The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World

by Steven Johnson

But within the crowded parlors of Golden Square, the fear was inescapable. The outbreak hit a new peak a few hours before midnight on Thursday. Hundreds of residents had been seized by the disease within a few hours of one another, in many cases entire families, left to tend for themselves in dark, suffocating rooms.