William King, surgeon to the Pesthouse, petitioned for a pension in 1611. He affirms that he had shown ‘great care and diligence in curinge of such persons as have been sent thither, and by reason of his attendance and imployment there, his friendes and former acquaintances do utterly refuse to use him in his profession.’ On September 10 the city authorities agreed to give King a stipend of £3 a year, which does not seem very liberal pay for his onerous services.[178]
In the British Museum there is a MS. of some importance (Sloane MS., 349), entitled ‘Loimographia, an account of the Great Plague of London in the year 1665, by William Boghurst, apothecary.’ This was first referred to by Mr. E. W. Brayley in his edition of Defoe’s Plague Year, and it was analysed by Dr. Creighton in his work on Epidemics. Dr. Payne printed an edition of the tract in 1894. Mr. Brayley reprinted from the Intelligencer, July 31, 1665, the following curious advertisement:—