A Journal of the Plague Year

 

While not everyone can be Isaac Newton and use his time while cooped up due to an epidemic to discover some of the basic laws of the universe, people spending more time at home than usual can use their time well by reading more. It beats watching network TV, and it beats the heck out of paying more attention than is necessary to the present political scene.

One book I recommend is  Daniel Defoe’s A  Journal of the Plague Year. Defoe was a good writer. He wrote Robinson Crusoe.  A Journal of the Plague year is written as a first person account of a man who stayed in London during  the time of the plague of 1664-66. It is said to be based on the journal of an older relative of Defoe’s who lived in London during the plague, though the prose is Defoe’s, and scholars believe some of the events described in the book are fictional.

The book tells a fascinating story on its own, but it is also interesting to compare its story to what is going on here and now with the Covid epidemic.  (Of course the plague in London was far worse than the present epidemic. According to the official bills of mortality the plague killed over 70,000 people in London from 1664 to 1666, around fifteen percent of the population. Historians  have conjectured that many more deaths which were listed as due to spotted fever or other causes were also due to the plague. The plague struck and killed people of all ages.  So far in the United States  around five  one hundredths of one percent of the population has been listed as dying from or while infected with Covid-19, almost all of whom  were over forty and had serious medical conditions before becoming infected. People in London knew the plague was contagious but had no idea of its cause, while the cause of the present epidemic is well known and treatments and vaccines for it are being developed and tested.)

The plague began slowly with a few cases in a few locations before spreading  across London. Many people with property or friends outside  the city left to avoid the disease, but many who could have left decided to remain and ride it out.  The mayor ordered lockdowns which were often ignored or disobeyed and which many thought were unnecessary and ineffective. Trade slowed as ships did not want to dock at London, but farmers and merchants from the countryside continued to bring food  to the city.  As the number of sick and dying people increased, some towns outside London refused to accept people leaving the city unless they could give evidence they were not carrying the disease.   Unemployed tradesmen who ran out of money and the city’s poor were supported with charity from more prosperous people and welfare from the mayor and the crown.  There were numerous charlatans,  conjurers, prophets, and con artists working the gullible with charms, spurious cures, fake preventatives, and predictions.   When conditions improved people of the lower and less educated classes hurried into the streets and resumed normal life, causing  a flare up of the disease.