Among the many infectious diseases that have plagued humanity for millennia, the plague has always held a special place. It captured the imagination with its deadly power and was perceived as a punishment from the gods or God. For Europeans living in the 14th–18th centuries, regular outbreaks of the plague were a terrifying part of everyday life, and the history of the Old World cannot be understood without acknowledging this dangerous guest.
The plague is, of course, not the only mass killer in history. Throughout the several thousand years of urban civilizations, humanity has faced many epidemics, such as smallpox, measles, syphilis, cholera, typhus, and influenza (including the Spanish flu and other variants). Some of these diseases devastated entire regions, led to the decline of states, or even caused the disappearance of ethnic groups. In 1778, British Captain James Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands. In the seventy years following the arrival of Europeans, the archipelago’s population decreased from about half a million to around 80,000.
Moreover, there were many types of pestilence in the past that chose to remain anonymous. Their descriptions in oral traditions, historical chronicles, and ancient medical treatises are often too vague and unclear. Thus, historians and physicians are often left guessing which pathogen caused a particular epidemic — for example, the “English sweat” (sudor anglicus), which struck the British Isles several times from the late 15th to the mid-16th century.
Even among the long line of epidemics, the plague still stood apart. It was seen as the ultimate disease, the very embodiment of pestilence. Its name in Latin is “pestis,” meaning “scourge,” “disaster,” or “death.” The English name “plague” has similar roots, derived from the Latin word “plaga,” which means “blow,” “wound,” or “disaster.” These names testify to the terror evoked by the pestilence — a scourge from which there was no escape.
Three Waves
Microorganisms that cause infectious diseases actively benefit from civilization’s advancements. Most large-scale epidemics require a concentration of victims and are born alongside large cities and intense human flows.
Thanks to trade routes, which connected the Far East with the Mediterranean as early as the Roman Empire, the plague from Central Asia spread across Eurasia at least three times in history, claiming millions of lives. Although these waves never encompassed the entire world’s population, they are commonly referred to as pandemics (from the Greek “πανδημία” — “all people”).
First Wave
The first pandemic, which began in Central Asia in the mid-6th century during the reign of Emperor Justinian I, reached Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. The pestilence spread throughout the Mediterranean, North Africa, and other lands. Outbreaks of the plague continued until the mid-8th century. The death toll from the Justinian plague is estimated at 30–50 million people, but it should be understood that statistics from such distant times are unreliable and speculative.
Second Wave
The plague then went dormant for a long time before striking again in the mid-14th century. The second pandemic, later named the “Black Death,” likely began in the 1330s in China. The bacilli traveled along the Silk Road to the Genoese port of Caffa in Crimea and from there, with merchant ships, reached Sicily in 1347.
Erupting in southern Italy, the plague swept through Europe from 1348 to 1352, reaching as far as England, Scandinavia, and the distant Russian principalities. Historians estimate it wiped out up to a third of Europeans. In some places, the death toll was much lower, while some towns and cities became completely depopulated. England’s population, for instance, likely halved and took 250 years to return to its 1348 level. Estimates of the worldwide death toll range from 50 to 200 million people.
The merchant and chronicler of his native Florence, Giovanni Villani (c. 1276 or 1280–1348), in his “New Chronicle,” began to describe the dreadful plague that had recently struck the city. Not knowing when it would end, he left a blank in his manuscript: “The plague lasted until…” However, he never filled in the date, as the plague took Villani’s life along with tens of thousands of other Florentines.
Having dealt a powerful blow to Europe, the plague did not leave and continued to periodically return until the 18th century. Seville lost about half of its 120,000 inhabitants in 1649–1650, and Naples lost more than half of its 400,000–450,000 population in 1656. The last major outbreak in the West occurred in 1720 in Marseille; the disease was brought there by a ship from Syria.
The pestilence spread throughout southern France, killing more than 140,000 people by 1722. In 1771, the plague broke out in Moscow, and in 1778 in Istanbul. In the Ottoman Empire, outbreaks continued until the end of the 19th century.
Third Wave
The third pandemic began in China in the mid-19th century and waned only in the 1920s: from Asia, the plague spread via ship rats to India, then to ports in North and South America, the eastern and western coasts of Africa, and many coastal areas of Southeast Asia. The total death toll is estimated at about 12 million people (for comparison, the Spanish flu epidemic, which raged worldwide in 1918–1920, claimed about 50 million lives).
Causes and the Guilty
The plague always terrified with its egalitarianism. It struck the old and the young, the rich and the poor, destroying familiar social hierarchies. And it always left two main questions: what causes it, and how to protect oneself from it? In the late Middle Ages and early modern period, when the plague repeatedly returned to Europe, doctors, clergy, and ordinary people had several main theories, which easily combined and integrated into each other.
Divine Punishment
For millennia, people considered epidemics to be manifestations of the anger of gods or a single God. The Church taught that the Black Death and its subsequent outbreaks were punishments sent by the Lord for the sins of entire cities and kingdoms. The plague, like a hail of invisible arrows, indiscriminately struck both the sinful and the righteous because it was a collective punishment. To stop God’s wrath, it was pointless to rely on medicine, doctors, or any human tricks. Clerics constantly reminded people that spiritual remedies were needed: general repentance, mass prayers, processions, and the intercession of saints.
In Catholic lands, Saint Sebastian and Saint Roch were considered the main intercessors against the plague. Saint Sebastian, an early Christian martyr who lived in the 3rd century, was, according to legend, ordered to be shot with arrows by Emperor Diocletian. In thousands of images, we see a young man tied to a tree or column and pierced by a cloud of arrows.
However, he did not die, was saved, and later accepted martyrdom. In Greco-Roman and Jewish texts, the plague, like other diseases, was often described with the metaphor of arrows falling from the heavens on people. This is likely why Saint Sebastian, having survived an execution by arrows, became a saintly protector against this pestilence in the Middle Ages.
Unlike Sebastian, Saint Roch had a direct connection to the plague. According to legend, he was born in Montpellier at the end of the 13th century. While on a pilgrimage to Rome, he contracted the plague and took refuge in a forest hut. A hunting dog belonging to a local nobleman began bringing him food from its master’s table. Roch recovered, returned to France, but was not recognized by his relatives. He was thrown into prison as a spy and died there. As a sign of his sainthood, his cell was filled with light, and next to his body, an angel inscribed in Latin: “Eris in peste patronus” — “Thou shalt be the patron in the plague.” In most depictions, this saint points to a bubo on his leg, a reminder of his specialization.
Contaminated Air
From the 14th to the 18th centuries, doctors most often asserted that the plague was caused by air that had become deadly due to the harmful influence of stars and comets or due to toxic miasmas rising from the earth’s depths: from unburied corpses or decaying waste. Therefore, to protect against the disease, it was necessary to purify the atmosphere or use strong smells capable of overpowering the plague’s poison.
Giovanni Boccaccio in the “Decameron” described the behavior of Florentines during the plague of 1348. According to him, some of them walked around the city “holding in their hands flowers, fragrant herbs, or other aromatic substances, which they frequently sniffed, believing it useful to refresh the brain with such aromas—for the air seemed contaminated and foul with the stench of corpses, the sick, and medicines.”
In the 17th–18th centuries, one of the main symbols of the pestilence became the plague doctor. Doctors in strange masks with long beaks resembling bird beaks inspected the streets of infected cities. This costume was invented in 1619 by the French physician Charles de Lorme. It included a cloak made of leather or waxed cloth, a cane with which the doctor could examine patients without touching them, and a mask with glazed eye holes and a long “nose” filled with aromatic herbs.
The doctors tried to breathe only through the beak, which they believed protected them from the “bad air.” In Venice, the masks were painted white, while in France, they were black, like the doctors’ outfits. Later, German artists added a broad-brimmed hat to this strange uniform.
The beaked mask is an invention of the modern era, and medieval doctors did not know about it. However, medieval images sometimes depict physicians covering their mouths and noses with fabrics, and chroniclers recorded that people stuffed them with herbs and spices or soaked them in camphor and vinegar.
Poisoners
Fear drove people to seek scapegoats. Periodically, rumors arose that the plague was being intentionally spread by Jews, lepers, sorcerers, vagabonds, beggars, foreigners, and other dangerous elements that needed to be caught and neutralized. Despite regular warnings from church authorities, deranged residents in many places accused Jews of poisoning wells after the arrival of the Black Death, leading to pogroms.
However, not only foreigners and people of other faiths were blamed for the epidemic. In 1530, a “plot of poisoners” was “uncovered” in Geneva, allegedly involving the head of the plague hospital, his wife, a local surgeon, and even a chaplain. Under torture, they confessed to having surrendered to the devil’s power and learning how to prepare deadly potions. Fifteen years later, on the same charges, the Geneva authorities executed 39 poisoners. During the Milan plague of 1630, women accused barber Giangiacomo Mora and public health commissioner Guglielmo Piazza of deliberately spreading the plague by smearing infected concoctions on the walls of houses. Both were executed.
The Bacterium That Changed the World
The real culprit behind the epidemic is a rod-shaped bacterium (bacillus) known as Yersinia pestis. Humans are merely accidental victims, occasionally caught in its evolutionary struggle for survival. In some places, the bacterium lies dormant among its natural hosts—rodents—and only occasionally infects humans.
Even the ancient Romans suspected that the plague was spread by invisible “little animals.” In 1546, Italian physician Girolamo Fracastoro suggested in his treatise “On Contagion, Contagious Diseases, and Their Treatment” that diseases now known as infectious could be transmitted by tiny “seeds.” However, without a microscope and other scientific advancements of the modern era, scientists could not prove this theory.
The bacterium that causes plague was discovered in 1894 during an epidemic outbreak in Hong Kong. Swiss-French bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin and Japanese physician Kitasato Shibasaburo independently found the culprit of the dreadful disease in the tissues of the infected. By 1897, bacteriologist and epidemiologist Waldemar (Vladimir) Haffkine had developed the first anti-plague vaccine during an epidemic in British India. Haffkine, a native of Odessa, had emigrated to Europe in his youth.
In nature, the plague bacterium lives in the bodies of animals, primarily rodents such as marmots, ground squirrels, mice, and rats. Occasionally, it is transmitted to humans, mainly through flea bites (though there are other ways as well). In medieval Europe, black rats were the main spreaders of the epidemic. Wild animals generally show mild symptoms, but domestic mice and rats are much more susceptible, and humans are almost defenseless.
The mechanism of plague infection is deceptively simple and terrifyingly effective. When a flea bites an infected animal, the bacilli enter its body. They start to multiply rapidly, eventually clogging the flea’s passage from the esophagus to the stomach. The blood it feeds on cannot reach the stomach, so the flea is constantly hungry and bites new victims in an attempt to satisfy itself. When it bites, it regurgitates the bacterial mass into the wound, injecting a whole army of deadly Yersinia into the bloodstream of the bitten animal or person.
Depending on the mode of infection and the progression of the disease, the same bacterium can cause several forms of plague. The most common of these is bubonic plague. Once in the blood, the bacillus penetrates the lymph nodes and begins to multiply at an enormous rate. The nodes swell, harden, and turn into painful buboes. Their dangerous contents infect the bloodstream, and without modern treatment, the person is highly likely to die from general intoxication.
In the beginning of the illness, some men and women had swellings in the groin or under the armpits, which grew to the size of a common apple or an egg… people called them gavoccioli (plague buboes); soon this deadly swelling spread from the indicated parts to all parts of the body, changing into black and purple spots, which appeared on many people’s arms and thighs and other parts of the body, some large and rare, others small and frequent.
As the swelling appeared first and later remained a certain sign of impending death, so were these spots whenever they appeared. It seemed that neither the advice of a physician nor the power of any medicine could be of any use against these diseases… only a few recovered, and almost all died on the third day after the appearance of the said signs, some sooner, some later…
Giovanni Boccaccio, “The Decameron”
In another progression of the disease, bacteria reach the lungs. When the infected person coughs, microscopic droplets spread countless bacteria, making it nearly impossible to avoid infection. Pneumonic plague decimated medieval cities, leaving almost no survivors. Before the advent of antibiotics, the bubonic form of the disease killed 60–70% of those infected, while the pneumonic form left almost no one alive.
City Under Siege
A plague-stricken city quickly turns into a besieged fortress. But it is besieged not only from the outside but also from within. Its enemy is the contagion. And for everyone who is still healthy, a potential enemy is anyone who is already sick. Neighborhoods, streets, houses, people—the city disintegrates into many small fortresses fighting for survival. The history of epidemics, during which death sweeps away all conventions, exposes the fragility of social ties.
Sometimes it seems that if the danger is ignored, it will pass by. In many cities, when the first cases appeared, residents did not want to believe that the plague had returned. Authorities delayed the introduction of quarantine and other restrictions, fearing to provoke panic, cut the city off from food supplies, and collapse its finances. What if it is not the plague after all? What if the doctors are mistaken or are deliberately scaring everyone with an epidemic to profit at the expense of their fellow citizens? What if the plague bypasses us?
In 1599, when the plague raged across the north of Spain, the doctors of Burgos and Valladolid, unwilling to recognize the obvious, gave evasive diagnoses: “This is not exactly the plague,” “It’s tertiary and double fever, diphtheria, a fever, a stitch in the side, catarrh, gout, and similar diseases… Some patients have buboes, but they are easily cured.” Alas, many of the buboes did not heal, and Burgos and Valladolid were devastated. An epidemic is almost always a “foreigner.” It comes from distant lands and may even be sent from there. In Lorraine in 1627, the plague was called “Hungarian,” and in 1636—“Swedish”; in Toulouse in 1630—“Milanese.”
The plague was doubly destructive: it devoured not only the cells of the body but also the cells of society. When collective prayers and processions could not appease the wrath of God, religious zeal turned to alienation. For the stranger praying next to you risks becoming your unwitting murderer. Witnesses of the epidemics in Florence (1348), Brunswick (1509), London (1664-1665), and Marseille (1720) described, as if from a template, how parents abandoned sick children, children fled from parents, husbands betrayed wives, and wives forgot about husbands.
During the Milan plague of 1630, some citizens took to the streets armed with pistols to prevent anyone from coming close to them. The plague swept away the usual way of life and the city’s order. Almost always during the plague, rumors spread that plague inspectors were looting houses, and grave diggers, to avoid returning twice to the same house, were throwing still-living people into their carts and burying them.
…The disaster instilled such terror in the hearts of men and women that brother abandoned brother, uncle deserted nephew, sister forsook brother, and often wife left husband; more than that, and even more incredibly, fathers and mothers avoided visiting their children and caring for them, as if they were not their own children.
For this reason, men and women who fell ill—and their number was beyond reckoning—had no other help than the mercy of friends (of whom there were few) or the greed of servants, attracted by large, excessive wages; and even these became few, and they were rough men and women, unaccustomed to such care, capable of doing nothing more than giving the sick what they needed and watching over them when they died; in performing such a service, they often lost their lives along with their earnings.
Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron
In some cities, priests and doctors, whose duty was to comfort the desperate and care for the incurable, abandoned churches and hospitals. In others, they remained to fulfill their duty and died alongside the sick and their congregations. In Perpignan in 1348, six out of eight doctors died; in Florence, 78 out of 150 Franciscan monks perished. In Milan during the epidemic of 1575, Archbishop Carlo Borromeo stayed in the city and visited the sick in the hospitals to comfort them. Similarly, 55 years later, his nephew Federico, who also became an archbishop, did the same. But there were also many church leaders who fled from the plague, leaving their parishioners behind.
The proximity of death often led to psychological extremes: apathy of hopelessness was replaced by reckless merriment, and mourning turned into revelry. Since the end was near, one had to enjoy life while there was still time. Moralists castigated their contemporaries, who indulged in gambling and debauchery amidst the spectacle of death. And in Paris in 1401, the Dukes of Burgundy and Bourbon created the “Court of Love” (cour amoureuse). It was a kind of club or chivalric community intended for joint feasts and literary exercises in honor of the ladies. Its purpose was to “spend time with elegance and find new joy in life” during “the difficult time of the plague.”
Earthly pleasures could even find a scientific justification. Many doctors of the 16th and 17th centuries argued that apathy and fear greatly increased the risk of infection, and therefore prescribed moderate amusements, music, and pleasant reading as medicine. Sometimes, in the midst of an epidemic, city authorities even organized public festivities to prevent despair from overcoming hope. When the plague subsided, many cities were swept by a wedding fever: people who had lost their families hurried to remarry to forget the horrors of death. According to some data, in Cologne shortly after the plague of 1451, which claimed more than 20,000 lives, 4,000 marriages were concluded.
Some believed that a moderate life and abstaining from all excesses greatly helped in fighting the evil; gathering in groups, they lived separately from others, hiding and locking themselves in houses where there were no sick… they spent time among music and pleasures as best they could.
Others, inspired by the opposite view, claimed that drinking a lot, enjoying themselves, wandering with songs and jokes, satisfying every desire as much as possible, laughing and mocking everything that happened—this was the surest remedy against the disease. And as they spoke, so they acted to the best of their abilities, wandering day and night from tavern to tavern, drinking without restraint or measure, most often doing this in strangers’ houses, as soon as they heard that there was something there to their liking and pleasure.
— Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron
London: From Plague to Fire
The example of London illustrates how a large European city faced a deadly epidemic. The Great Plague began in the winter of 1664–1665, with the first cases appearing in the poor port districts and in the parish of St. Giles. Today, the British Museum stands nearby, but back then, it was a distant suburb. Initially, the cold weather kept the disease at bay, but once it warmed up, the plague spread rapidly, and all hopes that the danger might pass faded away like smoke.
Plague was a frequent visitor to London. Every generation in the 17th century experienced one or more outbreaks. In 1603, it claimed 30,000 lives; in 1625, 35,000; and in 1636, another 10,000. However, the Great Plague of 1664–1666 overshadowed them all, with 70,000 to 100,000 Londoners succumbing to the disease, roughly 20% of the city’s population.
In England, the plague usually arrived from the continent through ports, spreading along trade routes and rivers. Infected rats or fleas hiding among goods or in the folds of clothing were carried inland on ships or in merchant carts.
People at the time believed the Great Plague had been brought from Holland, where it had lingered for many years. In the mid-1660s, cities like Leiden and Amsterdam lost hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. Some even suggested that the Dutch, with whom England was then at war, had intentionally sent the disease to the island.
When the plague returned to London in 1664, the authorities began to implement the first measures aimed at curbing its spread. Special inspectors patrolled the neighborhoods looking for the sick. Houses affected by the plague were ordered to be boarded up to isolate the infected and prevent the disease from spreading throughout the city.
Despite these measures, the death toll rose rapidly. In early 1665, King Charles II and his court decided to leave London for Oxford. Many wealthy citizens, such as merchants, lawyers, professors, priests, doctors, and apothecaries, also fled the city. Even ordinary people began to flee — some to distant estates, others to relatives. Some simply ran without a destination, just to get away from the plague-ridden city. However, Lord Mayor Sir John Lawrence and the members of the municipal council (aldermen) remained at their posts.
To flee or to stay? This question troubled many Londoners, as it did victims of epidemics in other cities and other times. As early as the 14th century, the University of Paris advised fleeing from the plague “quickly, far away, and for a long time.” However, neighboring villages and towns were not always eager to shelter dangerous refugees. Often, they set up barriers against them, and lone travelers were sometimes met with clubs or gunfire.
Lose everything but save oneself? Flee immediately or wait a bit longer, hoping the epidemic would subside? Among those who decided to stay were Samuel Pepys, an official of the Admiralty who kept a famous diary, and Henry Foe, a saddler and the uncle of writer Daniel Defoe, who would later author Robinson Crusoe. In 1722, Defoe published a documentary novel, A Journal of the Plague Year, which was styled as the diary of a Londoner named H. F. (Henry Foe?) who survived the 1664–1666 epidemic. Defoe may have based his account on his uncle’s stories (it is also possible that, like Pepys, his uncle kept a diary during the plague).
I now began to consider seriously with myself concerning my own case, and how I should dispose of myself; that is to say, whether I should resolve to stay in London or shut up my house and flee, as many of my neighbours did. […] I had two important things before me: the one was the carrying on my business and shop, which was considerable, and in which was embarked all my effects in the world; and the other was the preservation of my life in so dismal a calamity as I saw apparently was coming upon the whole city, and which, however great it was, my fears perhaps, as well as other people’s, represented to be much greater than it could be.
[…] It came very warmly into my mind one morning, as I was musing on this particular thing, that as nothing attended us without the direction or permission of Divine Power, so these disappointments must have something in them extraordinary; and I ought to consider whether it did not evidently point out, or intimate to me, that it was the will of Heaven I should not go. It immediately followed in my thoughts, that if it really was from God that I should stay, He was able effectually to preserve me in the midst of all the death and danger that would surround me; and that if I attempted to secure myself by fleeing from my habitation, and acted contrary to these intimations, which I believe to be Divine, it was a kind of flying from God, and that He could cause His justice to overtake me when and where He thought fit.
Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year (Link)
By the summer of 1665, the epidemic had reached its peak. Newspapers published weekly death tolls — the Bills of Mortality. The numbers grew alarmingly: one thousand, then two thousand, and by September, seven thousand per week. Church graveyards were filled, and plague victims were hastily buried in mass graves.
Trying to stop the epidemic, the Lord Mayor ordered the destruction of dogs and cats, which were believed to spread the disease. However, this measure had the opposite effect, as cats controlled the rat population, which carried the infected fleas.
If, as was believed, the disease was airborne, then one had to protect oneself with strong-smelling scents and perfumes. Bonfires were lit at street corners. Wealthy Londoners burned sulfur, incense, and hops. The poor burned old shoes. Authorities recommended, and in some places even mandated, smoking tobacco.
However, the primary and only effective measure was isolating the infected or self-isolation for those still healthy. Thus, since ancient times, cities would close during epidemics, and barricades would be set up to keep strangers out. In 1377, the port of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik) on the Adriatic Sea introduced measures to protect the city from the plague. All ships arriving from infected or potentially infected areas had to wait thirty days before the crew was allowed ashore. This isolation period was called “trentina” (from the Italian word trenta, “thirty”). For those arriving by land, this period was forty (quaranta) days, which is where the word “quarantine” comes from
Eventually, such measures spread to other ports. In 1423, a special quarantine station was established on a small island near Venice. It housed a hospital-isolator for suspicious visitors and plague victims. Since the island had long been home to the Church of St. Mary of Nazareth and one of the heavenly protectors of plague victims was considered to be Saint Lazarus, this place became known as Lazzaretto. Hence the familiar word “lazaret.”
Within cities, individual houses, streets, or districts were isolated. In London, houses with plague victims were locked and boarded up from the outside. To prevent the sick from escaping and spreading the disease, guards were stationed at the doors. However, residents regularly tried to trick them and escape from forced confinement.
Today, I sadly discovered two or three houses on Drury Lane with a red cross on their doors and the inscription, ‘Lord, have mercy on us.’ It was a sorrowful sight for me, as I do not recall ever seeing anything like this before. Immediately, I began to sniff myself and felt compelled to buy some tobacco, which I began to smell and chew until the ominous feeling subsided.
Samuel Pepys. “Diary,” June 7, 1665
I went out for a short walk—if I’m honest, to show off my new coat—and on my way back, I noticed that the door of poor Dr. Burnet’s house was boarded up. I heard a rumor that he had won the favor of his neighbors by discovering the disease in himself and voluntarily locking himself up, thus performing a noble deed.
Samuel Pepys. “Diary,” June 11, 1665
Today marks the end of this sad month—sad because the plague has spread almost throughout the entire kingdom. Every day brings increasingly sorrowful news. In the City this week, 7,496 people have died, 6,102 of them from the plague. However, I fear the true number of deaths this week is closer to 10,000—partially because so many poor people are dying that counting them all is impossible, and partially because Quakers and others do not want the bell to toll for them.
Samuel Pepys. “Diary,” August 31, 1665
Desperation drove people to grasp at any possible remedy. Londoners began to buy amulets against the plague, and miracle doctors multiplied, each promising the most effective treatments to prevent the deadly disease or cure those already afflicted: “infallible preventive pills against the plague,” “the best tonic against unhealthy air,” “an unparalleled plague mixture never before used,” “the only effective healing water,” and “the royal antidote for all ailments.”
I got up and put on a colorful silk coat—a fine thing—and a new curled wig. I had bought it some time ago but did not dare wear it because, at the time, the plague was raging in Westminster. I wonder what the fashion for wigs will be like when the plague ends, as no one buys them now for fear of infection; rumors say wigs were made from the hair of the deceased who died from the plague.
Samuel Pepys. “Diary,” September 3, 1665
God, how deserted and gloomy the streets are, how many miserable sick people there are everywhere—all covered in sores; how many sad stories I heard along the way—all anyone talks about is: this one died, that one is sick, so many dead here, so many there. They say there is not a single doctor left in Westminster and only one apothecary—all the others have died. However, there is hope that the disease will decline this week. God grant it.
Samuel Pepys. “Diary,” October 16, 1665
By the end of autumn 1665, the epidemic began to subside. In February 1666, King Charles II returned to London. However, another disaster soon awaited the city. After the Great Plague came the Great Fire. On September 2, a fire broke out in Thomas Farriner’s bakery on Pudding Lane, which quickly spread and consumed London’s City: more than 13,000 houses, 87 churches, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. After the fire, the city was rebuilt, with streets widened to reduce the risk of another plague outbreak.
I, Lord Brookner, and Mrs. Williams in a carriage drawn by four horses—to London, to my lord’s house in Covent Garden. God, what a sensation the carriage made entering the city! Gatekeepers bowed low, and beggars ran up from all sides. How joyful it is to see the streets filled with people again, that shops are starting to open, though in many places, seven or eight still remain boarded up. But still, the city is alive compared to what it was…
Samuel Pepys. “Diary,” January 5, 1666
According to the well-known formula attributed to Napoleon, every French soldier carries a marshal’s baton in his knapsack. But in the same knapsack, dangerous microorganisms often lay hidden, which, along with armies and their convoys, traveled great distances. Up until the Second World War, the greatest killers during armed conflicts were not arrows, bullets, or cannonballs, but microbes. War was always followed by its eternal companions—hunger and plague. Roads were filled with soldiers, refugees, and traders who spread diseases like a postman delivers letters.
In 1627–1628, during the campaign to pacify the Protestants, an eight-thousand-strong royal army crossed France from La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast to Montferrat, near the modern borders of Switzerland and Italy. Along with it, plague bacteria spread across the country. According to an estimate by French historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, the country lost more than a million subjects in a few years.
Epidemics take advantage of the roads, bridges, ships, trains, and airplanes we create to speed up communication between cities, regions, countries, or continents. A good example is another deadly infection—cholera.
It had long been widespread in India. Although the Portuguese established their colonies there in the 16th century, the disease took a long time to reach Europe. It was only in the first half of the 19th century that epidemics erupted in Russia, France, England, and even America. This is likely due to the speed and intensity of modern communications. Cholera outbreaks quickly subside within a few weeks if the bacteria run out of new victims. Old ships sailed very slowly, and the infection could not survive the sea journey. Faster ships built in the 19th century, and later the invention of steamships and the opening of the Suez Canal, which connected the Indian Ocean with the Mediterranean Sea, allowed it to travel in full comfort. Progress comes at a price.
