The Great Plague for Kids
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During the 1600s, London had many diseases and people would be very anxious to hear the latest news. The Bills of Mortality was announced every week in England. This announcement was what people wanted to hear. They could learn how who had died and what had killed them.
People remembered a plague that had occurred almost 300 years earlier when as many as 20-50 million Europeans had died in just a few years. This was a disease that continued to terrify people.
The Black Plague made people become ill quickly and they died in just a few days. They would have swollen lumps on their bodies and high fevers. The doctors could not help them and they must have been in terrible pain.
The Black Plague was also called the Black Death and it could spread very fast. Without a way to cure the Plague, the only hope was to keep it from spreading. There were some “Pest Houses” built which would house the sick and dying.
London had a quicker way of dealing with anyone who became ill, or was suspected of having the Plague. There were orders for these people to be boarded up in their homes and left to die. Even the healthy family members could not leave the house.
Some physicians said that the Plaque was caused by bad air. There were strange bird shaped masks that people would buy that they thought would keep the bad air away. Other people blamed the disease on livestock or their neighbours. There were still others that believed it was a punishment from God.
What people did not understand is that the Plaque was a disease found in Black Rats. Fleas would bite the rats and become infected and then the infected fleas would spread the disease to humans. While everyone was worrying about other things, the rat population in London had already tripled in just a few years.
In April of 1665, the first Plague case was recorded, and in just a few weeks, it had spread. With unusually warm weather, the disease moved swiftly. People who became ill had a red cross placed on their door, and could not leave their homes. Nurses would be sent to take them food.
As the Great Plague became worse, the royals and wealthy citizens packed up and left town. They refused to let the poor people leave and forced even the healthy ones to stay in the town. The rich believed that the poor people were spreading the disease.
The little town of Eyam in Derbyshire was free of the disease until a tailor came to their city. This man had some cloth that was full of infected fleas. When people began to get sick many wanted to leave but the town rector talked them into staying so they would not spread the disease. In less than a year almost all of the people were dead but by staying they saved many other people. The Great Plague of 1665 was over by October of 1666 but had claimed 60-100 million victims.
This is an original news article © The Kids Window
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