A journal of the plague year, or, Memorials of the great pestilence in London, in 1665 / by Daniel De Foe. Revised edition with historical notes by E. W. Brayley ... Also, some account of the great fire in London in 1666, by Gideon Harvey ... with an appendix containing the Earl of Clarendon's account of the fire. With illustrations on steel by George Cruikshank.

  • Daniel Defoe
Date:
[1881]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A journal of the plague year, or, Memorials of the great pestilence in London, in 1665 / by Daniel De Foe. Revised edition with historical notes by E. W. Brayley ... Also, some account of the great fire in London in 1666, by Gideon Harvey ... with an appendix containing the Earl of Clarendon's account of the fire. With illustrations on steel by George Cruikshank. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    now led by their fright to extremes of folly; and as I have said before, they ran to conjurors and witches, and jaU sorts of deceivers, to know what should become of them; who fed their fears, and kept them always alarmed and awake, on purpose to delude them, and pick their pockets. So, they were as mad upon running after quacks and mountebanks, and every practising old woman, for medicines and remedies; storing themselves with such multitudes of piUs, potions, and preservatives, as they were called, that they not only spent their money, but even poisoned themselves beforehand, for fear of the poison of the infection, and prepared their bodies for the Plague, instead of preserving them against it. On the other hand, it is incredible, and scarce to be imagined, how the posts of houses and corners of streets were plastered over with doctors bills, and papers of ignorant fellows quacking and tampering in physic, inviting the people to come to them for remedies; which [in- vitation] was generally set off with such flourishes as these, viz.:—Infallible preventive pills against the Plague,—^Never-failing- preservatives against the infection,—Sovereign cordials against the corruption of the air,—Exact regulations for the conduct of the body in case of an infection,—Anti-pestilential pills,—Incomparable drink against the Plague, never found out before,—^An Universal rejiedy for the Plague, — The Only true plague water,*—The Royal antidote against all kinds of infection; and such a number more that I cannot reckon up : and if * Pepy8 says, under the date of July 19: Walked to Eedriffe, where I hear the sickness is, and, indeed, it is scattered almost everywhere. My Lady Carteret did this day give me a bottle of Plague Water home with me.—Diary.