Status Updates From Diario del año de la peste

“Besides, if God gave strength to some more than to others, was it to boast of their ability to abide the stroke, and up en raid those that had not the same gift and support, or ought not they rather to have been humble and thankful, if they were rendered more useful than their brethren”

“I recommend it to the charity of all good people to look back, and reflect duly upon the terrors of the time; and whoever does so will see, that it is not an ordinary strength that could support it. It was not like appearing in the head of an army, or charging a body of horse into the field; but it was charging death itself on his pale horse; to stay was indeed to die and it could be esteemed nothing less”

“A plague is a formidable enemy, and is armed with terrors, that every man is not sufficiently fortified to resist, or prepared to stand the shock against…”

“The people being thus returned, as it were in general, it was very strange to find that in inquiring after their friends, some whole families were so entirely swept away, that there was no remembrance of them left…”

“Some indeed paid for their audacious boldness with the price of their lives”

“I wish I could say that as the city had a new face, so the manners of the people had a new appearance: I doubt not but there were many that retained a sincere sense of their deliverance, and that were heartily thankful to that sovereign hand…but it must be acknowledged that the practice of the people was just as it was before…”

“But the mercy of God was greater to the rest than had reason to expect”

“People we’re so tired with being so long from London, and so eager to come back, that they flocked to town without fear or forecast, and began to show themselves in the streets, as if all the danger was over. It was indeed surprising to see it, for tho there died still from 1000-1800 a week, yet the people flocked to town, as if all had been well.”

“This imprudent rash conduct cost a great many thier lives, who had with great care and caution shut themselves up, and kept retired as it were from all mankind, and had by that means, under God’s providence, been preserved through all the heat of that infection”

“But it was all to no purpose, the audacious creatures were so posed with the first joy”

“The physicians opposed this thoughtless hum out of the people with all their might, and gave out printed directions, spreading them all over the city and suburbs, advising the people to continue reserved, and to use still the utmost caution in their ordinary conduct…”

“So now upon this notion spreading that the distemper was not so catching as formerly and that if it was catched, it was not so mortal, and seeing abundance of People who really fell sick, recover again daily; they took to such precipitan courage and grew so entirely regardless of themselves and of the infection that they made no more of the plague than of an ordinary fever”

It’s really remarkable how much never never changes

He noted how his doctor friend pointed out that things would soon abate, because the highest number of deaths was followed by skyrocketing infections, they for some reason had slowly stopped being as fatal
This made people act recklessly

“These were the dangerous people, these were the people of whom the well people ought to have been afraid; but then on the other side it was impossible to know them.”

“The well…these breathed death in every place, and upon everybody who came near them; may their very clothed retained the infection…now it was impossible to know these people, nor did they sometimes, as I have said, know themselves to be infected…”

I started this when the pandemic started and have occasionally gone back to it. It is interesting to compare the people of old London and the plague to current America and COVID.

Slow going. But interesting.

“Certain it is, that if all the infected persons were effectually shut in, no sound perso could have been infected by them, because they could not have come near them. But the case was this, and I shall only touch it here, namely, that the infection was propagated in sensibly, and by such persons as were not visibly infected, who neither knew who they infected, or who were infected by.”

“And indeed when men are once come to a condition to abandon themselves, and be unconcerned for the safety, or at the danger of themselves, it cannot be so much wondered that they should be careless of the safety of other people.”

Gave up on it after 20 pages.

"Tears and lamentations were seen almost in every house, especially in the first part of the visitation; for towards the latter end men’s hearts were hardened, and death was so always before their eyes, that they did not so much concern themselves for the loss of their friends, expecting that themselves should be summoned the next hour."

“Namely that they did not take the least care, or make any scruple of infecting others...What natural reason could be given for so wicked a thing, at a time, when they might conclude themselves just going to appear at the barr of divine Justice, I know not. I am very well satisfied that it cannot be reconciled to religion and principle, any more than it can be to generosity and humanity...”

"But the great disaster was, that many did thus, after they were really infected themselves, and so carried the disease into the houses of those who were hospitable as to receive them, which it must be confessed was very cruel and ungrateful."

Describes how magistrates and city leaders began to shut up people in their houses when they had plague inside. It drew a lot of anger and pushback. There were intense rules w/ watchmen posted at houses where the plague was & refusing to allow people to leave even if they weren't sick. People were constantly trying to escape the plague houses. Rich families stuck with sick servants would treat them horribly.

"Indeed, the poor people were to be pitied in one particular thing, in which they had little or no relief, and which I desire to mention with a serious awe and reflection; which perhaps, everyone that reads this, may not relish: Namely that whereas Death now began not, as we may say, to over over everyone's head only, but to look into their houses, and chambers, and stare into their faces."

Section 1: realizing a plague is underway, watching rich folks take all available transport and wealth as they flee, trying to decide whether to go or stay not because you have nowhere to go but because your income is here & a series of random small deterrents put you off. All rings true to our family's Jan & Feb 2020.

“How the poor people found the insuffiencieny of those things, and how many of them were afterwards carried away in the dead carts, and thrown into the common graves of every parish, with these hellish charms and trumpery hanging about their necks”

“A set of thieves and pickpockets not only robbed and cheated the poor people of their money, but poisoned their bodies with odious and fatal preparations; some with mercury and some with other things as bad, perfectly remote from the thing pretended to; and rather hurtful than serviceable to the body in case an infection followed.”

“They ran to conjurers and witches, and all 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...storing themselves with such multitudes of pills, potions and preservatives as they were called, that they not only spent their money, but even poisoned themselves beforehand...”

“But one mischief always introduces another: these terrors and apprehensions of the people lead them into a thousand weak, foolish and wicked things..”