What caused the plague of 1665?

What caused the plague of 1665?

The plague was caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium, which is usually transmitted through the bite of a human flea or louse. The 1665–66 epidemic was on a much smaller scale than the earlier Black Death pandemic.

What disease did rats spread in the Middle Ages?

Rats have long been blamed for spreading the parasites that transmitted plague throughout medieval Europe and Asia, killing millions of people.

What was the effect of the plague on the theater in London?

Elizabethan theaters were frequently shuttered in London during outbreaks of the bubonic plague, which claimed nearly a third of the city’s population. The official rule was that once the death rate exceeded thirty per week, performances would be canceled.

How was the great plague treated in 1665?

Money was dropped into jars of vinegar. People carried bottles of perfume and wore lucky charms. ‘Cures’ for the plague included the letters ‘abracadabra’ written in a triangle, a lucky hare’s foot, dried toad, leeches, and pressing a plucked chicken against the plague-sores until it died.

When did the plague start in London?

The first-known case in England was a seaman who arrived at Weymouth, Dorset, from Gascony in June 1348. By autumn, the plague had reached London, and by summer 1349 it covered the entire country, before dying down by December.

How did the plague End in London?

Around September of 1666, the great outbreak ended. The Great Fire of London, which happened on 2-6 September 1666, may have helped end the outbreak by killing many of the rats and fleas who were spreading the plague.

What animal caused the Black plague?

Plague is a serious bacterial infection that’s transmitted primarily by fleas. The organism that causes plague, Yersinia pestis, lives in small rodents found most commonly in rural and semirural areas of Africa, Asia and the United States.

Why did the theaters in London close?

Plague had posed an ongoing danger in England since before the time of Shakespeare’s birth, but a particularly devastating outbreak of the disease swept the country in 1593 and 1594. During especially intense epidemics, the Privy Council would exercise its authority as the queen’s advisors to close all public theaters.

When did the plague hits London closing the theaters?

In 1603 the Bubonic Plague again ravaged London killing over 33,000 people. The Bubonic Plague struck London in 1608 and the Globe Theatre was closed again.

What was the plague in England in 1665?

bubonic plague
The plague of 1665-1666 was the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in Britain, killing nearly a quarter of London’s population. It’s taken a year to confirm initial findings from a suspected Great Plague burial pit during excavation work on the Crossrail site at Liverpool Street.

What disease was the plague of 1665?

Bubonic plague terrorised Europe for centuries. In 1665 a devastating epidemic struck this country killing thousands of people. Officially the ‘Great Plague’ killed 68,595 people in London that year.

When did the Great Plague of London start and end?

Great Plague of London. The Great Plague, lasting from 1665–1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. It happened within the centuries-long time period of the Second Pandemic, an extended period of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics which began in China in 1331, the first year of the Black Death,…

When did the pneumonic plague start and end?

It happened within the centuries-long time period of the Second Pandemic, an extended period of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics which began in China in 1331, the first year of the Black Death, an outbreak which included other forms such as pneumonic plague, and lasted until 1750.

What was the cause of urban disease in the 1630s?

(1) The College of Physicians, considering the factors that promoted urban disease in the early 1630s, had argued that the expansion of poor quality residential building attracted poor inmates and lodgers – ‘by whom the houses are so pestered that they become unwholesome’.

What was the total number of cases of the plague?

The official returns record 68,596 cases of plague, but a reasonable estimate suggests this figure is 30,000 short of the true total. A plague house was marked with a red cross on the door with the words “Lord have mercy upon us”, and a watchman stood guard outside.