However, many were desperate to try anything. In view of the fact that Londoners lived in wooden houses then, this was not particularly sound advice even from a proper doctor. Nathaniel Hodges believed that sweating out the disease was a sound approach and he encouraged those victims he came across to burn anything they could to create heat and smoke. Londoners were also paid to kill dogs and cats as it was assumed that these spread the disease.Ĭures for the plague were pointless but sought after if someone had the money to pay for them. However, their decision was final and would result in your home being chained shut from the outside and the red cross being painted on your door. None of these were qualified physicians as most real doctors had fled the city for their own safety. Those who assessed whether someone had the plague or not, were called plague doctors. The collected bodies were then put on a cart and taken to a mass burial pit. The shouted phrase “bring out your dead” was heard with great frequency in September 1665. Searchers were people who were paid to hunt out dead bodies or possible plague victims who had yet to be found by the authorities. It is possible that Pepys got such information from him. One of his close friends at this time was Nathaniel Hodges – a qualified doctor who helped plague victims. He claimed that they used the opportunities presented to them to steal from the homes they visited. Samuel Pepys, a diarist who lived in London at this time, condemned the work done by these ‘nurses’. The ‘nurses’ were local women with no training whatsoever but they got paid to visit the homes of plague victims to see how they were getting on and to take food to them if the victims could afford to pay for it. A red cross was painted on the door to warn others of the plight of those in the house. The authorities in London decided on drastic action to ensure that the plague did not spread.Īny family that had one member infected by the plague was locked in their home for forty days and nights.
The poor were very badly hit by the plague. Very few of these certificates were issued. In fact, militiamen were paid by the city’s council to guard the parish boundaries of the area they lived in and to let no one out unless they had a certificate to leave from their local parish leader. No such option existed for those who lived in the slums. Those who could, the wealthy, left London for the comparative safety of the countryside. Once the disease took a hold it spread with frightening speed. Some of the victims did not get as far as this stage presumably as their lives were so poor that their bodies were even less able to cope with the disease. The final symptom was a sneezing fit that was promptly followed by death.
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