The Metropolis

Listing the symptons of London's 1665 plague, in the language of a contemporary doctor

Mike Pollitt | Wednesday 17 October, 2012 12:58

●

FIRST, The manifest Signs of Infection

Horror
Vomiting
Delirium
Dizziness
Head-ach
Stupefaction.

SECONDLY, The Appearances after Infection

Fever
Watching
Palpitation of the Heart
Bleeding at Nose
a great Heat about the Precordia.

THE Signs more peculiar to a Pestilence, are those Pustules which the common People call:

Blains
Buboes
Carbuncles
Spots
and those Marks called Tokens.

The pestilential Poison might be shook…out of the Nerves into the Muscles, and there cause:

Tention
Trembling
Vellication
Yawning
Stretching
and all those other Concomitants of putrid and malignant Fevers.

Taken from the Loimologia of Nathaniel Hodges.

See also:

A story from Victorian London: Mary Rainbow and her nameless murdered child
The best pub names in London, ever
The best church names in London, and where they come from
Sketch of a deliciously gory medico-historical walk with Dr Richard Barnett, focusing on Samuel Pepys’s urethra

Filed in:

Snipe Highlights

Some popular articles from past years

  1. Only 16 commuters touch in to Emirates Air Line, figures reveal
  2. Nice map of London's fruit trees shows you where to pick free food
  3. Peter Bayley has worked for 50 years as a cinema projectionist in East Finchley
  4. An interview with Desiree Akhavan
  5. 9 poems about London: one for each of your moods
  6. Margaret Thatcher statue rejected by public
  7. The best church names in London, and where they come from
  8. London has chosen its mayor, but why can’t it choose its own media?
  9. The five spookiest abandoned London hospitals
  10. Summer Camp: Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days