1 00:00:00,300 --> 00:00:03,800 The Prime Minister has said coronavirus is likely to... 2 00:00:03,800 --> 00:00:06,200 When Covid-19 hit the UK... 3 00:00:06,200 --> 00:00:08,200 ..the seriousness of the situation. 4 00:00:08,200 --> 00:00:10,900 ..it seemed a uniquely terrible event. 5 00:00:10,900 --> 00:00:12,200 ..you can recover. 6 00:00:12,200 --> 00:00:14,320 For others, it can be deadly. 7 00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:17,360 But it wasn't the first time we'd suffered a deadly epidemic. 8 00:00:17,360 --> 00:00:21,600 In a frightening parallel, 350 years earlier, we endured 9 00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:25,640 one of the greatest tragedies in British history - the Great Plague. 10 00:00:25,640 --> 00:00:29,760 Over 18 months, beginning in 1665, 11 00:00:29,760 --> 00:00:35,400 this horrific disease killed an estimated 100,000 people in London 12 00:00:35,400 --> 00:00:38,640 alone, a quarter of the entire population, 13 00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:42,440 and a further 100,000 as it spread across the country. 14 00:00:44,440 --> 00:00:46,120 BELL TOLLS 15 00:00:46,120 --> 00:00:49,640 Over three programmes, we're telling the horrifying story 16 00:00:49,640 --> 00:00:52,760 of how the catastrophe unfolded day by day, 17 00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:54,240 week by week. 18 00:00:57,400 --> 00:01:00,720 We filmed this series as Covid-19 began its spread across the world 19 00:01:01,800 --> 00:01:06,040 and for me, the connections between the two pandemics are remarkable. 20 00:01:06,040 --> 00:01:08,160 It's a frightening lesson from history. 21 00:01:09,280 --> 00:01:13,760 I'm Xand van Tulleken, and in this first programme I track the early 22 00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:18,880 days of the Great Plague epidemic, and trace it back to its source. 23 00:01:18,880 --> 00:01:21,080 It all kicked off right here. 24 00:01:21,080 --> 00:01:25,360 John Sergeant discovers the terrible symptoms of the Plague, 25 00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:28,240 and investigates its transmission. 26 00:01:28,240 --> 00:01:31,240 This is the cause of the whole thing we can see in this bedroom? 27 00:01:31,240 --> 00:01:33,240 This is the centre of it all. 28 00:01:33,240 --> 00:01:36,880 And Raksha Dave uncovers extraordinary new evidence 29 00:01:36,880 --> 00:01:40,760 which reveals how the disease really spread. 30 00:01:40,760 --> 00:01:43,840 So, you think that these have been spreading the Plague? 31 00:01:43,840 --> 00:01:48,040 Just one is enough to be sick and even, to die. 32 00:01:49,680 --> 00:01:52,560 This is the story of the Great Plague. 33 00:02:01,760 --> 00:02:03,600 SIREN WAILS 34 00:02:03,600 --> 00:02:09,160 21st century London is a world away from the city of the 1600s. 35 00:02:09,160 --> 00:02:11,880 But in secret corners of the modern city, 36 00:02:11,880 --> 00:02:16,360 we can still find traces of what happened here in 1665, 37 00:02:16,360 --> 00:02:19,760 the deadliest epidemic in Britain's history. 38 00:02:19,760 --> 00:02:21,680 The Great Plague. 39 00:02:24,680 --> 00:02:28,520 With my knowledge as a doctor of modern infectious disease, 40 00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:33,040 I'll be investigating how the Plague devastated, first London, 41 00:02:33,040 --> 00:02:36,840 and then, large parts of the country. 42 00:02:36,840 --> 00:02:39,120 The first thing I need to figure out, 43 00:02:39,120 --> 00:02:42,720 as with any disease outbreak, is how and where it started. 44 00:02:42,720 --> 00:02:46,440 And this book, A Journal Of The Plague Year by Daniel Defoe, 45 00:02:46,440 --> 00:02:48,640 the famous author of Robinson Crusoe, 46 00:02:48,640 --> 00:02:51,400 has some important information for me. 47 00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:55,800 Defoe was just a child at the time of the Great Plague, 48 00:02:55,800 --> 00:03:00,160 but his book is believed to be based on the account of his uncle. 49 00:03:00,160 --> 00:03:04,400 He tells us that two men, said to be Frenchmen, died of the Plague 50 00:03:04,400 --> 00:03:07,960 in Long Acre, or rather, at the upper end of Drury Lane. 51 00:03:07,960 --> 00:03:12,160 Well, Long Acre runs down there. This is the upper end of Drury Lane. 52 00:03:12,160 --> 00:03:14,680 It all kicked-off right here. 53 00:03:18,360 --> 00:03:21,680 It's believed the Frenchmen were weavers who imported 54 00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:24,960 the Plague into London in an infected shipment of cotton. 55 00:03:27,320 --> 00:03:30,920 The first two deaths were in December 1664. 56 00:03:30,920 --> 00:03:34,120 But then, there were no more until four months later 57 00:03:34,120 --> 00:03:36,680 in April 1665, 58 00:03:36,680 --> 00:03:38,680 when two more people died. 59 00:03:40,480 --> 00:03:43,320 All four of those early deaths occurred here, 60 00:03:43,320 --> 00:03:47,600 in an area around Drury Lane called St Giles in the Fields. 61 00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:50,440 It seemed like an outbreak was brewing. 62 00:03:50,440 --> 00:03:54,400 Today, this is the heart of London's theatre and nightlife, 63 00:03:54,400 --> 00:03:57,400 but 350 years ago, it was a new suburb, 64 00:03:57,400 --> 00:04:01,360 recently sprung up outside the official City of London. 65 00:04:03,080 --> 00:04:05,720 In the 50 years before the Great Plague, 66 00:04:05,720 --> 00:04:10,280 countryside around London had been swallowed up as the population 67 00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:13,840 doubled from 200 to 400,000 people. 68 00:04:15,160 --> 00:04:19,400 Like many of the suburbs that sprung up outside the ancient city walls, 69 00:04:19,400 --> 00:04:23,120 St Giles was one of the poorest areas of London. 70 00:04:23,120 --> 00:04:27,400 Here, slightly better off people would have lived on one of the main, 71 00:04:27,400 --> 00:04:31,560 wider streets but off those streets were narrow alleys, like this one. 72 00:04:34,040 --> 00:04:37,640 They were crammed with illegally built slum housing, 73 00:04:37,640 --> 00:04:41,480 and in late April 1665, it was in these back alleys where 74 00:04:41,480 --> 00:04:44,360 cases of Plague began to multiply. 75 00:04:50,240 --> 00:04:54,800 Families of up to ten people were crammed into two-room houses. 76 00:04:54,800 --> 00:04:59,320 They worked as weavers, labourers, servants and porters. 77 00:04:59,320 --> 00:05:04,800 Diseases like small pox, tuberculosis and typhus were common. 78 00:05:04,800 --> 00:05:07,480 Even the Plague wasn't unfamiliar. 79 00:05:07,480 --> 00:05:12,560 In the previous 300 years, there had been 18 major outbreaks in London. 80 00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:15,440 But this one would surpass them all. 81 00:05:20,640 --> 00:05:22,280 In the first week of May, 82 00:05:22,280 --> 00:05:26,480 the Plague spread to several streets around St Giles in the Fields, 83 00:05:26,480 --> 00:05:28,440 and there were nine more deaths. 84 00:05:33,320 --> 00:05:35,880 This rising death toll confirmed to Londoners 85 00:05:35,880 --> 00:05:39,880 that a Plague epidemic had begun and it struck terror into their hearts. 86 00:05:39,880 --> 00:05:42,960 Older residents would have seen friends and family 87 00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:46,440 suffer with this horrific disease before and they knew what to expect. 88 00:05:48,240 --> 00:05:52,440 John Sergeant is discovering why the symptoms of this disease 89 00:05:52,440 --> 00:05:53,760 held such dread. 90 00:05:55,320 --> 00:05:58,080 JOHN: I'm meeting specialist Dr Chris Conlon 91 00:05:58,080 --> 00:06:00,480 at the Weald and Downland Museum, 92 00:06:00,480 --> 00:06:03,800 where many houses dating to the time of the Great Plague 93 00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:04,960 have been preserved. 94 00:06:08,760 --> 00:06:11,080 Why was the Plague so frightening? 95 00:06:11,080 --> 00:06:13,920 Well, it was a terrible disease for people and it had a very high 96 00:06:13,920 --> 00:06:16,440 death rate so it caused huge devastation and terror. 97 00:06:16,440 --> 00:06:19,800 There was a bubonic type which is to do with lymph nodes, 98 00:06:19,800 --> 00:06:22,560 a septicaemic type which, when it gets into your bloodstream, 99 00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:24,800 and a pneumonic type that affects your lungs 100 00:06:24,800 --> 00:06:27,560 and they're all pretty terrible. In fact, it does still exist today. 101 00:06:27,560 --> 00:06:29,120 What, across the world? Yeah. 102 00:06:29,120 --> 00:06:31,920 For example a big outbreak a couple of years ago, in Madagascar. 103 00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:35,760 Been outbreaks in China. And, you even get it in south-west USA. 104 00:06:37,760 --> 00:06:41,480 In 1665, it was predominantly Bubonic Plague that swept 105 00:06:41,480 --> 00:06:43,000 through London. 106 00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:48,200 It was a bacterial infection, unlike Covid-19, 107 00:06:48,200 --> 00:06:50,360 which is caused by a virus. 108 00:06:50,360 --> 00:06:52,680 Plague was incredibly infectious 109 00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:57,680 and killed about 70% of those who caught it. 110 00:06:57,680 --> 00:07:01,160 With the help of prosthetic make-up artist, Florence Carter, 111 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:03,360 Dr Conlon is going to show me 112 00:07:03,360 --> 00:07:06,760 what a victim of this type of Plague would have endured. 113 00:07:08,400 --> 00:07:11,200 If I did have the Plague, doctor, what would I feel like? 114 00:07:11,200 --> 00:07:13,400 You'd be a bit pale. Right. 115 00:07:13,400 --> 00:07:15,400 And a bit sweaty. 116 00:07:15,400 --> 00:07:17,800 At the same time, you'd be getting a headache. 117 00:07:17,800 --> 00:07:21,000 In addition to that, you'd be developing aches and pains in your 118 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:23,880 muscles and joints, and you might even shiver. 119 00:07:23,880 --> 00:07:26,840 And then, as the disease progresses, you are going to get a very high 120 00:07:26,840 --> 00:07:28,480 fever, maybe up to 40 degrees. 121 00:07:28,480 --> 00:07:30,360 You might even get confused or delirious, 122 00:07:30,360 --> 00:07:32,920 and then, you'd probably start noticing some pain in your neck 123 00:07:32,920 --> 00:07:35,080 where your lymph node is starting to enlarge. 124 00:07:35,080 --> 00:07:36,480 Right, so here? 125 00:07:36,480 --> 00:07:39,080 And how quickly would that really develop? 126 00:07:39,080 --> 00:07:41,840 That could come up over a few hours or a day or so. 127 00:07:41,840 --> 00:07:44,560 So, this is a terrifying moment, isn't it? 128 00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:48,000 This is the first real signs of the Plague. That's right. 129 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:51,480 It's the bubo of the Bubonic Plague. The Bubo. Yeah. Oh, God. 130 00:07:51,480 --> 00:07:54,160 And you would feel that if you had to turn your head to the right, 131 00:07:54,160 --> 00:07:55,880 it would be too painful to do. Yeah. 132 00:07:55,880 --> 00:07:58,040 So your head would be, sort of, tilted to one side 133 00:07:58,040 --> 00:08:00,240 to avoid the pain. 134 00:08:00,240 --> 00:08:02,960 I'm aware of the fact that just the loneliness of it 135 00:08:02,960 --> 00:08:05,800 would be so striking, wouldn't it? It'd be terrifying, wouldn't it? 136 00:08:05,800 --> 00:08:09,240 It would be, "You're going to die and by the way, we can't do 137 00:08:09,240 --> 00:08:14,080 "anything for you, and just stay there and think about nothing else." 138 00:08:14,080 --> 00:08:16,600 And would the pain be growing all the time? 139 00:08:16,600 --> 00:08:19,080 Yes, because it's getting larger all the time. Yeah. 140 00:08:19,080 --> 00:08:21,880 And you might actually get a rash as the bacteria 141 00:08:21,880 --> 00:08:23,440 spreads into the skin a bit. 142 00:08:23,440 --> 00:08:25,640 And these bacteria are multiplying rapidly, 143 00:08:25,640 --> 00:08:29,160 but more importantly, this bacteria is now in your bloodstream. 144 00:08:29,160 --> 00:08:31,440 When it gets into the bloodstream, it's bad news 145 00:08:31,440 --> 00:08:34,120 and most people in those days wouldn't survive. 146 00:08:34,120 --> 00:08:37,960 So, what's happening here is that your nose circulation is 147 00:08:37,960 --> 00:08:41,640 being infected and the tip of your nose no longer has any blood supply. 148 00:08:41,640 --> 00:08:44,040 So the skin and the tissue underneath is dying 149 00:08:44,040 --> 00:08:45,520 and becoming gangrenous, 150 00:08:45,520 --> 00:08:48,320 and will turn blue and then black. 151 00:08:48,320 --> 00:08:52,040 Once people know that this is spreading you can see why 152 00:08:52,040 --> 00:08:55,080 people just panic and go sort of mad. Yes. That's right. 153 00:08:55,080 --> 00:08:57,480 And to see these symptoms appearing, 154 00:08:57,480 --> 00:09:00,680 these big lumps in people's necks and groins and the rash and the 155 00:09:00,680 --> 00:09:03,720 gangrene are pretty horrifying sights. 156 00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:07,520 So, from the time that I fell ill to now, how long has it been? 157 00:09:07,520 --> 00:09:09,320 This is probably three or four days 158 00:09:09,320 --> 00:09:11,800 after you started feeling a bit hot and sweaty and achy. 159 00:09:11,800 --> 00:09:14,360 And probably five or six days after you first got infected. 160 00:09:14,360 --> 00:09:16,600 This is a very rapidly progressive illness. 161 00:09:16,600 --> 00:09:19,800 It's time, I suppose, for the inevitable question, 162 00:09:19,800 --> 00:09:22,760 At this stage, Doc, how long have I got? 163 00:09:22,760 --> 00:09:25,280 You'll be dead within 24 hours, if not sooner. 164 00:09:25,280 --> 00:09:28,520 So, this is the really end stage of this terrible disease. 165 00:09:28,520 --> 00:09:30,320 Is there any hope at all? 166 00:09:30,320 --> 00:09:32,000 No hope at this stage at all. 167 00:09:36,640 --> 00:09:42,080 By early May 1665, 13 people had died of Plague, 168 00:09:42,080 --> 00:09:47,000 and thousands more were now at risk from this incurable disease. 169 00:09:47,000 --> 00:09:51,440 And fear was stalking the streets of London. 170 00:10:02,040 --> 00:10:04,840 FAINT CHATTER 171 00:10:04,840 --> 00:10:07,240 XAND: By May 1665, 172 00:10:07,240 --> 00:10:09,760 the Plague had taken hold in London, 173 00:10:09,760 --> 00:10:12,040 and in the cramped back-alleys of the capital 174 00:10:12,040 --> 00:10:13,640 it was spreading rapidly. 175 00:10:14,600 --> 00:10:15,920 SHE COUGHS WEAKLY 176 00:10:15,920 --> 00:10:19,480 In the four months since the first reported case, 177 00:10:19,480 --> 00:10:23,960 13 people had died and many more were now infected. 178 00:10:23,960 --> 00:10:25,600 LABOURED BREATHING 179 00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:30,040 Londoners feared this was only the beginning. 180 00:10:31,600 --> 00:10:35,120 In a terrible foreshadowing of the events of 2020, 181 00:10:35,120 --> 00:10:37,720 they had watched with growing concern 182 00:10:37,720 --> 00:10:41,000 as the epidemic headed towards Britain. 183 00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:44,960 An eruption of Plague in Turkey in 1661 184 00:10:44,960 --> 00:10:49,200 had spread to the great ports of Holland, where, in 1663, 185 00:10:49,200 --> 00:10:52,320 tens of thousands had died. 186 00:10:54,840 --> 00:10:56,520 To stop it crossing the Channel, 187 00:10:56,520 --> 00:10:59,360 a blockade was set up at Tilbury Fort, 188 00:10:59,360 --> 00:11:02,040 20 miles downstream from the city. 189 00:11:02,040 --> 00:11:05,000 Any ship that arrived without a certificate of health 190 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:07,520 was held in quarantine for 30 days. 191 00:11:07,520 --> 00:11:11,440 Not just that, but in fact, two Navy ships were set to patrol 192 00:11:11,440 --> 00:11:14,920 the Thames all the way up to London Bridge here. 193 00:11:14,920 --> 00:11:19,160 And for a year, those measures worked but then, as we know, 194 00:11:19,160 --> 00:11:23,400 the Plague breached those defences and made its way into London. 195 00:11:26,160 --> 00:11:30,400 The deadly Plague bacteria produced symptoms in around three days... 196 00:11:31,640 --> 00:11:34,760 ..and killed more than half of those who contracted it. 197 00:11:36,360 --> 00:11:38,960 Back then, they didn't know about bacteria. 198 00:11:38,960 --> 00:11:42,280 They only knew this disease by its horrific effects. 199 00:11:42,280 --> 00:11:44,160 Now, of course, we know rather more. 200 00:11:44,160 --> 00:11:48,440 And Raksha is going meet this most deadly of diseases, face-to-face. 201 00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:55,880 RAKSHA: Understandably, there aren't many places in Britain today where 202 00:11:55,880 --> 00:11:58,480 you can find Yersinia pestis - 203 00:11:58,480 --> 00:12:01,520 the bacteria that causes Bubonic Plague. 204 00:12:01,520 --> 00:12:03,400 Morning! 205 00:12:03,400 --> 00:12:07,200 But I've managed to get special access to the top-secret 206 00:12:07,200 --> 00:12:10,760 Ministry of Defence research facility at Porton Down, 207 00:12:10,760 --> 00:12:14,800 where countermeasures against chemical and biological weapons 208 00:12:14,800 --> 00:12:16,960 are developed. 209 00:12:16,960 --> 00:12:18,880 They're working with Plague 210 00:12:18,880 --> 00:12:21,680 in one of their high-level containment labs. 211 00:12:21,680 --> 00:12:23,880 I'm not allowed inside, 212 00:12:23,880 --> 00:12:28,880 so have to watch through the door with research scientist, Diane. 213 00:12:28,880 --> 00:12:33,120 So Chris has taken the sealed box containing the plates, 214 00:12:33,120 --> 00:12:36,480 the agar plates, with cultured Plague on them. 215 00:12:36,480 --> 00:12:39,680 Oh, gosh! So, that's actually Plague in the box? 216 00:12:39,680 --> 00:12:42,960 I've excavated lots and lots of Plague victims 217 00:12:42,960 --> 00:12:45,760 and this is the first time I've seen it up close. 218 00:12:45,760 --> 00:12:49,200 Quite glad that this door's here! Yes, it's a very natural reaction. 219 00:12:49,200 --> 00:12:51,840 Plague is very, very dangerous and that's why 220 00:12:51,840 --> 00:12:56,680 we handle it in this containment Level Three lab and safety cabinet. 221 00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:01,760 So, how much of that bacteria would I have to ingest 222 00:13:01,760 --> 00:13:03,080 to become infectious? 223 00:13:03,080 --> 00:13:05,280 We're talking about 10-100 organisms, 224 00:13:05,280 --> 00:13:08,960 a tiny amount, which will cause a rapid infection. 225 00:13:08,960 --> 00:13:11,920 It's quite unbelievable, isn't it? Because it's a very, 226 00:13:11,920 --> 00:13:15,840 very tiny amount could just set off this huge chain reaction. 227 00:13:15,840 --> 00:13:19,840 That's true. And thousands of people can be affected within days. 228 00:13:19,840 --> 00:13:23,080 Of course. That's why Plague has been such a successful pathogen 229 00:13:23,080 --> 00:13:24,840 to infect people. 230 00:13:26,880 --> 00:13:30,360 Plague evolved about 10,000 years ago, in Asia. 231 00:13:30,360 --> 00:13:34,960 Unlike coronavirus, it spread no further for millennia. 232 00:13:34,960 --> 00:13:40,080 It first reached Europe along trade routes in 541 AD 233 00:13:40,080 --> 00:13:42,880 as the Roman Empire declined. 234 00:13:44,280 --> 00:13:49,000 This was the first of three great pandemics. 235 00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:52,160 The first pandemic lasted 200 years 236 00:13:52,160 --> 00:13:56,760 with repeated outbreaks killing up to 50 million people. 237 00:13:57,920 --> 00:14:03,480 A second pandemic swept to Europe 700 years later in the 14th century. 238 00:14:03,480 --> 00:14:07,760 Known as The Black Death, there were two centuries of outbreaks, 239 00:14:07,760 --> 00:14:11,360 including the Great Plague that we're looking at. 240 00:14:11,360 --> 00:14:14,800 The third Plague pandemic engulfed the world at the end 241 00:14:14,800 --> 00:14:16,720 of the 19th century. 242 00:14:16,720 --> 00:14:19,640 Only then, did scientists finally figure out 243 00:14:19,640 --> 00:14:22,400 what they thought was spreading the disease. 244 00:14:24,800 --> 00:14:30,520 In 1894, Yersin, the founder of the now Institut Pasteur in Paris, 245 00:14:30,520 --> 00:14:34,240 identified the bacterium, identified that Plague 246 00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:37,160 was transmitted by rats, and rat fleas to humans. 247 00:14:37,160 --> 00:14:40,360 Yersin, of course, gave his name to the bacteria, Yersinia pestis. 248 00:14:40,360 --> 00:14:44,080 And did a lot of early work on the epidemiology of Plague. 249 00:14:45,560 --> 00:14:50,000 Yersin's research in Asia revealed rats infected with Plague 250 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:52,200 passed it on to their fleas. 251 00:14:52,200 --> 00:14:54,480 When the rats died of the disease, 252 00:14:54,480 --> 00:14:57,320 the fleas were forced to feed on people, 253 00:14:57,320 --> 00:15:00,000 passing it on to them. 254 00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:03,360 And then, it's assumed, from that pandemic, that that's the way 255 00:15:03,360 --> 00:15:05,640 that it was transmitted in earlier pandemics? 256 00:15:05,640 --> 00:15:09,080 Yes. The knowledge that arose from that discovery was then 257 00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:13,240 retrospectively fitted to the second and the first pandemics, yes. 258 00:15:15,800 --> 00:15:18,000 XAND: So, for the last 100 years, 259 00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:19,840 rats and their fleas have been blamed 260 00:15:19,840 --> 00:15:22,760 for spreading the Great Plague through London 261 00:15:22,760 --> 00:15:25,120 in the spring of 1665. 262 00:15:28,920 --> 00:15:32,560 In the week to the 15th May, there were three more deaths. 263 00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:37,440 A small increase, but significantly the disease was now 264 00:15:37,440 --> 00:15:40,840 spreading beyond the parish of St Giles in the Fields, 265 00:15:40,840 --> 00:15:45,800 and the first case was reported within London's city walls. 266 00:15:45,800 --> 00:15:47,320 TRAFFIC HUMS 267 00:15:49,320 --> 00:15:51,520 The first death, in the Square Mile, 268 00:15:51,520 --> 00:15:54,280 within the ancient city walls of London, occurred here 269 00:15:54,280 --> 00:15:58,320 on Mansion House Place, which back then was called Bearbinder Lane. 270 00:15:58,320 --> 00:16:01,480 And again, the author, Daniel Defoe, blamed the French, 271 00:16:01,480 --> 00:16:04,880 saying the man who died here was a Frenchman who had selfishly 272 00:16:04,880 --> 00:16:08,560 fled the outbreak in the suburb of St Giles. 273 00:16:10,480 --> 00:16:13,160 Plague wasn't just in the slums any more. 274 00:16:14,760 --> 00:16:18,600 Bearbinder Lane is just around the corner from this - 275 00:16:18,600 --> 00:16:20,240 the Royal Exchange, 276 00:16:20,240 --> 00:16:22,480 the financial heart of the city. 277 00:16:24,760 --> 00:16:27,880 It's where London's elite came to do business, 278 00:16:27,880 --> 00:16:31,800 and they were now horrified that the Plague threatened THEM. 279 00:16:33,360 --> 00:16:36,480 We know people are getting worried because they tell us so. 280 00:16:36,480 --> 00:16:40,440 Famous diarist Samuel Pepys describes going to a coffee house 281 00:16:40,440 --> 00:16:42,920 where everybody is talking about the Plague. 282 00:16:42,920 --> 00:16:47,160 Another eye witness, a priest called Thomas Vincent, tells us 283 00:16:47,160 --> 00:16:49,600 that, by now, everyone is really frightened. 284 00:16:54,240 --> 00:16:56,800 Thomas Vincent was a Puritan minister who 285 00:16:56,800 --> 00:17:00,800 lived in Spitalfields with a group of his congregation. 286 00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:03,960 He believed the Plague was a punishment from God, 287 00:17:03,960 --> 00:17:08,360 inflicted on Londoners because of their promiscuous behaviour. 288 00:17:09,920 --> 00:17:13,280 Samuel Pepys lived in rather more comfortable surroundings 289 00:17:13,280 --> 00:17:17,040 with his wife and servants, just north of the Tower of London. 290 00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:21,040 He didn't blame the Plague on the Almighty, 291 00:17:21,040 --> 00:17:24,320 but instead wrote, only God could save them from the disease. 292 00:17:26,280 --> 00:17:28,440 Both men knew from experience 293 00:17:28,440 --> 00:17:30,440 the rising death toll indicated 294 00:17:30,440 --> 00:17:33,480 a terrible epidemic was coming. 295 00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:43,400 In the last week of May, the number of Plague deaths reported 296 00:17:43,400 --> 00:17:45,680 increased to 17. 297 00:17:48,080 --> 00:17:50,600 Most victims were in still in St Giles, 298 00:17:50,600 --> 00:17:53,080 in the alleys near Drury Lane. 299 00:17:53,080 --> 00:17:55,880 Despite the growing fear, 300 00:17:55,880 --> 00:17:57,840 normal life in the area continued. 301 00:17:57,840 --> 00:18:00,560 Ale houses, coffee houses, 302 00:18:00,560 --> 00:18:03,760 and theatres were still packed with customers. 303 00:18:04,840 --> 00:18:07,800 This is the famous Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. 304 00:18:07,800 --> 00:18:09,720 It's the oldest theatre in London, 305 00:18:09,720 --> 00:18:13,440 and, at the moment, is undergoing a massive refurbishment. 306 00:18:13,440 --> 00:18:16,360 But the original theatre was built on this site, 307 00:18:16,360 --> 00:18:18,560 two years before the outbreak. 308 00:18:18,560 --> 00:18:21,520 It was established by King Charles II himself, 309 00:18:21,520 --> 00:18:23,320 hence the "Royal" in the name. 310 00:18:24,400 --> 00:18:27,520 The theatre was located just a stone's throw 311 00:18:27,520 --> 00:18:29,640 from the epicentre of the epidemic. 312 00:18:32,440 --> 00:18:36,920 Despite that, each night, 700 people crammed into a building 313 00:18:36,920 --> 00:18:40,800 only 34 metres long and 18 metres wide. 314 00:18:43,120 --> 00:18:45,200 But it gradually became clear 315 00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:47,360 that normal public life couldn't continue. 316 00:18:48,840 --> 00:18:53,720 It was at this point, in June 1665, that the rising death toll finally 317 00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:56,840 forced King Charles to close the theatres. 318 00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:04,240 To find out how people were reacting to the rapidly escalating 319 00:19:04,240 --> 00:19:07,680 epidemic, I'm meeting historian, Vanessa Harding. 320 00:19:10,840 --> 00:19:13,280 We're here in St Giles in the Fields 321 00:19:13,280 --> 00:19:17,520 and it's this parish where the Plague began in 1665. 322 00:19:17,520 --> 00:19:20,120 How are people in London feeling at this stage? 323 00:19:20,120 --> 00:19:22,480 I think they're starting to get really quite worried. 324 00:19:22,480 --> 00:19:25,720 The number of deaths by the end of May is as many as the last 325 00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:28,040 six or seven years put together. 326 00:19:28,040 --> 00:19:31,320 And people do have a lot of experience of Plague in London 327 00:19:31,320 --> 00:19:34,160 and they know that if deaths start to rise in the late spring, 328 00:19:34,160 --> 00:19:36,440 early summer, and don't go down again, 329 00:19:36,440 --> 00:19:40,000 then there's a good chance they're in for a bad epidemic. 330 00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:41,400 Why does it begin here? 331 00:19:41,400 --> 00:19:45,080 At the time, this is a western suburb of London. 332 00:19:45,080 --> 00:19:47,280 We don't know why it starts here 333 00:19:47,280 --> 00:19:49,800 but one of the things that's really interesting is that this 334 00:19:49,800 --> 00:19:53,080 is about as far as you can get from the port areas of London. 335 00:19:53,080 --> 00:19:56,800 So, if Plague is being imported from abroad on fleas, 336 00:19:56,800 --> 00:20:00,600 on rats on ships, if that were true, then you would expect it to 337 00:20:00,600 --> 00:20:03,480 start down by the waterside or in the East End. 338 00:20:03,480 --> 00:20:06,400 This is almost the last place you'd expect it to begin. 339 00:20:06,400 --> 00:20:08,720 OK, so that's quite mysterious. 340 00:20:10,360 --> 00:20:14,440 This is one of many inconsistencies that have led historians 341 00:20:14,440 --> 00:20:18,160 and scientists to question the assumption that the Great Plague 342 00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:21,040 was only spread by rats and their fleas. 343 00:20:22,840 --> 00:20:26,240 What have you learned from looking at parish records 344 00:20:26,240 --> 00:20:29,120 about how the Plague was spreading in this part of London? 345 00:20:29,120 --> 00:20:33,080 We have a lot of records surviving from this time and one of the 346 00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:36,800 things that comes through from that is that it often seems to cluster in 347 00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:41,400 households and it's not spreading in a sort of even geographical ripple. 348 00:20:41,400 --> 00:20:44,240 It doesn't infect every house in one street. 349 00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:46,720 Some families are infected but by no means all. 350 00:20:46,720 --> 00:20:50,080 So, that, to me, would suggest it's spreading person-to-person, 351 00:20:50,080 --> 00:20:52,680 rather than having rats which you'd expect would move it 352 00:20:52,680 --> 00:20:54,120 all the way along a street? 353 00:20:54,120 --> 00:20:56,320 Yes. Yes, it certainly looks like that. 354 00:20:56,320 --> 00:20:59,440 So, you've got these inconsistencies with the geographic location 355 00:20:59,440 --> 00:21:01,600 with the way it's spreading. 356 00:21:01,600 --> 00:21:03,880 Are we sure this is Bubonic Plague? 357 00:21:03,880 --> 00:21:05,200 We do know that now. 358 00:21:05,200 --> 00:21:08,680 There have been quite a lot of excavations of buried bodies, 359 00:21:08,680 --> 00:21:12,480 of human remains from Plague sites over the last few years, 360 00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:15,200 and analysis of the ancient DNA 361 00:21:15,200 --> 00:21:18,040 shows that Yersinia pestis was present. 362 00:21:18,040 --> 00:21:22,480 So, we know it's Plague but the inconsistencies remain. 363 00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:25,440 Yes. And I think that means we have to look again 364 00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:28,480 at what we think we know about Yersinia Pestis 365 00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:31,800 and its being spread by rats and rat fleas, 366 00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:33,960 and think about whether there might be other ways 367 00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:35,560 in which it's being spread. 368 00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:39,520 So, what you're suggesting is that we have to rethink everything 369 00:21:39,520 --> 00:21:43,040 we know about Bubonic Plague and how it spreads? 370 00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:44,560 Yeah. Wow! 371 00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:57,080 In the first week of June 1665, 372 00:21:57,080 --> 00:22:00,160 43 people died of Plague in London, 373 00:22:00,160 --> 00:22:03,080 more than double the previous week's total. 374 00:22:03,080 --> 00:22:07,960 This rate of increase confirmed that the epidemic was accelerating. 375 00:22:11,200 --> 00:22:15,680 For 100 years, it's been believed that only rats and rat fleas 376 00:22:15,680 --> 00:22:18,800 were spreading the disease, but there's now new evidence 377 00:22:18,800 --> 00:22:23,320 suggesting Plague was actually transmitted in a different way. 378 00:22:27,960 --> 00:22:31,160 RAKSHA: In Marseille, on France's Mediterranean coast, 379 00:22:31,160 --> 00:22:34,720 scientists have been investigating a new theory. 380 00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:41,680 A terrible Plague epidemic struck here in 1720, 381 00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:45,280 55 years after London's Great Plague. 382 00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:48,640 100 000 people were killed. 383 00:22:48,640 --> 00:22:52,320 It was Europe's last ever epidemic of the disease 384 00:22:52,320 --> 00:22:56,160 and since then, Marseille University has been at the cutting edge 385 00:22:56,160 --> 00:22:58,600 of research into its causes. 386 00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:01,760 Recently, they've made some astonishing discoveries. 387 00:23:04,240 --> 00:23:07,800 The work here was overseen by Professor Drancor. 388 00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:09,680 He's taking me to see the animals 389 00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:12,880 he has identified as Plague transmitters... 390 00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:14,840 Oh, here we go! 391 00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:17,000 ..and they're not rats. 392 00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:18,360 Right. 393 00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:24,120 They're bred in a secure room in the university's basement. 394 00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:29,960 Wow! 395 00:23:57,040 --> 00:23:59,040 Is that where they are more comfortable, then? 396 00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:00,160 Latching on to cloth? 397 00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:17,960 Body lice are similar to head lice, 398 00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:20,040 but these blood-suckers have 399 00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:23,360 adapted to live on clothes rather than in hair. 400 00:24:23,360 --> 00:24:26,640 While head lice are still widespread in Europe today, 401 00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:30,880 modern laundry methods have almost eradicated body lice. 402 00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:34,640 So, you think that these little bugs have been spreading the Plague? 403 00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:42,720 And how did you figure that out? 404 00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:08,640 So how long does it take for the rabbits that didn't have the 405 00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:12,120 Plague, to then be infected by the Plague? 406 00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:15,840 Oh, 24 hours! 407 00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:22,280 Wow! 408 00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:28,400 And there's another human parasite bred here that's also been 409 00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:31,680 proved can spread Bubonic Plague directly, 410 00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:34,400 without any rats involved. 411 00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:54,080 So, fleas can spread Plague without rats being involved at all? 412 00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:30,160 When I was first taught about the Plague at school, 413 00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:33,000 I was told that it was incontrovertible scientific fact 414 00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:36,160 that it was the rats and its fleas that was spreading the Plague 415 00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:39,320 but what I've just learnt has turned all of that on its head! 416 00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:47,440 This ground-breaking research from Marseille allows us 417 00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:50,400 to look at the Great Plague in a completely new light. 418 00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:53,560 The way the disease spread, the stories eye witnesses told, 419 00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:56,680 and the preventative measures taken in the 17th century, 420 00:26:56,680 --> 00:27:00,920 could all make a lot more sense if we put less emphasis on the rat 421 00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:04,480 and look more closely at human fleas and lice. 422 00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:11,600 With this in mind, I've come to the archives of the London Guildhall. 423 00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:16,320 Records here allow us to track the Plague's spread through the capital. 424 00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:24,880 So, this is the Bills Of Mortality for London from 1665. 425 00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:27,480 And I used to have the job, 426 00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:29,440 basically compiling a book like this. 427 00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:32,120 I was a surveillance, Epidemic Surveillance Officer 428 00:27:32,120 --> 00:27:34,160 for the World Health Organisation 429 00:27:34,160 --> 00:27:37,800 and I was doing what they're doing here, which is recording the number 430 00:27:37,800 --> 00:27:42,480 of deaths from particular illnesses from every parish in London. 431 00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:46,520 So, I've got here the 20th June 1665. 432 00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:49,480 What's so striking is St Giles in the Fields, 433 00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:52,320 that very poor Parish where Plague began, 434 00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:57,120 has got 143 deaths from Plague this week. 435 00:27:57,120 --> 00:28:00,960 But what's even more disturbing is that the Plague has spread. 436 00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:04,120 So, if I look at neighbouring Holborn, 37 deaths, 437 00:28:04,120 --> 00:28:05,600 15 are from Plague. 438 00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:08,120 Aldgate, four deaths, three are from Plague. 439 00:28:08,120 --> 00:28:11,480 If we look in Westminster, we've got 38 deaths 440 00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:14,600 but 26 of them are from Plague. 441 00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:17,040 All of these are poor neighbourhoods, 442 00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:18,840 they're outside the city walls. 443 00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:22,440 But if I look at the parishes that are within the city walls, 444 00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:23,760 the more affluent areas, 445 00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:27,560 what's very striking is that there's almost no deaths from Plague 446 00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:29,560 in those wealthier neighbourhoods. 447 00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:33,240 We can see St Olave, Hart Street, no deaths. 448 00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:37,880 And that is where our friend, the diarist Samuel Pepys lived. 449 00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:40,360 It was in this month, June, 450 00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:44,800 1665, that Samuel Pepys had his first brush with Plague. 451 00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:51,120 He was taking a carriage into the city when the driver was suddenly 452 00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:54,520 taken ill and Pepys wrote that he suddenly was unable to stand, 453 00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:57,680 he collapsed, he was taken blind, 454 00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:00,320 and Pepys was understandably, absolutely terrified 455 00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:05,000 that he had had this encounter with a probable Plague victim. 456 00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:14,440 I don't think London's walls were somehow physically holding back the 457 00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:17,760 infection from inner city parishes like Pepys's. 458 00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:23,120 The fact is that the older, more established parishes 459 00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,560 inside the city walls were much more affluent. 460 00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:30,920 And the disease was spreading in the illegally built slums and the 461 00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:34,360 back alleys that had recently sprung up outside the city walls. 462 00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:36,360 This was noticed at the time. 463 00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:39,000 It was even called the Poor's Plague. 464 00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:40,880 Now the crucial difference, for me, 465 00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:43,640 between the living conditions of rich on that side of the wall, 466 00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:45,840 and the poor on this side of the wall, 467 00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:49,040 was the number of fleas and lice they were infested with. 468 00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:56,320 Why did the living conditions of London's poor 469 00:29:56,320 --> 00:29:58,080 make them so vulnerable? 470 00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:04,040 John Sergeant has gone to find out. 471 00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:11,960 I'm visiting a reconstructed 17th century house with historian, 472 00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:13,920 Professor Catherine Richardson. 473 00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:17,440 This is something like 474 00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:21,720 a poor family would have inhabited in modern London. Yeah. 475 00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:24,800 So, we've got one room downstairs for the whole family, 476 00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:26,640 and one room upstairs. 477 00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:29,560 So, it's small if you've got a big family? That's right. Yes. 478 00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:32,080 We've got perhaps six, seven, eight, 479 00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:35,920 nine people, all living in this space... All crammed in here. Yeah. 480 00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:38,240 So, what made these poorer homes 481 00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:42,160 more likely to add to the spread of the Plague, then? 482 00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:45,560 So, the most important things we need to look at are upstairs. 483 00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:51,320 Right. 484 00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:52,960 So, here we are. 485 00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:56,280 Now, if we're looking for a breeding ground for lice 486 00:30:56,280 --> 00:31:00,080 and fleas in this house I think this is where we need to be looking. 487 00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:02,400 Right, so why more for the poor than for the rich 488 00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:04,200 in the same circumstances? 489 00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:06,680 This is one of the rooms where you can see most clearly 490 00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:08,440 the difference between the social groups. 491 00:31:08,440 --> 00:31:10,600 So, if you imagine a rich bedroom, 492 00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:12,040 it's much bigger than this. 493 00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:16,040 Erm, it's got a four-poster bed with curtains around it 494 00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:17,440 to keep them warm. Clean linen. 495 00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:20,040 It's got feather beds, it's got no end of linen. 496 00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:22,320 It's got linen that's worth more than this house. 497 00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:23,320 Here... 498 00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:28,480 ..we've got a mattress of sorts but it's straw. 499 00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,040 So, the fleas like the straw, don't they? Yeah. 500 00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:34,080 These sheets, they'll be infested with lice. 501 00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:36,840 And, of course, if they have got sheets, 502 00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:40,720 one, perhaps a maximum two, sheets. 503 00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:43,320 So, we're not going to be washing them very often 504 00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:47,760 and then here, we've got, perhaps, all the children sleeping together, 505 00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:49,760 it's companionable and it's warm. 506 00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:53,040 But, of course, from our point of view, thinking about, 507 00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:57,120 about insects, that's a marvellous environment for them to be growing. 508 00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,080 So, yeah, you take off your outer garments when you've finished 509 00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:03,280 work and you might put them on top of the bed to keep you even 510 00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:09,200 warmer but you're likely to leave on your inner garments, your linens. 511 00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:12,560 This is the breeding ground for the fleas 512 00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:16,520 and the lice which means the Plague spreads. 513 00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:18,960 I mean this is, this is the cause of the whole thing 514 00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:20,360 we can see in this bedroom. 515 00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:23,120 If you like, this is the centre of it all. 516 00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:28,400 XAND: These conditions fuelled the Plague's relentless advance, 517 00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:32,600 and families across London watched in fear as the disease 518 00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:35,480 approached their neighbourhoods. 519 00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:52,640 By mid June 1665, the Plague was accelerating through London 520 00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:57,320 and 168 people a week were now dying. 521 00:32:57,320 --> 00:32:58,680 HE COUGHS 522 00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:01,560 We've established body lice and human fleas can transmit 523 00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:03,480 the Bubonic Plague, 524 00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:07,480 and we know many 17th century Londoners were infested. 525 00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:13,560 But I'm looking for a clinching piece of evidence to confirm 526 00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:17,120 they spread the Great Plague, not rats. 527 00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:20,480 To do this, I've come to the location of a much more 528 00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:21,960 recent Plague outbreak. 529 00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:30,080 In 1900, there was an outbreak of Bubonic Plague here, 530 00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:32,520 in the Gorbals district of Glasgow. 531 00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:37,720 It was part of the third Plague pandemic, 532 00:33:37,720 --> 00:33:43,040 which had started in Asia and spread around the world in the 1880s. 533 00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:46,440 This much more recent outbreak was much better documented, 534 00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:50,240 and it gives us incredible insights into how the disease spread. 535 00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:55,160 Now, amazingly, living conditions in tenements like these behind me 536 00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:57,280 in Glasgow in 1900 were not very different 537 00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:01,920 to 17th century London slums. 538 00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:06,880 This means investigating the 1900 outbreak in Glasgow's slums 539 00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:11,040 will allow us to see if the lice and flea theory stacks up. 540 00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:16,800 It was a family who lived in one of these tenements, the Bogies, 541 00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:18,160 who fell sick first. 542 00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:22,280 To discover what happened, I'm meeting historian 543 00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:25,560 Dr Clifford Williamson at a reconstructed tenement flat. 544 00:34:27,240 --> 00:34:31,480 So, this is the kind of room that the Plague started in in Glasgow? 545 00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:34,880 Absolutely, this is your typical Glaswegian tenement 546 00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:37,320 kitchen-living room apartment. 547 00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:40,200 So, you could have a family of ten living in one or two rooms 548 00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:42,160 this size? 549 00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:45,040 Absolutely and it would be incredibly commonplace. 550 00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:47,920 Now, talk to me about the Bogie family, who, were they? 551 00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:51,160 They live on the bottom rung of the ladder. 552 00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:56,440 The father is a docker, the granny sells fish outside pubs 553 00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:58,920 at closing time just to make ends meet. 554 00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:00,760 So, who falls ill first? 555 00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:05,000 It's the grandmother that falls ill first and a grandchild. 556 00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:08,400 And it just appears to be another infectious disease which is 557 00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:11,600 something which they will see constantly throughout their lives. 558 00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:14,280 So, the grandmother and the granddaughter die. 559 00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:16,480 Talk me through what's happening in the wake. 560 00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:18,880 You've got people visiting, where are the bodies? 561 00:35:18,880 --> 00:35:21,120 The body is right in the centre of the room 562 00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:23,320 cos that's the focus of attention. 563 00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:26,320 And hundreds of people are coming through 564 00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:28,520 the doors like it's a football turnstile. 565 00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:31,000 At the time, there were reports they were kissing 566 00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:33,240 the face of the corpses. 567 00:35:33,240 --> 00:35:36,680 Apparently, that's part of the ritual of the wake. 568 00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:40,320 If you've got a body laid out on this table that's just 569 00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,960 died of Plague and lice leaving that body, that is a catastrophe. 570 00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:46,480 Oh, it is a disaster waiting to happen. 571 00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:51,120 So, people disperse from the wake. Yep. What happens then? 572 00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:54,480 Well, the infection becomes mobile. 573 00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:58,760 It's now got carriers who will then start to create little 574 00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:01,160 hot spots of infection all on their very own. 575 00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:07,520 Families across Glasgow began to fall sick with Plague. 576 00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:13,680 To find details of how the disease was spreading, 577 00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:17,840 I've come to look at documents held by the NHS Glasgow Archives. 578 00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:23,560 So, this is what I've really come here for. 579 00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:27,040 This is the report on certain cases of Plague 580 00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:30,200 occurring in Glasgow in 1900. 581 00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:32,760 It's absolutely an extraordinary document. 582 00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:38,200 There's a page of photos of Plague victims. 583 00:36:40,240 --> 00:36:43,640 We have armpit buboes, necrosis involving the skin. 584 00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:46,840 A young boy, probably about my son's age, 585 00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:49,800 and the picture is to show his facial expression, 586 00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:53,600 the kind of exhausted, worn-out, drained look on his face. 587 00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:58,880 You get a sense of how much fear this disease causes. 588 00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:05,120 There's an extraordinary section here which catalogues all 589 00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:08,360 the cases that were recognised as Plague. 590 00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:12,240 So, we start with Mrs B, patient zero, that's Mrs Bogie, 591 00:37:12,240 --> 00:37:16,480 age 57, she lives at 71 Rose Street and she's a fish hawker. 592 00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:19,360 But this column here is figuring out how 593 00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:21,840 they caught the disease in the first place. 594 00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:24,640 This feels like a very modern thing to do. 595 00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:27,840 So, even now we would do contract tracing. 596 00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:31,040 So, first of all we have the husband of the first patient, 597 00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:32,440 so that's Mr Bogie. 598 00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:34,640 But then we have someone who's a relative 599 00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:36,640 and helped to nurse first patient. 600 00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:39,600 A neighbour, then people who attended the wakes, 601 00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:41,600 people who attended the funeral service. 602 00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:44,840 52 Dale Street, we have a man who dies 603 00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:49,560 and when he dies, his bed is gifted to a neighbour and a week later 604 00:37:49,560 --> 00:37:53,800 the man who got the bed gets sick from Plague and he ends up dying. 605 00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:58,240 Now, that's someone who's got Plague without any direct 606 00:37:58,240 --> 00:38:01,000 contact with someone who has Plague. 607 00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,160 So, the bed is the vehicle for the Plague. 608 00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:07,520 The picture that is built up through this document is that every 609 00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:12,080 person affected, they were able to trace back to some contact 610 00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:15,520 with an infected person, or with an infected item. 611 00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:20,040 But the most interesting line to me in the report is the final 612 00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:24,560 paragraph and they say, "In Glasgow, whatever the source of the original 613 00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:28,520 "infection may have been, there was no evidence that rats played 614 00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:33,240 "any part carrying it amongst those who were attacked by the disease." 615 00:38:33,240 --> 00:38:37,640 And in fact, they rounded up 236 rats caught within the Plague 616 00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:41,920 area and could not find any evidence in the infection in the rats. 617 00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:44,600 That to me is feeling pretty conclusive. 618 00:38:47,240 --> 00:38:50,880 This is a picture of the Plague team - 619 00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:54,680 the doctors and nurses who were looking after the patients. 620 00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:58,680 They all would have known how dangerous the illness was. 621 00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:01,280 They're doing something that's extremely courageous. 622 00:39:05,400 --> 00:39:08,720 36 people in Glasgow contracted Plague... 623 00:39:11,240 --> 00:39:13,360 ..16 of them tragically died. 624 00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:19,720 They were living in squalid, overcrowded houses. 625 00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:24,480 Just like the slums of 17th century London, 626 00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:27,560 infested with lice and human fleas. 627 00:39:30,080 --> 00:39:33,720 Which convinces me it was primarily human parasites 628 00:39:33,720 --> 00:39:36,920 that had so rapidly spread the Bubonic Plague 629 00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:41,480 to 20 London parishes by the 26th June, 1665. 630 00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:48,640 The weekly death rate had jumped to 267 631 00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:50,760 and was almost doubling every week. 632 00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:56,640 There was no local government in the 17th century, 633 00:39:56,640 --> 00:40:00,240 so it was officials from the parish churches who had to try 634 00:40:00,240 --> 00:40:02,400 and deal with this spiralling epidemic. 635 00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:08,080 One of the few buildings that has miraculously 636 00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:10,560 survived from the time of the Great Plague 637 00:40:10,560 --> 00:40:15,720 is St Bartholomew The Great, London's oldest parish church. 638 00:40:15,720 --> 00:40:18,160 Now like all of London's parish churches, 639 00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:22,080 Great St Bart's played an important role in the response to the Plague. 640 00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:28,880 Parish officers organised money and food relief for the poor. 641 00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:34,320 They also recorded all Plague deaths in their area. 642 00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:38,480 And they had to bury the ever-increasing numbers of dead. 643 00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:49,520 Each of those deaths was marked by a tolling of the church bell. 644 00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:56,080 The actual bell that rang out here during the Great Plague survives. 645 00:40:56,080 --> 00:41:01,000 It dates to the early 1500s and it still works. 646 00:41:02,720 --> 00:41:04,200 I mean, this is amazing. 647 00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:10,000 So, this is the great bell that is going to ring, 648 00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:14,040 but before it does, I'm just going to get in my ear defenders 649 00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:15,960 cos I think it is going to be pretty loud. 650 00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:23,600 Tower Captain Paul Norman still rings the bell today, 651 00:41:23,600 --> 00:41:27,560 just as his predecessors did 350 years ago. 652 00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:47,520 You can imagine it ringing out all over London. 653 00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:51,320 For me, its pretty magical, I have to say. 654 00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:54,760 But that sound ringing out during the Great Plague, 655 00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:57,640 I think it would have felt very different hearing it then. 656 00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:00,120 BELL TOLLS 657 00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:04,320 The infamous death knells rang out from every London church 658 00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:06,320 to mark each death in their parish. 659 00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:16,160 As the epidemic intensified in early July, 660 00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:21,480 the bells in the worst-hit parishes were tolling over 20 times a day. 661 00:42:24,600 --> 00:42:28,840 Death knells like that from parish churches would've been heard 662 00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:30,240 all across London. 663 00:42:30,240 --> 00:42:33,240 There was no traffic noise to drown them out. 664 00:42:33,240 --> 00:42:36,800 And as they began to ring with more and more frequency, 665 00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:39,600 it would've been a forbidding reminder 666 00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:42,720 of the ever-increasing onslaught of the Plague. 667 00:42:42,720 --> 00:42:46,400 And as the bells closer to your neighbourhood began to ring, 668 00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:49,360 you could literally hear the Plague approaching. 669 00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:51,000 It must have been terrifying. 670 00:42:55,400 --> 00:43:00,040 As the bells continued to ring out, they triggered panic 671 00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:03,920 and the greatest mass exodus London has ever seen. 672 00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:16,480 In the next episode, we'll be investigating this 673 00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:20,840 flight from London and continue the story as the epidemic exploded. 674 00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:25,320 I think people find this whole thing of large numbers of bodies 675 00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:27,960 just being tossed in together very, very disturbing. 676 00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:32,400 We'll reveal the heroism of nurses and medics. 677 00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:36,840 There's a clear understanding that she put herself at risk 678 00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:38,600 to care for patients. 679 00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:42,160 We explore the extreme measures taken to stem the contagion. 680 00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:45,400 This scares the bejesus out of me. 681 00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:49,120 We'll uncover new evidence that explains how the disease spread... 682 00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:52,680 Lice would be in this underlayer next to the skin. 683 00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:58,280 ..and trace the Plague's relentless advance, first across London, 684 00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:00,040 then across the country. 685 00:44:34,300 --> 00:44:37,700 The Prime Minister says coronavirus is likely to spread... 686 00:44:37,700 --> 00:44:41,800 When Covid-19 hit the UK... ..the seriousness of the situation. 687 00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:44,660 ..it seemed a uniquely terrible event. 688 00:44:44,660 --> 00:44:48,220 ..can recover. For others, it can be deadly. 689 00:44:48,220 --> 00:44:51,220 But it wasn't the first time we'd suffered a deadly epidemic. 690 00:44:51,220 --> 00:44:54,540 In a frightening parallel, 350 years earlier, 691 00:44:54,540 --> 00:44:58,100 we endured one of the greatest tragedies in British history, 692 00:44:58,100 --> 00:44:59,460 the Great Plague. 693 00:45:00,500 --> 00:45:03,660 Over 18 months, beginning in 1665, 694 00:45:03,660 --> 00:45:06,100 this horrific disease killed 695 00:45:06,100 --> 00:45:09,980 an estimated 100 000 people in London alone, 696 00:45:09,980 --> 00:45:13,340 a quarter of the entire population, and a further 697 00:45:13,340 --> 00:45:16,420 100,000, as it spread across the country. 698 00:45:18,380 --> 00:45:21,420 Over three programmes, we're telling the horrifying story of how 699 00:45:21,420 --> 00:45:25,580 the Great Plague unfolded - day by day, week by week. 700 00:45:26,780 --> 00:45:28,780 Last time, we revealed extraordinary 701 00:45:28,780 --> 00:45:31,740 new evidence showing the Great Plague was spread 702 00:45:31,740 --> 00:45:35,140 not by rats - as traditionally thought - 703 00:45:35,140 --> 00:45:37,540 but by human fleas and body lice, 704 00:45:37,540 --> 00:45:39,420 which live in people's clothes. 705 00:45:41,260 --> 00:45:46,100 This time, we continue the story as the epidemic explodes. 706 00:45:46,100 --> 00:45:49,460 I think people find this whole thing of large numbers of bodies 707 00:45:49,460 --> 00:45:50,980 just being tossed in together 708 00:45:50,980 --> 00:45:52,300 very, very disturbing. 709 00:45:53,500 --> 00:45:58,580 We explore the extreme measures taken to stem the contagion... 710 00:45:58,580 --> 00:46:00,260 This scares the bejesus out of me. 711 00:46:01,900 --> 00:46:04,500 ..discover how the poor were left to fend for themselves... 712 00:46:04,500 --> 00:46:05,660 COUGHING 713 00:46:05,660 --> 00:46:08,860 ..and trace the plague's relentless advance - 714 00:46:08,860 --> 00:46:10,460 first, across London, 715 00:46:10,460 --> 00:46:13,100 then across the country. 716 00:46:14,940 --> 00:46:19,340 I'm Xand van Tulleken and this is the story of the Great Plague. 717 00:46:30,300 --> 00:46:33,780 In April 1665, people began to die 718 00:46:33,780 --> 00:46:37,620 of plague here, in what was then the poor suburb 719 00:46:37,620 --> 00:46:41,580 of St Giles-in-the-Fields, on the very outskirts of London. 720 00:46:41,580 --> 00:46:47,140 And as the spring grew warmer, the number of cases began to skyrocket. 721 00:46:48,980 --> 00:46:51,380 Two months into the outbreak, 722 00:46:51,380 --> 00:46:56,100 the number of plague deaths was doubling every fortnight. 723 00:46:57,180 --> 00:46:58,860 By the beginning of July, 724 00:46:58,860 --> 00:47:02,500 470 people a week were dying, and 725 00:47:02,500 --> 00:47:04,620 thousands more were falling sick. 726 00:47:06,060 --> 00:47:07,700 The deaths were overwhelmingly 727 00:47:07,700 --> 00:47:10,020 in the poor suburbs to the west of 728 00:47:10,020 --> 00:47:11,380 the walled City of London, 729 00:47:11,380 --> 00:47:14,260 but the contagion was now spreading east. 730 00:47:18,500 --> 00:47:21,820 Terrified by this spiralling epidemic, 731 00:47:21,820 --> 00:47:25,980 most better-off Londoners now decided to try and escape the city. 732 00:47:28,340 --> 00:47:30,820 Tens of thousands of people fled London, 733 00:47:30,820 --> 00:47:33,500 in the greatest exodus in the city's history. 734 00:47:36,580 --> 00:47:39,660 The people that fled were those that could afford to - 735 00:47:39,660 --> 00:47:42,780 the merchants, the lawyers, the professional classes. 736 00:47:42,780 --> 00:47:46,140 And the streets were clogged with coaches 737 00:47:46,140 --> 00:47:51,740 and carts piled high with servants, clothing and prized possessions. 738 00:47:53,980 --> 00:47:57,020 Almost every noble family also escaped London, 739 00:47:57,020 --> 00:48:00,140 including King Charles II, who fled to his palace 740 00:48:00,140 --> 00:48:03,020 at Hampton Court, ten miles away. 741 00:48:04,500 --> 00:48:06,900 COUGHING 742 00:48:06,900 --> 00:48:10,140 Mostly, it was the poor who were left behind. 743 00:48:10,140 --> 00:48:12,380 They had no choice. 744 00:48:12,380 --> 00:48:14,540 They needed to keep working to survive 745 00:48:14,540 --> 00:48:17,340 and they had nowhere else to go. 746 00:48:17,340 --> 00:48:20,420 And it was in the back-alley slums where they lived 747 00:48:20,420 --> 00:48:23,300 that the plague was already most rampant. 748 00:48:27,900 --> 00:48:31,540 St Barts Hospital was one of the few places that the poor, 749 00:48:31,540 --> 00:48:35,100 who were trapped in London, could come, hoping to receive treatment. 750 00:48:35,100 --> 00:48:37,580 I'm here to have a look at their archives 751 00:48:37,580 --> 00:48:40,460 to see what they tell us about the care they received. 752 00:48:43,540 --> 00:48:45,540 Archivist Kate Jarman has found 753 00:48:45,540 --> 00:48:47,140 original documents revealing that 754 00:48:47,140 --> 00:48:49,980 even hospitals offered limited help 755 00:48:49,980 --> 00:48:51,500 to plague victims. 756 00:48:51,500 --> 00:48:53,500 So, Kate, this is the hospital journal, 757 00:48:53,500 --> 00:48:55,180 is that right? That's right. 758 00:48:55,180 --> 00:48:58,260 It's actually the minutes of the board of governors of the hospital. 759 00:48:58,260 --> 00:48:59,700 So, it's really a record of 760 00:48:59,700 --> 00:49:02,860 the day-to-day life of the hospital, activities of the staff. 761 00:49:02,860 --> 00:49:04,860 So, it's like the hospital diary. Yeah. 762 00:49:04,860 --> 00:49:07,580 And what does it say about the Great Plague? The record says 763 00:49:07,580 --> 00:49:10,380 the hospital did not admit incurable patients. 764 00:49:10,380 --> 00:49:12,260 So, it's probably unlikely that they were 765 00:49:12,260 --> 00:49:14,460 admitting patients for the plague. 766 00:49:14,460 --> 00:49:17,780 These may well have been patients admitted with other symptoms, 767 00:49:17,780 --> 00:49:21,100 or who developed the symptoms of the plague while they were here. 768 00:49:21,100 --> 00:49:23,900 In fact, the hospital was implementing measures to keep 769 00:49:23,900 --> 00:49:28,420 contagion out, locking the gates early and making sure that 770 00:49:28,420 --> 00:49:32,500 goods brought into the hospital were as risk-free as possible. 771 00:49:32,500 --> 00:49:35,820 One of the interesting things is the record of what was happening 772 00:49:35,820 --> 00:49:36,980 with the medical staff. 773 00:49:36,980 --> 00:49:38,700 So, here, we can see 774 00:49:38,700 --> 00:49:40,420 the governors have ordered that 775 00:49:40,420 --> 00:49:41,700 the hundred pounds due to 776 00:49:41,700 --> 00:49:43,460 Dr Micklethwaite and Dr Tearnes 777 00:49:43,460 --> 00:49:47,180 not be paid to them. And that's because they'd actually left London. 778 00:49:47,180 --> 00:49:50,660 They decided that the city was too contagious 779 00:49:50,660 --> 00:49:53,660 and, in common with a lot of people of their class, 780 00:49:53,660 --> 00:49:56,220 they would have got out of town. I mean, I can understand 781 00:49:56,220 --> 00:49:58,820 why they left, but it doesn't feel like what doctors 782 00:49:58,820 --> 00:50:01,780 should be doing. Yeah, but I think what's also interesting really 783 00:50:01,780 --> 00:50:04,660 is the stories of those who did stay. People like 784 00:50:04,660 --> 00:50:08,140 Margaret Blague, who was the matron of the hospital 785 00:50:08,140 --> 00:50:10,940 at that time. So, she was responsible for 786 00:50:10,940 --> 00:50:14,860 the 15 nursing sisters who looked after the wards of the hospital. 787 00:50:14,860 --> 00:50:18,220 The record says, "Having respect towards Margaret Blague, 788 00:50:18,220 --> 00:50:21,780 matron, for her attendant and constant great pains about the poor, 789 00:50:21,780 --> 00:50:23,500 in making them broths, caudles 790 00:50:23,500 --> 00:50:25,420 and other like comfortable things 791 00:50:25,420 --> 00:50:28,460 for their accommodation in these late, contagious times, 792 00:50:28,460 --> 00:50:30,780 wherein she had adventured herself 793 00:50:30,780 --> 00:50:32,740 to the great risk of her life." 794 00:50:32,740 --> 00:50:34,300 Wow, I love that! 795 00:50:34,300 --> 00:50:37,620 She "adventured herself to the great risk of her life". You know, 796 00:50:37,620 --> 00:50:41,100 there's a clear understanding that she put herself at risk 797 00:50:41,100 --> 00:50:44,420 to care for patients. Just like NHS nurses today. 798 00:50:44,420 --> 00:50:45,700 Absolutely. 799 00:50:45,700 --> 00:50:49,020 You definitely feel very aware that 800 00:50:49,020 --> 00:50:52,540 the less-paid, less-trained, less-valued health care workers 801 00:50:52,540 --> 00:50:55,260 have stayed and done the heroic work. Absolutely. 802 00:50:59,740 --> 00:51:04,140 Other physicians did bravely stay in London throughout the Great Plague. 803 00:51:06,020 --> 00:51:09,100 One was William Boghurst, an apothecary, 804 00:51:09,100 --> 00:51:11,460 an early type of pharmacist. 805 00:51:13,220 --> 00:51:15,500 He made a vivid record of his attempts 806 00:51:15,500 --> 00:51:18,620 to treat up to 40 patients a day. 807 00:51:21,860 --> 00:51:24,300 He dressed buboes, the swellings 808 00:51:24,300 --> 00:51:26,740 that formed on necks and groins. 809 00:51:29,180 --> 00:51:33,460 He held people as they thrashed and raged, 810 00:51:33,460 --> 00:51:35,620 overcome by unimaginable 811 00:51:35,620 --> 00:51:37,420 pain and fever. 812 00:51:37,420 --> 00:51:41,620 And he stayed with them in their final hours, 813 00:51:41,620 --> 00:51:43,900 closing their eyes when they died. 814 00:51:48,620 --> 00:51:53,060 So, apart from a handful of heroes, almost everyone in authority 815 00:51:53,060 --> 00:51:55,220 seems to have chosen to abandon 816 00:51:55,220 --> 00:51:56,500 the poor of London 817 00:51:56,500 --> 00:51:58,180 to their fate. The outbreak 818 00:51:58,180 --> 00:51:59,980 was only just beginning. 819 00:51:59,980 --> 00:52:03,900 Things were about to get worse than anyone could imagine. 820 00:52:11,110 --> 00:52:13,910 In mid-July 1665, 821 00:52:13,910 --> 00:52:15,790 the official number of weekly deaths 822 00:52:15,790 --> 00:52:18,750 in London surpassed a thousand. 823 00:52:18,750 --> 00:52:22,470 54 of the capital's 130 parishes 824 00:52:22,470 --> 00:52:24,670 were now infected. 825 00:52:26,870 --> 00:52:29,070 With most aristocrats and professionals 826 00:52:29,070 --> 00:52:32,630 attempting to escape London, it was mainly people such as 827 00:52:32,630 --> 00:52:35,910 labourers and servants who were left behind. 828 00:52:35,910 --> 00:52:39,270 Before King Charles fled to the countryside, 829 00:52:39,270 --> 00:52:42,470 he handed responsibility for plague relief and control 830 00:52:42,470 --> 00:52:45,590 to the Lord Mayor of London, who was based right here, 831 00:52:45,590 --> 00:52:47,070 at the great Guildhall. 832 00:52:48,670 --> 00:52:50,750 The Mayor was Sir John Lawrence, 833 00:52:50,750 --> 00:52:54,430 a wealthy merchant, who'd been elected the previous year. 834 00:52:54,430 --> 00:52:56,710 He now had to enforce regulations 835 00:52:56,710 --> 00:53:00,950 to try and control the spread of the disease. 836 00:53:00,950 --> 00:53:04,270 One of the Lord Mayor's jobs was to issue certificates of health 837 00:53:04,270 --> 00:53:07,230 to the thousands of people wanting to flee London. 838 00:53:07,230 --> 00:53:10,150 Without these certificates, they'd be turned away from inns, 839 00:53:10,150 --> 00:53:14,230 they might even be turned away from towns and villages by guards. 840 00:53:14,230 --> 00:53:16,870 So, thousands of people gathered here, 841 00:53:16,870 --> 00:53:20,350 desperate to prove they weren't sick and to get their certificates. 842 00:53:20,350 --> 00:53:23,670 The author Daniel Defoe tells us there was no getting 843 00:53:23,670 --> 00:53:27,190 to the Lord Mayor's door here without exceeding difficulty, 844 00:53:27,190 --> 00:53:29,630 such was the pressing and the crowding. 845 00:53:29,630 --> 00:53:32,550 But unfortunately, those conditions are ideal 846 00:53:32,550 --> 00:53:35,070 for the transfer of human body lice, 847 00:53:35,070 --> 00:53:37,710 and many of the people trying to escape the plague 848 00:53:37,710 --> 00:53:39,670 may have caught it right here. 849 00:53:44,270 --> 00:53:47,990 This is the Great Hall, where the Lord Mayor conducted business, 850 00:53:47,990 --> 00:53:49,990 and it seems he took 851 00:53:49,990 --> 00:53:53,950 sensible precautions to avoid catching the plague himself. 852 00:53:55,270 --> 00:53:58,230 We're told the Mayor had a special gallery built. 853 00:53:58,230 --> 00:54:01,550 He would stand on it, keeping himself removed from 854 00:54:01,550 --> 00:54:04,750 the mass of people that had come to petition him. 855 00:54:04,750 --> 00:54:08,990 It allowed him to be seen, but at a suitably safe distance. 856 00:54:11,750 --> 00:54:14,030 Sir John didn't know plague was spreading 857 00:54:14,030 --> 00:54:16,630 through body lice and human fleas, 858 00:54:16,630 --> 00:54:18,590 but he had learnt from experience 859 00:54:18,590 --> 00:54:21,590 that social-distancing worked. 860 00:54:22,710 --> 00:54:26,150 And despite dealing with hundreds, maybe thousands, of people 861 00:54:26,150 --> 00:54:28,870 and working here throughout the Great Plague, 862 00:54:28,870 --> 00:54:32,230 Sir John lived for another 27 years. 863 00:54:32,230 --> 00:54:35,430 It seems his gallery did the trick. 864 00:54:38,790 --> 00:54:41,310 To control the spread, the Mayor had ordered 865 00:54:41,310 --> 00:54:44,150 the "shutting up" of infected houses, 866 00:54:44,150 --> 00:54:47,350 a system of quarantine established in earlier plague 867 00:54:47,350 --> 00:54:50,510 epidemics. It's the ancestor of the 868 00:54:50,510 --> 00:54:53,390 measures used to combat Covid-19. 869 00:54:57,950 --> 00:55:00,110 Searchers were employed to visit houses 870 00:55:00,110 --> 00:55:02,070 where sickness had been reported, 871 00:55:02,070 --> 00:55:04,870 to verify it was plague. 872 00:55:07,750 --> 00:55:10,590 They carried a white stick to identify themselves, 873 00:55:10,590 --> 00:55:12,910 so everyone else could avoid them. 874 00:55:14,110 --> 00:55:18,350 So many had lost their jobs when employers fled London, 875 00:55:18,350 --> 00:55:21,950 there was no shortage of desperate people willing to take on 876 00:55:21,950 --> 00:55:23,430 this dangerous job. 877 00:55:26,830 --> 00:55:28,790 If a plague victim was found... 878 00:55:30,270 --> 00:55:34,110 ..the house was locked up, with the entire family inside, 879 00:55:34,110 --> 00:55:36,230 whether they were sick or not. 880 00:55:41,830 --> 00:55:44,630 A red cross was then painted on the door... 881 00:55:48,430 --> 00:55:52,590 ..along with the prayer "Lord, have mercy upon us". 882 00:55:56,990 --> 00:56:00,550 Watchers then guarded the house day and night 883 00:56:00,550 --> 00:56:02,430 to ensure no-one escaped. 884 00:56:11,950 --> 00:56:15,110 If rats - not body lice - were spreading plague, 885 00:56:15,110 --> 00:56:18,790 this system would have been not only brutal, but pointless. 886 00:56:20,190 --> 00:56:23,070 Rats could still have moved around freely, 887 00:56:23,070 --> 00:56:25,830 spreading the disease between houses. 888 00:56:25,830 --> 00:56:28,870 But would enforced quarantine have stopped transmission 889 00:56:28,870 --> 00:56:31,710 by body lice and human fleas? 890 00:56:33,350 --> 00:56:36,190 Raksha has gone to investigate. 891 00:56:38,550 --> 00:56:41,670 I've come to the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. 892 00:56:41,670 --> 00:56:44,790 I'm meeting Professor James Logan to learn more about 893 00:56:44,790 --> 00:56:47,670 the behaviour of human lice 894 00:56:47,670 --> 00:56:49,590 and fleas. 895 00:56:49,590 --> 00:56:51,030 The thing about lice 896 00:56:51,030 --> 00:56:55,030 is that they're hugely adapted to living on us and they can't 897 00:56:55,030 --> 00:56:56,790 survive when they're not on us, 898 00:56:56,790 --> 00:56:59,630 and the reason that they live on us is because they suck our blood. 899 00:56:59,630 --> 00:57:02,230 There are different types of lice that you can have. 900 00:57:02,230 --> 00:57:04,870 So, we're very familiar with head lice, but there is 901 00:57:04,870 --> 00:57:07,550 a very closely related species. In fact, it's kind of 902 00:57:07,550 --> 00:57:09,870 the same species, really - the body louse. 903 00:57:09,870 --> 00:57:12,550 And it's very similar in terms of its behaviour, 904 00:57:12,550 --> 00:57:14,910 but body lice, they've kind of evolved to live 905 00:57:14,910 --> 00:57:18,230 on clothing. So, one thing we know about body lice, in particular, 906 00:57:18,230 --> 00:57:21,510 is that they're capable of transmitting diseases. So, head lice 907 00:57:21,510 --> 00:57:24,350 can't really do it, but body lice can. And some of these diseases 908 00:57:24,350 --> 00:57:27,350 are pretty serious - like typhus or trench fever - and, of course, now 909 00:57:27,350 --> 00:57:30,070 we know that they're also capable of transmitting the plague. 910 00:57:30,070 --> 00:57:32,830 So, I can actually show you some. I've got some live lice here. 911 00:57:34,030 --> 00:57:37,390 These are head lice. Body lice are 912 00:57:37,390 --> 00:57:39,070 incredibly rare in Britain today. 913 00:57:40,270 --> 00:57:41,870 Let me see if I can just find one 914 00:57:41,870 --> 00:57:46,310 that looks nice and active. So, I'll put my arm under 915 00:57:46,310 --> 00:57:49,470 the microscope here and pop it on... OK. 916 00:57:49,470 --> 00:57:50,950 It's grim. It's completely 917 00:57:50,950 --> 00:57:53,230 latched on, hasn't it? Oh, yeah. 918 00:57:53,230 --> 00:57:54,750 Yeah, it's going for it. 919 00:57:55,870 --> 00:57:57,750 It's actually feeding off you! Yeah. 920 00:57:57,750 --> 00:57:59,470 Look, can you see the blood there? 921 00:57:59,470 --> 00:58:02,830 Yeah. It's, like, pulsating in. 922 00:58:02,830 --> 00:58:04,950 Rather you than me. Eurgh! 923 00:58:06,230 --> 00:58:08,870 If a body louse is infected with plague, 924 00:58:08,870 --> 00:58:12,710 their bite injects the bacteria into the victim, 925 00:58:12,710 --> 00:58:15,990 which then travels to the nearest lymph node, 926 00:58:15,990 --> 00:58:20,070 where they multiply rapidly to produce buboes, 927 00:58:20,070 --> 00:58:23,110 the swellings that give bubonic plague its name. 928 00:58:24,350 --> 00:58:27,750 If you've got body lice, how then do you then spread it to me? 929 00:58:27,750 --> 00:58:29,990 They are incredibly infectious. 930 00:58:29,990 --> 00:58:32,430 They're designed not just to live on us but, also, 931 00:58:32,430 --> 00:58:34,150 to spread to other people as well. 932 00:58:34,150 --> 00:58:35,710 They've got hooks on the end of 933 00:58:35,710 --> 00:58:38,990 their feet - essentially, on the end of their legs - which they use 934 00:58:38,990 --> 00:58:41,990 not just to cling on, but to cling on to something passing by as well. 935 00:58:41,990 --> 00:58:45,110 Imagine if I had thousands of lice, they would get onto you 936 00:58:45,110 --> 00:58:47,870 pretty easily. But some of them can actually even crawl. 937 00:58:47,870 --> 00:58:50,830 We reckon they can crawl sort of four or five metres in a day, 938 00:58:50,830 --> 00:58:53,910 and when they're off the host, they're incredibly uncomfortable, 939 00:58:53,910 --> 00:58:56,470 so they'll do everything that they possibly can to get back 940 00:58:56,470 --> 00:58:58,910 onto something that's alive and going to give them blood. 941 00:59:00,550 --> 00:59:04,510 If sick people's clothes were infested with body lice, 942 00:59:04,510 --> 00:59:08,310 they could spread the disease by simply brushing past someone. 943 00:59:08,310 --> 00:59:11,590 And following death, the infected lice would leave 944 00:59:11,590 --> 00:59:14,350 the corpse, in search of a new host. 945 00:59:15,830 --> 00:59:18,390 OK. So, that was lice. What about fleas? 946 00:59:18,390 --> 00:59:20,670 Well, I've got some fleas here. 947 00:59:21,870 --> 00:59:24,750 There are lots of different types of fleas. So, some fleas are 948 00:59:24,750 --> 00:59:26,950 adapted to live on us and feed on our blood. 949 00:59:26,950 --> 00:59:29,950 Other fleas are designed to live on other animals, 950 00:59:29,950 --> 00:59:32,390 like rats, or cats, or dogs. 951 00:59:32,390 --> 00:59:35,630 For 100 years, it was believed only 952 00:59:35,630 --> 00:59:37,550 rat fleas could spread plague, 953 00:59:37,550 --> 00:59:39,470 but the new research has revealed 954 00:59:39,470 --> 00:59:41,230 human fleas can pass it 955 00:59:41,230 --> 00:59:43,790 directly, person-to-person. 956 00:59:44,950 --> 00:59:48,150 Look, it's got those jumpy long legs, hasn't it? Yeah, that's right, 957 00:59:48,150 --> 00:59:50,390 and that's what everybody associates with fleas, 958 00:59:50,390 --> 00:59:53,430 is their brilliant ability to jump and hop around the place, 959 00:59:53,430 --> 00:59:56,230 and that's how they get onto us. So, they don't live on us 960 00:59:56,230 --> 00:59:59,630 like body lice do. These guys actually live in the environment. 961 00:59:59,630 --> 01:00:01,470 So, they'll live in your home, 962 01:00:01,470 --> 01:00:04,030 in any sort of upholstery or textiles. Then when a host 963 01:00:04,030 --> 01:00:06,630 comes along and it feels the vibration and it senses 964 01:00:06,630 --> 01:00:09,990 the carbon dioxide given off by our breath, it kind of wakes it up 965 01:00:09,990 --> 01:00:12,510 and it will come out and start to blood-feed on us. 966 01:00:12,510 --> 01:00:14,470 The don't tend to go very far. 967 01:00:14,470 --> 01:00:16,190 They will move around a little bit, 968 01:00:16,190 --> 01:00:19,390 but they wouldn't tend to move from house to house themselves. 969 01:00:24,350 --> 01:00:27,630 The behaviour of human fleas and lice 970 01:00:27,630 --> 01:00:29,390 suggests that quarantining would 971 01:00:29,390 --> 01:00:31,430 have been effective at preventing 972 01:00:31,430 --> 01:00:33,270 wider plague transmission, 973 01:00:33,270 --> 01:00:36,870 but the disease would've torn through families 974 01:00:36,870 --> 01:00:40,470 trapped in infested homes with sick relations. 975 01:00:42,630 --> 01:00:45,230 Shutting up... 976 01:00:45,230 --> 01:00:48,470 would have been horrific for the unfortunate families. 977 01:00:48,470 --> 01:00:51,790 It would have been a probable death sentence. But... 978 01:00:51,790 --> 01:00:54,510 it would have stopped the disease spreading to other families. 979 01:00:58,470 --> 01:01:00,790 But just as with self-isolation 980 01:01:00,790 --> 01:01:03,150 during the coronavirus epidemic, 981 01:01:03,150 --> 01:01:05,470 for the system to be effective, 982 01:01:05,470 --> 01:01:07,110 it required compliance. 983 01:01:08,350 --> 01:01:10,510 In 1665, people 984 01:01:10,510 --> 01:01:12,790 widely concealed cases of plague 985 01:01:12,790 --> 01:01:14,990 to avoid being shut up, 986 01:01:14,990 --> 01:01:19,150 and many others distracted watchers and escaped. 987 01:01:22,670 --> 01:01:25,670 The rejection of the system was strikingly demonstrated 988 01:01:25,670 --> 01:01:28,670 here, at The Ship Tavern, in Holborn. 989 01:01:30,590 --> 01:01:35,350 In the spring of 1665, there was an outbreak of plague 990 01:01:35,350 --> 01:01:38,150 in this 450-year-old tavern. 991 01:01:38,150 --> 01:01:41,630 Now, the landlord and his family were shut up by the authorities, 992 01:01:41,630 --> 01:01:45,990 a red cross was painted on the door and watchmen were put on guard. 993 01:01:45,990 --> 01:01:48,950 Well, this did not go down well with the locals, 994 01:01:48,950 --> 01:01:51,230 who rioted to set them free. 995 01:01:51,230 --> 01:01:54,430 It was reported that the door was opened 996 01:01:54,430 --> 01:01:57,310 "in a vicious manner" and the people of the house permitted 997 01:01:57,310 --> 01:02:01,590 "to goe abroad into the streets promiscuously, with others". 998 01:02:01,590 --> 01:02:03,510 Well, this enraged the authorities, 999 01:02:03,510 --> 01:02:09,150 who ordered that the Justices of the Peace inflict upon the rioters 1000 01:02:09,150 --> 01:02:12,190 "the severest of punishments". 1001 01:02:14,990 --> 01:02:16,590 The failure of shutting up 1002 01:02:16,590 --> 01:02:18,790 to contain the epidemic was clear, 1003 01:02:18,790 --> 01:02:21,630 as the death rate spiralled ever higher... 1004 01:02:24,910 --> 01:02:27,350 ..so a range of additional regulations 1005 01:02:27,350 --> 01:02:29,190 was issued by the Lord Mayor. 1006 01:02:33,430 --> 01:02:36,630 So, this is an original copy of the orders, 1007 01:02:36,630 --> 01:02:38,590 "conceived and published by the Lord Mayor, 1008 01:02:38,590 --> 01:02:41,070 concerning the infection of the plague." 1009 01:02:41,070 --> 01:02:43,230 So, we've got the watchmen here. 1010 01:02:43,230 --> 01:02:45,270 We've got the searchers. 1011 01:02:45,270 --> 01:02:47,550 We've got shutting up of houses. 1012 01:02:47,550 --> 01:02:49,590 But a lot of these orders 1013 01:02:49,590 --> 01:02:51,270 don't seem to make any sense, 1014 01:02:51,270 --> 01:02:53,670 if you believe that plague is spread by rats. 1015 01:02:53,670 --> 01:02:56,750 It looks more like the superstitions 1016 01:02:56,750 --> 01:02:58,350 of ignorant people. 1017 01:02:58,350 --> 01:03:02,030 But if the plague is being spread 1018 01:03:02,030 --> 01:03:04,590 by human body lice, then these 1019 01:03:04,590 --> 01:03:07,430 orders read quite differently. 1020 01:03:07,430 --> 01:03:10,550 So this, maybe, to me, is the most special one. 1021 01:03:10,550 --> 01:03:13,470 The order says, "No infected stuff to be uttered". 1022 01:03:13,470 --> 01:03:15,470 Well, let me explain what that means. It says, 1023 01:03:15,470 --> 01:03:18,430 "No clothes, stuff, bedding or garments 1024 01:03:18,430 --> 01:03:21,950 should be carried or conveyed out of any infected houses". 1025 01:03:21,950 --> 01:03:25,870 Effectively, they have shut down the second-hand clothing trade. 1026 01:03:25,870 --> 01:03:28,790 You can't display them, you can't take any money for them 1027 01:03:28,790 --> 01:03:32,070 And if you buy clothes from infected houses, 1028 01:03:32,070 --> 01:03:34,870 your own house will be "shut up as infected", 1029 01:03:34,870 --> 01:03:39,110 and that shall continue shut up for 20 days "at the least". 1030 01:03:39,110 --> 01:03:42,510 So, this order reflects the widespread conviction 1031 01:03:42,510 --> 01:03:45,270 at the time that clothes and garments were responsible 1032 01:03:45,270 --> 01:03:48,630 for spreading the plague. Now, they hadn't made the exact connection 1033 01:03:48,630 --> 01:03:51,110 with human body lice, but they did seem to know 1034 01:03:51,110 --> 01:03:54,750 more than we thought about the way the disease was spread. 1035 01:03:54,750 --> 01:03:57,790 And John Sergeant has gone to look at what people were wearing 1036 01:03:57,790 --> 01:04:01,590 in the 17th century, and the role that played in spreading the plague. 1037 01:04:04,390 --> 01:04:09,350 Susan Vincent has researched the link between body lice and clothes, 1038 01:04:09,350 --> 01:04:12,550 and how the different clothing worn by rich and poor 1039 01:04:12,550 --> 01:04:16,790 determined how vulnerable they were to plague. 1040 01:04:16,790 --> 01:04:19,870 Well, hello. Hello, John. Nice to see you. 1041 01:04:19,870 --> 01:04:22,190 You look terrific. Thank you. Thank you very much. 1042 01:04:22,190 --> 01:04:25,910 Right, so you're dressed as, what, a very well-off woman? 1043 01:04:25,910 --> 01:04:28,750 I would be a woman of the upper-middling sort. 1044 01:04:28,750 --> 01:04:31,670 So, rather wealthy, but not of the very elite. 1045 01:04:31,670 --> 01:04:33,590 Right. Now, you're all dressed up, 1046 01:04:33,590 --> 01:04:36,030 but I'm not. What would I be wearing? Ah, well, 1047 01:04:36,030 --> 01:04:38,470 we have some clothes here for you to try on. Yes. 1048 01:04:38,470 --> 01:04:40,830 This is going to be... Ha! This should be fun. 1049 01:04:40,830 --> 01:04:44,150 Right. OK, see you in a moment. Good luck. 1050 01:04:44,150 --> 01:04:46,310 Like Susan, I'm dressing 1051 01:04:46,310 --> 01:04:48,230 as a wealthy Londoner. 1052 01:04:49,750 --> 01:04:52,710 Right, well, what do you think? John, terrific. That's wonderful. 1053 01:04:52,710 --> 01:04:56,070 I don't feel very dressed. Well, the reason I've kept you 1054 01:04:56,070 --> 01:04:59,910 in the underwear is that this is very important for the plague 1055 01:04:59,910 --> 01:05:03,070 because lice would be in this underlayer, 1056 01:05:03,070 --> 01:05:05,430 next to your skin. Right. And the lice would be, 1057 01:05:05,430 --> 01:05:08,310 like to be living next to my skin. They do want a good feed. 1058 01:05:08,310 --> 01:05:11,630 And so, being wealthy, you would be able to 1059 01:05:11,630 --> 01:05:14,990 change your underwear layer daily and, in doing so, this would get 1060 01:05:14,990 --> 01:05:18,710 rid of any potential lice problems. Right. So, I wouldn't know about 1061 01:05:18,710 --> 01:05:21,870 the connection with the plague, or anything like that. I'd just think, 1062 01:05:21,870 --> 01:05:23,910 "Oh, I want to change my clothes..." Yes. 1063 01:05:23,910 --> 01:05:27,430 "..and I've got plenty of clothes." And it's the decent and clean 1064 01:05:27,430 --> 01:05:28,950 and hygienic thing to do. 1065 01:05:31,310 --> 01:05:35,750 Pepys, he had trouble, didn't he, with lice? He did on one occasion. 1066 01:05:35,750 --> 01:05:38,990 It was very rare for him, and he writes about it in his diaries, 1067 01:05:38,990 --> 01:05:41,030 just because it is so rare. 1068 01:05:41,030 --> 01:05:43,430 The famous diarist Samuel Pepys 1069 01:05:43,430 --> 01:05:46,230 stayed in London through most of 1070 01:05:46,230 --> 01:05:49,390 the Great Plague to continue his crucial work 1071 01:05:49,390 --> 01:05:52,350 as a senior naval administrator. 1072 01:05:52,350 --> 01:05:54,150 He didn't flee the city 1073 01:05:54,150 --> 01:05:57,670 when most people of his class did. 1074 01:05:57,670 --> 01:06:02,630 His lice infestation occurred a few years after the plague. 1075 01:06:03,830 --> 01:06:07,110 The story is that he'd been feeling itchy for nearly a week, 1076 01:06:07,110 --> 01:06:10,350 and he went to Elisabeth and asked her 1077 01:06:10,350 --> 01:06:12,790 to check his clothing and check his hair and, indeed, 1078 01:06:12,790 --> 01:06:16,110 he did have lice. They found about 20, which 1079 01:06:16,110 --> 01:06:18,630 he says was more than he had had 1080 01:06:18,630 --> 01:06:20,590 in 20 years, and worried him because 1081 01:06:20,590 --> 01:06:23,470 he didn't know where they'd come from. But... 1082 01:06:23,470 --> 01:06:25,870 he shifted his clothes, he took his shirt off, 1083 01:06:25,870 --> 01:06:29,630 changed his undergarments and had Elisabeth cut his hair close, 1084 01:06:29,630 --> 01:06:31,190 to get rid of the head lice. 1085 01:06:31,190 --> 01:06:32,830 Right, so, even the great Peyps... 1086 01:06:32,830 --> 01:06:35,070 Even the great Peyps. ..had lice? 1087 01:06:37,750 --> 01:06:41,030 Right, so how's that feeling, then, John? That's good. No, it's great. 1088 01:06:41,030 --> 01:06:43,710 Terrific. Well, you're not quite there yet. 1089 01:06:43,710 --> 01:06:46,030 We still have one more piece to come... Right. 1090 01:06:46,030 --> 01:06:48,470 ..and that's your wig, or your periwig. Periwig? 1091 01:06:48,470 --> 01:06:51,430 Right. Sometimes, they called it a peruke. 1092 01:06:51,430 --> 01:06:54,070 OK. How's that? I don't want to 1093 01:06:54,070 --> 01:06:56,390 cover your eyes there. Wow! 1094 01:06:56,390 --> 01:07:00,270 So, the wig is rather splendid, but you do have to be careful with wigs 1095 01:07:00,270 --> 01:07:02,670 because Peyps had just begun to wear wigs 1096 01:07:02,670 --> 01:07:05,830 and he was particularly worried during the plague 1097 01:07:05,830 --> 01:07:09,870 that the hair had been cut off someone who had died of the plague. 1098 01:07:09,870 --> 01:07:14,830 A good cheap source of hair. Ooh, grim. Grim, indeed. 1099 01:07:14,830 --> 01:07:19,350 The rich, like Pepys, were understandably deeply concerned 1100 01:07:19,350 --> 01:07:22,510 about the possible ways of contracting plague. 1101 01:07:22,510 --> 01:07:26,510 But the fact body lice infestations, for them, were so rare 1102 01:07:26,510 --> 01:07:29,230 made them much less susceptible to the disease. 1103 01:07:29,230 --> 01:07:30,510 Right, well... Oh. 1104 01:07:30,510 --> 01:07:34,510 However, it was a very different situation for the poor. 1105 01:07:35,630 --> 01:07:37,430 How does that feel, then? Ha! 1106 01:07:37,430 --> 01:07:40,230 It's good, but it's quite smart, isn't it? 1107 01:07:40,230 --> 01:07:43,230 Well, you've got to remember that this might be your only 1108 01:07:43,230 --> 01:07:45,750 outfit of clothes. So, it's looking good now, 1109 01:07:45,750 --> 01:07:48,790 but after you've worn it continually during the day, 1110 01:07:48,790 --> 01:07:50,830 it would be a lot less smart. 1111 01:07:50,830 --> 01:07:53,310 And when I go to bed at night, what happens then? Well, 1112 01:07:53,310 --> 01:07:55,590 your shirt underneath, if you were very poor, 1113 01:07:55,590 --> 01:07:57,590 you would sleep in your shirt. 1114 01:07:57,590 --> 01:08:02,630 So, if there were lice inside the shirt and this was my only shirt, 1115 01:08:02,630 --> 01:08:05,190 I would go to bed and the lice would breed... 1116 01:08:05,190 --> 01:08:08,270 And you would be stuck with them sitting against your body 1117 01:08:08,270 --> 01:08:11,510 day and night. Yeah, pretty awful. Definitely. 1118 01:08:14,190 --> 01:08:16,230 But while the poor would suffer most 1119 01:08:16,230 --> 01:08:19,070 as the plague continued its rampage, 1120 01:08:19,070 --> 01:08:21,590 soon, no-one would be safe, 1121 01:08:21,590 --> 01:08:24,550 and that included those rich people 1122 01:08:24,550 --> 01:08:27,190 who had decided to stay in London. 1123 01:08:33,060 --> 01:08:35,740 By the end of July 1665, 1124 01:08:35,740 --> 01:08:38,980 nearly 300 Londoners a day 1125 01:08:38,980 --> 01:08:41,300 were dying of plague. 1126 01:08:41,300 --> 01:08:45,140 The disease had spread from the western suburbs 1127 01:08:45,140 --> 01:08:48,420 to almost every area of the city. 1128 01:08:48,420 --> 01:08:50,900 The northern suburbs of Clerkenwell 1129 01:08:50,900 --> 01:08:53,580 and Shoreditch were now the worst hit. 1130 01:08:53,580 --> 01:08:58,140 The death toll reached 6,774. 1131 01:09:01,140 --> 01:09:04,140 Samuel Pepys was one of the few wealthy elite 1132 01:09:04,140 --> 01:09:05,660 who had stayed in London. 1133 01:09:07,060 --> 01:09:10,420 Although still predominantly affecting the poor neighbourhoods, 1134 01:09:10,420 --> 01:09:14,940 plague now reached his wealthy parish of St Olave Hart Street. 1135 01:09:16,260 --> 01:09:18,820 He says he heard the death knell ringing out 1136 01:09:18,820 --> 01:09:23,020 from his church five or six times a day. 1137 01:09:23,020 --> 01:09:25,540 Along with everyone else who could, 1138 01:09:25,540 --> 01:09:29,020 he self-isolated and rarely left his home. 1139 01:09:31,580 --> 01:09:34,980 And this was just one of the ways that the people who stayed in London 1140 01:09:34,980 --> 01:09:38,500 began to change their behaviour, in an effort to save themselves. 1141 01:09:38,500 --> 01:09:40,900 When they did have to leave the house, they tried to stay 1142 01:09:40,900 --> 01:09:43,620 in the centre of the street, to avoid getting infected 1143 01:09:43,620 --> 01:09:45,580 from the houses on either side. 1144 01:09:45,580 --> 01:09:48,060 And the streets became increasingly deserted. 1145 01:09:48,060 --> 01:09:51,300 And if you did encounter anyone, you tried to keep a safe distance. 1146 01:09:54,540 --> 01:09:57,140 People still needed food and supplies, 1147 01:09:57,140 --> 01:09:59,780 and some shops remained open. 1148 01:09:59,780 --> 01:10:03,220 The rich, like Pepys, sent their servants. 1149 01:10:03,220 --> 01:10:06,260 Everyone instinctively took precautions. 1150 01:10:08,420 --> 01:10:10,180 Morning. Morning, sir. 1151 01:10:10,180 --> 01:10:12,780 Can I get a shoulder of lamb, please? You certainly can. 1152 01:10:12,780 --> 01:10:16,500 Now, when people came to the butchers shop to get fresh meat, 1153 01:10:16,500 --> 01:10:19,620 they had to put their payment in coins into vinegar, 1154 01:10:19,620 --> 01:10:21,940 rather than handing the money over directly. 1155 01:10:21,940 --> 01:10:23,540 There you go... 1156 01:10:23,540 --> 01:10:25,700 Unlike Covid-19, plague is 1157 01:10:25,700 --> 01:10:27,900 a bacterium, not a virus, 1158 01:10:27,900 --> 01:10:30,700 and vinegar does have anti-bacterial properties, 1159 01:10:30,700 --> 01:10:32,940 although it's not known if it kills plague. 1160 01:10:34,180 --> 01:10:37,300 Thank you very much. Shoulder of lamb's hanging just over there, sir. 1161 01:10:37,300 --> 01:10:40,540 The shopper would then take their purchase directly off the hook, 1162 01:10:40,540 --> 01:10:43,180 avoiding any personal contact with the butcher. 1163 01:10:43,180 --> 01:10:47,340 It's the same social-distancing we use in epidemic control today. 1164 01:10:50,020 --> 01:10:53,220 Although at the time, people weren't sure how plague was being 1165 01:10:53,220 --> 01:10:57,660 transmitted, through experience, they knew to keep away from others. 1166 01:10:57,660 --> 01:11:01,580 And because body lice are transferred 1167 01:11:01,580 --> 01:11:04,660 by close contact, this would have been effective. 1168 01:11:06,100 --> 01:11:09,100 Particularly extreme precautions are believed to have been taken 1169 01:11:09,100 --> 01:11:11,300 by those doctors that didn't leave London. 1170 01:11:11,300 --> 01:11:14,060 It's thought that they wore a downright sinister 1171 01:11:14,060 --> 01:11:17,260 protective outfit when visiting plague patients. 1172 01:11:17,260 --> 01:11:22,100 Raksha has gone to find out if this outfit really existed, 1173 01:11:22,100 --> 01:11:23,740 and how effective it may have been. 1174 01:11:27,860 --> 01:11:30,620 I've come to the London Dungeons. Here, they have 1175 01:11:30,620 --> 01:11:35,060 a replica of a plague doctor's clothing, as part of their creepy 1176 01:11:35,060 --> 01:11:36,740 Plague Street experience. 1177 01:11:43,900 --> 01:11:46,620 But this outfit is so horrific, 1178 01:11:46,620 --> 01:11:49,660 I wonder if it's a myth, part of this 1179 01:11:49,660 --> 01:11:52,140 spooky Halloween version of the plague. 1180 01:11:53,420 --> 01:11:55,940 To find out, I'm meeting historian 1181 01:11:55,940 --> 01:11:57,740 Dr Philippa Hellawell. 1182 01:11:59,380 --> 01:12:02,460 Well, I'm not going to lie, this scares the bejesus 1183 01:12:02,460 --> 01:12:05,020 out of me. I can see that'd be a really good 1184 01:12:05,020 --> 01:12:08,780 fancy-dress costume, but how is this based in reality? 1185 01:12:08,780 --> 01:12:11,660 So, there are a lot of sources from the 17th century which suggest 1186 01:12:11,660 --> 01:12:13,660 that plague doctors walked around 1187 01:12:13,660 --> 01:12:15,300 in an outfit similar to this. 1188 01:12:15,300 --> 01:12:18,500 So, where does this costume actually originate from, then? 1189 01:12:18,500 --> 01:12:21,300 It was developed by a French physician called Charles de Lorme, 1190 01:12:21,300 --> 01:12:24,260 who served three successive French monarchs. This is actually 1191 01:12:24,260 --> 01:12:26,900 a German source talking about the use of this costume. 1192 01:12:26,900 --> 01:12:29,820 The gentleman here is described as Dr Beak. 1193 01:12:29,820 --> 01:12:32,020 So, this outfit relates to 1194 01:12:32,020 --> 01:12:33,420 the very common theory 1195 01:12:33,420 --> 01:12:35,940 of miasma, which is the idea the disease is caused 1196 01:12:35,940 --> 01:12:38,580 through poisonous vapours going through the air, 1197 01:12:38,580 --> 01:12:41,020 and we can see that reflected in the mask. 1198 01:12:41,020 --> 01:12:42,860 This kind of beaked quality of 1199 01:12:42,860 --> 01:12:44,780 the mask, it's designed to actually 1200 01:12:44,780 --> 01:12:46,620 store sweet-smelling substances. 1201 01:12:46,620 --> 01:12:48,380 Perfumes, things like lavender, 1202 01:12:48,380 --> 01:12:50,820 which are designed to protect the wearer 1203 01:12:50,820 --> 01:12:53,860 from the bad, those poisonous, foul-smelling odours 1204 01:12:53,860 --> 01:12:56,060 from coming into the body. 1205 01:12:56,060 --> 01:12:58,300 And also, we see that the majority of the body 1206 01:12:58,300 --> 01:13:00,660 is covered as well. What was this all made out of? 1207 01:13:00,660 --> 01:13:02,900 So, this would typically be made out of cotton, 1208 01:13:02,900 --> 01:13:06,300 or linen, which was sealed with wax. It's quite interesting, isn't it? 1209 01:13:06,300 --> 01:13:09,900 Because in the 17th century, they wouldn't have known about bacteria 1210 01:13:09,900 --> 01:13:13,660 being spread through lice and fleas, 1211 01:13:13,660 --> 01:13:17,300 and if this was covered in wax, this would be a barrier. 1212 01:13:17,300 --> 01:13:20,100 They would just literally drop off. It's pretty effective. 1213 01:13:20,100 --> 01:13:23,540 We do have the 17th-century monk in Genoa, who is saying how 1214 01:13:23,540 --> 01:13:27,020 wearing something like this protects him from being bitten by fleas 1215 01:13:27,020 --> 01:13:30,300 and lice, and so it certainly had its practical advantages. 1216 01:13:30,300 --> 01:13:33,700 I'm going to put this on. THEY LAUGH 1217 01:13:33,700 --> 01:13:35,020 Ooh! 1218 01:13:35,020 --> 01:13:36,980 Do you know what? It's quite effective, 1219 01:13:36,980 --> 01:13:39,580 because it's sealed at the bottom. 1220 01:13:39,580 --> 01:13:42,540 I mean, you can't see very much, but if you've got glass on that, 1221 01:13:42,540 --> 01:13:45,580 then it would protect you from people sneezing on you, wouldn't it? 1222 01:13:45,580 --> 01:13:49,300 Mm, yeah. I think what comes through is actually the logic of it all., 1223 01:13:49,300 --> 01:13:52,420 Covering the skin and covering the face, having glasses, lenses 1224 01:13:52,420 --> 01:13:56,740 over your eyes was seen as quite an effective way to protect yourselves. 1225 01:13:56,740 --> 01:13:59,900 So, as scary as this seems and as ridiculous as it looks, 1226 01:13:59,900 --> 01:14:03,420 it's almost like a modern-day hazmat suit. I mean, it's quite effective, 1227 01:14:03,420 --> 01:14:05,900 isn't it? There's definitely method to the madness. 1228 01:14:07,780 --> 01:14:12,020 So, while a version of this outfit was worn in Europe, there's 1229 01:14:12,020 --> 01:14:16,460 no evidence doctors were stalking the streets of London wearing it. 1230 01:14:17,780 --> 01:14:20,180 No-one from the time mentions it, 1231 01:14:20,180 --> 01:14:22,940 and I think they probably would. 1232 01:14:27,060 --> 01:14:30,420 In the second week of August 1665, 1233 01:14:30,420 --> 01:14:33,780 there were a shocking 3,880 1234 01:14:33,780 --> 01:14:36,780 plague deaths. About 6% of Londoners 1235 01:14:36,780 --> 01:14:39,180 who'd stayed had now died. 1236 01:14:41,220 --> 01:14:43,180 It was still the poor northern suburbs 1237 01:14:43,180 --> 01:14:45,540 around Shoreditch that were 1238 01:14:45,540 --> 01:14:47,260 bearing the brunt, and a majority 1239 01:14:47,260 --> 01:14:49,900 of their population were now falling sick. 1240 01:14:55,860 --> 01:14:59,620 The worst-affected parishes were also overwhelmed by dead. 1241 01:14:59,620 --> 01:15:03,980 Some of them had to somehow bury 600 people a week. 1242 01:15:03,980 --> 01:15:07,300 They didn't have the manpower to collect all the bodies or dig 1243 01:15:07,300 --> 01:15:11,580 all the graves, and many of the churchyards were completely full. 1244 01:15:16,660 --> 01:15:20,500 The Lord Mayor realised that soon, thousands of bodies 1245 01:15:20,500 --> 01:15:25,380 would be left unburied in houses and in the streets. 1246 01:15:25,380 --> 01:15:31,060 So, a burial operation on an almost industrial scale was begun. 1247 01:15:32,300 --> 01:15:35,820 Dozens of carters were hired to collect the dead. 1248 01:15:37,380 --> 01:15:40,020 These "dead carts" patrolled the streets at night. 1249 01:15:44,100 --> 01:15:47,500 A bell ringer walked ahead - to call to families 1250 01:15:47,500 --> 01:15:50,580 to bring out their dead - but also, to warn others 1251 01:15:50,580 --> 01:15:54,940 to steer clear of the infected corpses they carried. 1252 01:15:59,700 --> 01:16:01,540 These were then transported to huge 1253 01:16:01,540 --> 01:16:03,500 burial pits that had been 1254 01:16:03,500 --> 01:16:06,180 dug outside the city walls. 1255 01:16:08,620 --> 01:16:11,380 According to the famous author Daniel Defoe, 1256 01:16:11,380 --> 01:16:13,140 one of the greatest pits of all 1257 01:16:13,140 --> 01:16:16,260 was dug here, next to the church of 1258 01:16:16,260 --> 01:16:18,220 St Botolph in Aldgate, 1259 01:16:18,220 --> 01:16:20,940 just outside the old eastern city wall. 1260 01:16:22,420 --> 01:16:25,340 Daniel Defoe tells us that this "dreadful gulf" 1261 01:16:25,340 --> 01:16:27,940 was actually beneath my feet. 1262 01:16:27,940 --> 01:16:31,740 It was 40-feet long, extending almost to the end of the alley. 1263 01:16:31,740 --> 01:16:34,660 It was 15-feet wide, so about the width of this alley. 1264 01:16:34,660 --> 01:16:36,860 And it was 20-feet deep. 1265 01:16:36,860 --> 01:16:40,380 They only stopped digging when they hit the water table. 1266 01:16:42,180 --> 01:16:45,180 To find out who was buried in this pit, I'm meeting 1267 01:16:45,180 --> 01:16:47,620 plague historian Vanessa Harding. 1268 01:16:49,100 --> 01:16:50,620 Hi, Vanessa. 1269 01:16:50,620 --> 01:16:53,060 Very nice to see you. 1270 01:16:53,060 --> 01:16:56,540 I've just been pacing out the plague pit outside. 1271 01:16:56,540 --> 01:16:59,980 I think you've got the church records from the same period? 1272 01:16:59,980 --> 01:17:01,500 Yes, these are the registers for 1273 01:17:01,500 --> 01:17:06,140 September, 1665. And what kind of things are we seeing at that time? 1274 01:17:06,140 --> 01:17:07,860 This is one of the largest parishes 1275 01:17:07,860 --> 01:17:10,220 and it's one of the highest death tolls anywhere. 1276 01:17:11,540 --> 01:17:14,660 If we start on this page, this is September 8th, this is one day. 1277 01:17:14,660 --> 01:17:17,740 Starts there... Mm-hm. ..and runs right down this page. 1278 01:17:17,740 --> 01:17:19,940 Something like 90 people are buried in one day. 1279 01:17:19,940 --> 01:17:21,660 I mean, that's amazing. Yes. 1280 01:17:21,660 --> 01:17:26,980 So, 90 deaths in a single day. Yes. There's no way you can put 1281 01:17:26,980 --> 01:17:30,860 those people in normal traditional graves and have funerals, is there? 1282 01:17:30,860 --> 01:17:34,340 No. No. They're not even burying in coffins any more. 1283 01:17:34,340 --> 01:17:37,460 And they're in mass graves, they're in plague pits at this point? 1284 01:17:37,460 --> 01:17:40,340 Most of them, yes. It's clearly one of the traumatic sides 1285 01:17:40,340 --> 01:17:42,540 of the epidemic as a whole, 1286 01:17:42,540 --> 01:17:45,100 is that it destroys the ways in which people are used to 1287 01:17:45,100 --> 01:17:47,620 taking care of the dead, paying proper respect, 1288 01:17:47,620 --> 01:17:50,620 being able to see them into a grave. 1289 01:17:50,620 --> 01:17:53,700 I think people find this whole thing of large numbers of bodies 1290 01:17:53,700 --> 01:17:56,940 just being tossed in together very, very disturbing. 1291 01:17:56,940 --> 01:17:59,780 So, Defoe says that that huge pit out there, 1292 01:17:59,780 --> 01:18:02,300 in two weeks, it was filled with bodies, 1293 01:18:02,300 --> 01:18:06,940 that they had 1,114 people in that pit. Does that fit with 1294 01:18:06,940 --> 01:18:10,460 the data you've got from the register? Absolutely yes. Wow. 1295 01:18:10,460 --> 01:18:13,860 So, what do you see if you look at the list of names here? 1296 01:18:13,860 --> 01:18:16,300 We can see that it's right across the parish, 1297 01:18:16,300 --> 01:18:19,820 but they're also mostly coming from the poorer areas, from the alleys. 1298 01:18:19,820 --> 01:18:21,740 So, there's Woolsack Alley, 1299 01:18:21,740 --> 01:18:24,100 Harrow Alley, Three Kings Alley, 1300 01:18:24,100 --> 01:18:26,180 Gravel Lane, Squirrel Alley, 1301 01:18:26,180 --> 01:18:29,060 Still Alley. So, the wealthier people would have lived 1302 01:18:29,060 --> 01:18:32,020 on the high street... Yes. ..and we don't see the high street 1303 01:18:32,020 --> 01:18:34,620 coming up very much here. Just one or two names. 1304 01:18:35,900 --> 01:18:39,580 This was because, by this time, most of the rich houses 1305 01:18:39,580 --> 01:18:41,740 on the high street would have been empty... 1306 01:18:43,300 --> 01:18:46,140 ..because by midsummer, up to 20% of 1307 01:18:46,140 --> 01:18:48,500 London's population had fled. 1308 01:18:50,220 --> 01:18:52,060 By the end of August, 1309 01:18:52,060 --> 01:18:53,980 a shocking 7% of those 1310 01:18:53,980 --> 01:18:56,020 who remained had died, 1311 01:18:56,020 --> 01:18:57,740 and over 6,000 more 1312 01:18:57,740 --> 01:18:59,700 were dying each week. 1313 01:19:05,460 --> 01:19:07,620 Anyone who'd stayed in the city 1314 01:19:07,620 --> 01:19:10,460 was now losing friends and family. 1315 01:19:14,700 --> 01:19:18,940 Thomas Vincent was a puritan minister who lived in Spitalfields 1316 01:19:18,940 --> 01:19:22,580 throughout the plague, in a household of eight people. 1317 01:19:22,580 --> 01:19:26,940 He'd had 16 close friends he used to see every week. 1318 01:19:26,940 --> 01:19:30,500 Now, only four were left alive. 1319 01:19:33,460 --> 01:19:35,660 That August, from his window, 1320 01:19:35,660 --> 01:19:39,580 he witnessed terrible scenes of tragedy every day, 1321 01:19:39,580 --> 01:19:45,780 including a woman forced to bury - with her own hands - her last child. 1322 01:19:51,660 --> 01:19:54,140 You couldn't walk through London that terrible August 1323 01:19:54,140 --> 01:19:58,380 without coming across plague-ridden people limping through the streets. 1324 01:19:58,380 --> 01:20:02,620 So, Samuel Pepys preferred to travel by boat on the Thames, to avoid 1325 01:20:02,620 --> 01:20:05,780 the sick, but he got a terrible shock one evening 1326 01:20:05,780 --> 01:20:09,180 coming up the steps from the river when he stumbled upon 1327 01:20:09,180 --> 01:20:11,900 a plague corpse in the darkness. 1328 01:20:16,700 --> 01:20:21,020 By midsummer, it's thought that 80,000 people had fled London, 1329 01:20:21,020 --> 01:20:23,980 and hundreds more were holed up on boats 1330 01:20:23,980 --> 01:20:28,740 lined all the way along the Thames, as far as the eye could see. 1331 01:20:28,740 --> 01:20:31,620 But the countryside was no longer a safe haven. 1332 01:20:31,620 --> 01:20:34,500 The refugees had taken the plague with them 1333 01:20:34,500 --> 01:20:37,340 and the epidemic would spread across Britain. 1334 01:20:42,340 --> 01:20:46,180 In the first week of September 1665, 1335 01:20:46,180 --> 01:20:50,020 7,000 people died of the plague here in London. 1336 01:20:50,020 --> 01:20:54,380 It was a far higher death toll than on any previous week. 1337 01:20:57,060 --> 01:21:01,020 31,000 people had already died in London alone... 1338 01:21:04,100 --> 01:21:06,500 ..and worse was to come, because now the disease 1339 01:21:06,500 --> 01:21:09,940 began appearing in other towns. 1340 01:21:09,940 --> 01:21:11,780 I believe people fleeing London 1341 01:21:11,780 --> 01:21:13,220 had carried it with them, 1342 01:21:13,220 --> 01:21:15,180 on their lice-infested clothes. 1343 01:21:16,660 --> 01:21:19,660 Most towns near London saw outbreaks. 1344 01:21:19,660 --> 01:21:22,300 Infected goods were blamed for causing 1345 01:21:22,300 --> 01:21:24,660 particularly severe epidemics 1346 01:21:24,660 --> 01:21:27,980 in the cloth-making towns of Braintree, 1347 01:21:27,980 --> 01:21:31,180 Colchester and Norwich. 1348 01:21:31,180 --> 01:21:32,780 Most were in the south 1349 01:21:32,780 --> 01:21:34,340 and east of England, 1350 01:21:34,340 --> 01:21:36,260 but one outbreak stands out 1351 01:21:36,260 --> 01:21:37,860 from all the others. 1352 01:21:43,060 --> 01:21:45,260 Eyam is a picturesque village, 1353 01:21:45,260 --> 01:21:48,260 far from London, tucked away in a valley deep in 1354 01:21:48,260 --> 01:21:50,380 the Derbyshire Peak District. 1355 01:21:51,940 --> 01:21:54,500 Even today, it's miles from anywhere. 1356 01:21:57,860 --> 01:22:00,220 Looking at the village down there, 1357 01:22:00,220 --> 01:22:04,220 it couldn't be further removed from the crowds and grime of London. 1358 01:22:04,220 --> 01:22:07,900 And that was as true 350 years ago as it is today. 1359 01:22:07,900 --> 01:22:12,580 But that pretty village would suffer one of the most terrible 1360 01:22:12,580 --> 01:22:16,140 outbreaks of the Great Plague in all of Britain. 1361 01:22:18,220 --> 01:22:21,460 In the 17th century, Eyam was home to about 1362 01:22:21,460 --> 01:22:24,500 700 people. It was in these 1363 01:22:24,500 --> 01:22:28,420 actual cottages that the Great Plague arrived in Eyam, 1364 01:22:28,420 --> 01:22:31,540 in the first week of September, 1665. 1365 01:22:31,540 --> 01:22:34,580 And this was intriguingly early because it hadn't even reached 1366 01:22:34,580 --> 01:22:38,540 some parishes in London at this point and yet, somehow, 1367 01:22:38,540 --> 01:22:42,420 it had jumped all the way up here, to the heart of the Peak District. 1368 01:22:42,420 --> 01:22:46,580 And once again, the outbreak was blamed on a consignment of cloth. 1369 01:22:50,980 --> 01:22:54,620 The story goes, that consignment was sent from London 1370 01:22:54,620 --> 01:22:56,420 to a tailor in Eyam. 1371 01:22:58,620 --> 01:23:00,740 A servant, George Viccars, opened the box 1372 01:23:01,740 --> 01:23:04,140 and discovered the goods were damp. 1373 01:23:05,660 --> 01:23:08,540 He was ordered to dry them out by the fire. 1374 01:23:08,540 --> 01:23:14,220 By doing this, he somehow tragically contracted the plague. 1375 01:23:14,220 --> 01:23:18,380 In recent times, the story has been dismissed as a myth. 1376 01:23:19,740 --> 01:23:22,620 The crucial question for me is, could plague really be spread 1377 01:23:22,620 --> 01:23:25,180 by shipments of cloth and clothing? 1378 01:23:25,180 --> 01:23:28,860 It's blamed in so many outbreaks and it only really makes sense 1379 01:23:28,860 --> 01:23:32,460 if you believe, like I do, that the disease is mainly spread 1380 01:23:32,460 --> 01:23:35,940 by human clothes lice, rather than by rats. 1381 01:23:35,940 --> 01:23:38,900 But any infected lice in the box 1382 01:23:38,900 --> 01:23:41,420 wouldn't have been able to feed. 1383 01:23:41,420 --> 01:23:43,780 There was no-one to suck blood from. 1384 01:23:45,220 --> 01:23:48,900 So, could they have survived the many days it would have taken 1385 01:23:48,900 --> 01:23:52,260 a cart to travel from London to Eyam? 1386 01:23:54,700 --> 01:23:56,660 Raksha has gone to find out. 1387 01:24:00,660 --> 01:24:03,060 I've returned to see Professor James Logan, 1388 01:24:03,060 --> 01:24:07,340 who's been running an experiment on lice survival. 1389 01:24:07,340 --> 01:24:09,500 So, we know that this box of damp cloth 1390 01:24:09,500 --> 01:24:11,580 arrived from London to Eyam. 1391 01:24:11,580 --> 01:24:14,060 What are the chances of body lice actually surviving 1392 01:24:14,060 --> 01:24:16,260 in that consignment of cloth? So, basically, 1393 01:24:16,260 --> 01:24:19,460 we wanted to find out how long these guys can survive 1394 01:24:19,460 --> 01:24:20,820 when they're off the hosts. 1395 01:24:20,820 --> 01:24:23,980 It's very hard to get hold of body lice, so we've used head lice, 1396 01:24:23,980 --> 01:24:26,700 which are very similar. So, we managed to get some head lice 1397 01:24:26,700 --> 01:24:27,980 ten days ago. 1398 01:24:29,140 --> 01:24:31,780 We put them in an incubator, at their optimum temperature 1399 01:24:31,780 --> 01:24:33,420 and optimum humidity. 1400 01:24:34,620 --> 01:24:37,420 After 24 hours, about 80% of them 1401 01:24:37,420 --> 01:24:39,380 had actually died. After two days, 1402 01:24:39,380 --> 01:24:42,340 90% had died. But by day five, 1403 01:24:42,340 --> 01:24:45,300 there was still one louse alive. 1404 01:24:47,420 --> 01:24:50,660 It was quite incredible. That's remarkable, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. 1405 01:24:50,660 --> 01:24:53,900 We know head lice tend not to survive as long as body lice 1406 01:24:53,900 --> 01:24:55,820 and, yet, even in this experiment, 1407 01:24:55,820 --> 01:24:59,100 we've shown that one louse could survive five days. 1408 01:24:59,100 --> 01:25:02,780 So, with body lice, they'd be surviving a good few days 1409 01:25:02,780 --> 01:25:06,340 beyond that as well, so I would be very convinced that there would be 1410 01:25:06,340 --> 01:25:10,580 lice still alive under those conditions, in that box. 1411 01:25:10,580 --> 01:25:13,580 But there is potentially another way that it could be transmitted, 1412 01:25:13,580 --> 01:25:16,900 and that's through their faeces. There's one thing about insects 1413 01:25:16,900 --> 01:25:19,740 that feed on blood, and that's that they poo a lot. Oh, gosh! 1414 01:25:19,740 --> 01:25:22,300 And you can see all the poo on that 1415 01:25:22,300 --> 01:25:25,140 piece of paper. Let's have a look at it under the microscope. 1416 01:25:25,140 --> 01:25:28,500 So, you can see how much poo there is, there. I mean, 1417 01:25:28,500 --> 01:25:31,820 they're absolutely minuscule, you can barely see an individual... Mm. 1418 01:25:31,820 --> 01:25:34,180 ..poo with the naked eye. But there, 1419 01:25:34,180 --> 01:25:36,180 you can see how many there are. 1420 01:25:36,180 --> 01:25:38,700 And inside that poo, the bacteria 1421 01:25:38,700 --> 01:25:41,900 can actually survive and be transmitted onwards. 1422 01:25:41,900 --> 01:25:44,940 And basically, what happens - because it's really, really dusty, 1423 01:25:44,940 --> 01:25:47,940 if you were to sort of shake the cloth, the poo would be airborne, 1424 01:25:47,940 --> 01:25:50,980 it could go into your lungs and infect you that way. 1425 01:25:50,980 --> 01:25:53,860 Or if you've got a cut on the skin, the poo could get in that way, 1426 01:25:53,860 --> 01:25:56,860 which means the bacteria would get in, and that's another way 1427 01:25:56,860 --> 01:25:59,220 that the infection possibly could have started. 1428 01:26:04,020 --> 01:26:06,460 This experiment has shown the story of how 1429 01:26:06,460 --> 01:26:09,100 the contagion spread to Eyam may be true. 1430 01:26:10,380 --> 01:26:13,500 The box could have contained lice-infested clothes 1431 01:26:13,500 --> 01:26:17,260 from a plague victim, or the person who packed it could have been ill. 1432 01:26:19,700 --> 01:26:22,340 And even if no lice had survived, 1433 01:26:22,340 --> 01:26:25,900 their faeces may have infected the servant, George Viccars. 1434 01:26:27,180 --> 01:26:30,740 And his death, shortly after unpacking the box, 1435 01:26:30,740 --> 01:26:34,900 began a terrible chain of events in Eyam. 1436 01:26:37,540 --> 01:26:40,020 We know from wills and parish records 1437 01:26:40,020 --> 01:26:43,020 that the first person to die - the servant, George Viccars - 1438 01:26:43,020 --> 01:26:45,220 lived in that cottage, there. 1439 01:26:45,220 --> 01:26:48,180 A fortnight later, Edward Cooper - only four years old, 1440 01:26:48,180 --> 01:26:51,220 who also lived in that cottage - died. 1441 01:26:51,220 --> 01:26:55,700 A day later, Peter Hawksworth - their neighbour at that end - died. 1442 01:26:55,700 --> 01:26:58,580 And then a few days after that, Thomas Thorpe 1443 01:26:58,580 --> 01:27:02,340 and his daughter, Mary - the neighbours on this side - also died. 1444 01:27:04,820 --> 01:27:06,660 This was only the beginning 1445 01:27:06,660 --> 01:27:07,900 for the villagers. 1446 01:27:08,940 --> 01:27:11,740 The disease would continue to spread 1447 01:27:11,740 --> 01:27:15,700 and, next time, we'll discover how it led to an extraordinary act 1448 01:27:15,700 --> 01:27:18,860 of self-sacrifice by the people of Eyam. 1449 01:27:22,020 --> 01:27:25,140 BELL RINGS 1450 01:27:25,140 --> 01:27:30,220 In London, the death rate remained unrelentingly high. 1451 01:27:31,500 --> 01:27:33,860 By September 11th, over 1452 01:27:33,860 --> 01:27:36,180 37,000 people had died. 1453 01:27:40,660 --> 01:27:44,740 In desperation the Lord Mayor ordered great bonfires be lit 1454 01:27:44,740 --> 01:27:48,460 in the streets, in the belief that the smoke would drive out 1455 01:27:48,460 --> 01:27:51,460 the miasmas thought to be spreading the disease. 1456 01:27:53,780 --> 01:27:57,340 Samuel Pepys watched in awe and fear 1457 01:27:57,340 --> 01:27:59,220 as they blazed across the city. 1458 01:27:59,220 --> 01:28:03,460 But of course, it was hopeless. 1459 01:28:03,460 --> 01:28:05,620 The epidemic still 1460 01:28:05,620 --> 01:28:07,500 had not reached its peak. 1461 01:28:13,140 --> 01:28:15,700 In the next episode, we discover how 1462 01:28:15,700 --> 01:28:18,180 the plague overwhelmed the authorities. 1463 01:28:18,180 --> 01:28:21,540 Almost worse to have survived it 1464 01:28:21,540 --> 01:28:23,940 than having lost five children and your husband. 1465 01:28:23,940 --> 01:28:28,460 We investigate the medical treatments plague victims endured. 1466 01:28:28,460 --> 01:28:29,940 You could heat that up, 1467 01:28:29,940 --> 01:28:32,140 place it into the bubo to burn it. 1468 01:28:32,140 --> 01:28:34,980 The pain would have been agonising. 1469 01:28:34,980 --> 01:28:37,740 We learn how the villagers of Eyam 1470 01:28:37,740 --> 01:28:40,140 made the ultimate sacrifice. 1471 01:28:40,140 --> 01:28:43,620 It's almost like facing a certain death. 1472 01:28:43,620 --> 01:28:45,660 And we'll discover how the country 1473 01:28:45,660 --> 01:28:47,420 finally began to emerge 1474 01:28:47,420 --> 01:28:49,820 from the horrific pandemic. 1475 01:29:21,700 --> 01:29:24,700 The Prime Minister says coronavirus is likely to spread... 1476 01:29:24,700 --> 01:29:27,500 When Covid-19 hit the UK... 1477 01:29:27,500 --> 01:29:29,300 ..the seriousness of the situation... 1478 01:29:29,300 --> 01:29:32,000 ..it seemed a uniquely terrible event. 1479 01:29:32,000 --> 01:29:35,460 ..can recover, but for others it can be deadly. 1480 01:29:35,460 --> 01:29:38,420 But it wasn't the first time we'd suffered a deadly epidemic. 1481 01:29:38,420 --> 01:29:42,900 In a frightening parallel, 350 years earlier, we endured 1482 01:29:42,900 --> 01:29:47,500 one of the worst tragedies in British history, the Great Plague. 1483 01:29:47,500 --> 01:29:52,940 Over 18 months, beginning in 1665, this horrific disease killed 1484 01:29:52,940 --> 01:29:57,180 an estimated 100,000 people in London alone, 1485 01:29:57,180 --> 01:30:00,260 a quarter of the entire population. 1486 01:30:00,260 --> 01:30:03,980 And a further 100,000 as it spread across the country. 1487 01:30:07,740 --> 01:30:10,180 Over three programmes, we're telling the horrifying 1488 01:30:10,180 --> 01:30:14,180 story of how the Great Plague unfolded day by day, week by week. 1489 01:30:15,220 --> 01:30:19,620 In the first episode, we revealed extraordinary new evidence 1490 01:30:19,620 --> 01:30:22,740 showing how the disease was spread not by rats, 1491 01:30:22,740 --> 01:30:26,100 as traditionally thought, but by human fleas and body lice. 1492 01:30:28,980 --> 01:30:32,900 This time, we continue the story four months into the epidemic, 1493 01:30:32,900 --> 01:30:35,820 as the death rate reaches its terrible peak. 1494 01:30:37,780 --> 01:30:40,860 We explore how the scale of fatalities overwhelmed 1495 01:30:40,860 --> 01:30:42,420 the authorities. 1496 01:30:42,420 --> 01:30:44,940 Almost worse to have survived it, 1497 01:30:44,940 --> 01:30:48,780 than having lost five children and your husband. 1498 01:30:48,780 --> 01:30:51,300 We investigate the medical treatments 1499 01:30:51,300 --> 01:30:53,860 desperate plague sufferers endured. 1500 01:30:53,860 --> 01:30:57,500 You could heat that up and place it into the buboe to burn it. 1501 01:30:57,500 --> 01:31:00,740 The pain would have been agonising. 1502 01:31:00,740 --> 01:31:03,460 We tell the astonishing story of Eyam, 1503 01:31:03,460 --> 01:31:07,100 where the villagers made the ultimate sacrifice. 1504 01:31:07,100 --> 01:31:09,780 It's almost like facing a certain death. 1505 01:31:10,820 --> 01:31:14,380 And we discover how the country finally began to emerge 1506 01:31:14,380 --> 01:31:17,300 from the horrific pandemic. 1507 01:31:17,300 --> 01:31:21,580 I'm Xand van Tulleken and this is the story of the Great Plague. 1508 01:31:34,820 --> 01:31:38,180 In the first week of September 1665, 1509 01:31:38,180 --> 01:31:41,020 bubonic plague was raging through the streets of London. 1510 01:31:42,100 --> 01:31:46,260 The death rate in the city had reached unprecedented levels. 1511 01:31:47,780 --> 01:31:49,660 Four months into the epidemic, 1512 01:31:49,660 --> 01:31:54,060 almost 7,000 Londoners a week were dying. 1513 01:31:54,060 --> 01:31:57,340 It had already killed more than 30,000, 1514 01:31:57,340 --> 01:32:00,540 around 8% of the city's population. 1515 01:32:01,740 --> 01:32:06,460 Each week, the death rate increased remorselessly with no end in sight. 1516 01:32:06,460 --> 01:32:10,860 With over 1,000 people dying every single day, the onslaught 1517 01:32:10,860 --> 01:32:14,740 began to overwhelm attempts to cope with and control the outbreak. 1518 01:32:18,060 --> 01:32:20,260 A brutal system of "shutting up" 1519 01:32:20,260 --> 01:32:24,940 had been established in an attempt to prevent the disease spreading. 1520 01:32:24,940 --> 01:32:28,060 Entire families were physically locked into their homes 1521 01:32:28,060 --> 01:32:29,300 by the authorities, 1522 01:32:29,300 --> 01:32:32,660 if just one of the household was identified as having plague. 1523 01:32:35,540 --> 01:32:38,380 But, by September, there were 1524 01:32:38,380 --> 01:32:41,780 so many cases it was impossible to police them. 1525 01:32:45,060 --> 01:32:47,820 The system of shutting up was abandoned, 1526 01:32:47,820 --> 01:32:51,140 to the horror of the famous diarist Samuel Pepys, 1527 01:32:51,140 --> 01:32:54,460 who had bravely stayed in London when many of the wealthy had left. 1528 01:32:57,020 --> 01:32:59,740 Pepys saw people stumbling through the streets, 1529 01:32:59,740 --> 01:33:03,580 and was terrified he was coming into contact with those who, 1530 01:33:03,580 --> 01:33:06,580 in his words, "had plague upon them." 1531 01:33:11,940 --> 01:33:15,940 Another famous writer of the time, Daniel Defoe, describes 1532 01:33:15,940 --> 01:33:21,060 the scenes that unfolded on London's streets as order collapsed. 1533 01:33:21,060 --> 01:33:24,500 Defoe's book about the Great Plague is thought to be 1534 01:33:24,500 --> 01:33:28,260 based on the experiences of his uncle, Henry Foe. 1535 01:33:28,260 --> 01:33:30,620 We're told that, at the height of the outbreak, 1536 01:33:30,620 --> 01:33:34,380 Henry Foe was holed up in his house right here on Aldgate High Street. 1537 01:33:34,380 --> 01:33:36,580 It would've been where the tube station is. 1538 01:33:36,580 --> 01:33:40,100 Now, like other better-off people, he lived on the wide, main street, 1539 01:33:40,100 --> 01:33:44,260 but from his window he could see Harrow Alley, still here. 1540 01:33:47,220 --> 01:33:50,620 This was one of London's infamous back-alley slums, 1541 01:33:50,620 --> 01:33:53,700 where body lice and human flea infestations 1542 01:33:53,700 --> 01:33:56,020 allowed the disease to run rampant. 1543 01:33:57,380 --> 01:34:01,420 This is what Defoe tells us was going on in this very spot, 1544 01:34:01,420 --> 01:34:03,660 at the height of the plague. 1545 01:34:03,660 --> 01:34:07,980 "Scarce a day or night passed but some dismal thing happened 1546 01:34:07,980 --> 01:34:12,540 "at the end of that Harrow Alley," which was a place full of poor. 1547 01:34:12,540 --> 01:34:16,060 "Throngs of people would burst out, most them women, 1548 01:34:16,060 --> 01:34:20,340 "making a dreadful clamour, a mixture of screeches and crying." 1549 01:34:24,020 --> 01:34:27,180 On one occasion, Henry Foe saw a man with plague, 1550 01:34:27,180 --> 01:34:30,500 overwhelmed by insufferable pain, 1551 01:34:30,500 --> 01:34:33,180 run naked out here from Harrow Alley 1552 01:34:33,180 --> 01:34:35,300 and set off down the high street. 1553 01:34:39,340 --> 01:34:43,660 He was chased by five or six women and children, crying out for him 1554 01:34:43,660 --> 01:34:47,340 to come back and trying to persuade others to help them stop him. 1555 01:34:47,340 --> 01:34:51,980 But no-one, not even his family, was prepared to touch him, 1556 01:34:51,980 --> 01:34:54,740 and Henry Foe, watching from his window just over there, 1557 01:34:54,740 --> 01:34:57,300 saw them all disappear off down the street. 1558 01:35:01,820 --> 01:35:04,540 BELL TOLLS 1559 01:35:06,900 --> 01:35:09,300 By September, the city authorities 1560 01:35:09,300 --> 01:35:12,100 were also struggling to deal with the dead. 1561 01:35:17,740 --> 01:35:20,620 There weren't enough "dead carts" to collect 1562 01:35:20,620 --> 01:35:23,020 all the bodies each night for burial. 1563 01:35:23,020 --> 01:35:26,060 A crisis made worse because the carters themselves 1564 01:35:26,060 --> 01:35:28,180 were also dying of plague. 1565 01:35:34,100 --> 01:35:35,980 Desperate families resorted to 1566 01:35:35,980 --> 01:35:38,700 carrying their own loved ones to the graveyards. 1567 01:35:44,300 --> 01:35:48,180 But many churchyards were already full, including the one 1568 01:35:48,180 --> 01:35:50,380 outside Samuel Pepys' local church, 1569 01:35:50,380 --> 01:35:52,180 St Olave's, Hart Street. 1570 01:35:52,180 --> 01:35:56,460 This is the street where Pepys was living in September 1665, 1571 01:35:56,460 --> 01:35:58,660 Seething Lane. 1572 01:35:58,660 --> 01:36:00,620 Now, Pepys' home was just down there. 1573 01:36:00,620 --> 01:36:03,660 It's long gone, replaced by modern buildings, 1574 01:36:03,660 --> 01:36:06,580 but his parish church still survives. 1575 01:36:11,020 --> 01:36:14,660 This grim gate is the one Pepys would've walked through 1576 01:36:14,660 --> 01:36:16,020 to get to his church. 1577 01:36:17,820 --> 01:36:22,020 But even this foreboding gate paled in comparison to what Pepys 1578 01:36:22,020 --> 01:36:24,460 found on the other side. 1579 01:36:24,460 --> 01:36:28,220 He tells us that so many plague victims were buried here, 1580 01:36:28,220 --> 01:36:32,140 one on top of the other, that the ground level actually rose. 1581 01:36:32,140 --> 01:36:33,700 And it frightened him so much, 1582 01:36:33,700 --> 01:36:36,260 he refused to walk through the churchyard any more. 1583 01:36:39,580 --> 01:36:43,180 Churchyards across London were said to be three feet higher than 1584 01:36:43,180 --> 01:36:44,820 they were before the Great Plague. 1585 01:36:47,700 --> 01:36:51,540 Incredibly, the level of this churchyard is still raised. 1586 01:36:51,540 --> 01:36:54,540 I have to walk down these steps to get into Pepys' church. 1587 01:36:59,460 --> 01:37:03,060 I'm meeting historian Vanessa Harding to discover 1588 01:37:03,060 --> 01:37:07,260 what the church's burial registers reveal about life in Pepys' parish 1589 01:37:07,260 --> 01:37:09,980 at the height of the epidemic. 1590 01:37:09,980 --> 01:37:12,260 These are the parish registers, 1591 01:37:12,260 --> 01:37:14,900 the burial registers from the period that Pepys lived here. 1592 01:37:14,900 --> 01:37:16,500 And it's extremely good. 1593 01:37:16,500 --> 01:37:19,380 It's extremely rich in detail for the period of the plague. 1594 01:37:19,380 --> 01:37:23,580 Unusually, the parish clerk marks every single plague burial 1595 01:37:23,580 --> 01:37:24,820 with the letter P. 1596 01:37:24,820 --> 01:37:27,660 You can see the first page there are quite a few plague deaths, 1597 01:37:27,660 --> 01:37:29,580 but there are quite a few that aren't. 1598 01:37:29,580 --> 01:37:33,500 But by the time we turn the page and get into August and then into 1599 01:37:33,500 --> 01:37:37,980 September, you can see that almost every death is a plague death. 1600 01:37:37,980 --> 01:37:41,900 And people would have seen the plague moving through a family, 1601 01:37:41,900 --> 01:37:44,740 clearing an entire household in a fortnight. Yes. 1602 01:37:44,740 --> 01:37:47,700 And presumably that's what you see through the whole parish, 1603 01:37:47,700 --> 01:37:50,740 that the place begins to... It feels like the apocalypse. 1604 01:37:50,740 --> 01:37:54,380 Yes, it must have done. I mean, particularly, I think, in some ways, 1605 01:37:54,380 --> 01:37:56,020 because it's a wealthy parish, 1606 01:37:56,020 --> 01:37:57,980 people may have thought they would escape. 1607 01:37:57,980 --> 01:38:01,100 I mean, it's overwhelmingly clear from this book that, 1608 01:38:01,100 --> 01:38:02,300 once it gets going, 1609 01:38:02,300 --> 01:38:06,540 even in a wealthy parish like this, no-one is safe. 1610 01:38:06,540 --> 01:38:08,740 That every part of London is affected. Yes. 1611 01:38:08,740 --> 01:38:12,100 And there are some very dramatic and tragic stories here. 1612 01:38:12,100 --> 01:38:18,660 For example, on the 10th September, Zachary, the son of Edmund Poole, 1613 01:38:18,660 --> 01:38:20,900 died of plague and was buried in the churchyard. 1614 01:38:22,380 --> 01:38:24,980 And, then, the next day, his brother Henry, 1615 01:38:24,980 --> 01:38:27,660 the son of Edmund Poole, also died of plague. 1616 01:38:27,660 --> 01:38:31,100 Zachary was about 12, and Henry was about 14. 1617 01:38:31,100 --> 01:38:33,260 I mean, quite hard to think about as a parent. 1618 01:38:33,260 --> 01:38:34,900 Zachary is a year older than my son, 1619 01:38:34,900 --> 01:38:39,900 and, in 24 hours, Edmund Poole has buried two of his kids. 1620 01:38:39,900 --> 01:38:42,660 That's right, but I'm afraid it gets worse. 1621 01:38:44,260 --> 01:38:46,780 Just a few days later, we have Elizabeth, 1622 01:38:46,780 --> 01:38:48,500 daughter of Edmund Poole, 1623 01:38:48,500 --> 01:38:50,100 and her brother Edward, 1624 01:38:50,100 --> 01:38:54,500 son of Edmund Poole, both of them died of plague 20th September. 1625 01:38:54,500 --> 01:38:57,500 And, then, we have on the 21st of September, John, 1626 01:38:57,500 --> 01:39:00,620 the son of Edmund Poole, buried in the churchyard, 1627 01:39:00,620 --> 01:39:02,980 all of these marked as plague burials. 1628 01:39:02,980 --> 01:39:07,500 So, in 11 days, Edmund Poole's buried five of his children. 1629 01:39:07,500 --> 01:39:10,220 Yes. Probably all five of his children. 1630 01:39:10,220 --> 01:39:13,260 We don't think he had any more. Wow. 1631 01:39:13,260 --> 01:39:17,580 And, then, just a few days later on the 25th September, Edmund Poole 1632 01:39:17,580 --> 01:39:21,100 himself dies of plague, and is buried in the churchyard. 1633 01:39:21,100 --> 01:39:23,500 Is there a mother? Does he have a wife? 1634 01:39:23,500 --> 01:39:25,940 We know that his wife's called Elizabeth, 1635 01:39:25,940 --> 01:39:29,020 and there is an Elizabeth Poole, a widow, living in the parish, 1636 01:39:29,020 --> 01:39:30,820 in March the following year. 1637 01:39:30,820 --> 01:39:32,100 We find her as a householder. 1638 01:39:32,100 --> 01:39:35,020 So, I think it's quite likely she is the widow, 1639 01:39:35,020 --> 01:39:36,900 the mother of this family. 1640 01:39:36,900 --> 01:39:39,100 Almost worse to have survived it, 1641 01:39:39,100 --> 01:39:40,900 than having lost five children 1642 01:39:40,900 --> 01:39:42,300 and your husband. Yes. 1643 01:39:46,820 --> 01:39:48,980 Wow. Wow. 1644 01:39:54,140 --> 01:39:56,820 But the fatalities were still rising. 1645 01:39:56,820 --> 01:40:01,180 And, soon, the epidemic would reach its terrible peak. 1646 01:40:08,080 --> 01:40:12,120 In mid-September 1665, four and half months 1647 01:40:12,120 --> 01:40:16,920 since the epidemic began engulfing London, the plague reached its peak. 1648 01:40:23,680 --> 01:40:27,400 In just one week, between the 12th and 18th of September, 1649 01:40:27,400 --> 01:40:33,360 plague killed 7,165 Londoners. 1650 01:40:33,360 --> 01:40:37,760 Deaths were reported across the city, in 126 parishes. 1651 01:40:39,120 --> 01:40:40,960 And those are just the official figures. 1652 01:40:40,960 --> 01:40:44,080 Many cases of plague were either misdiagnosed or deliberately 1653 01:40:44,080 --> 01:40:45,960 passed off as something else. 1654 01:40:45,960 --> 01:40:49,960 The real figure for that week was probably 10,000 cases. 1655 01:40:49,960 --> 01:40:51,880 More than 1,400 a day. 1656 01:40:54,320 --> 01:40:58,360 But, as deaths in the capital spiked, it wasn't only Londoners 1657 01:40:58,360 --> 01:40:59,720 who were suffering. 1658 01:41:01,360 --> 01:41:04,240 The disease had spread to other towns and cities 1659 01:41:04,240 --> 01:41:06,680 across the south and east of England. 1660 01:41:06,680 --> 01:41:10,600 Worst affected were those with trade links to London, 1661 01:41:10,600 --> 01:41:14,320 the plague carried there by the flow of people and goods. 1662 01:41:16,440 --> 01:41:19,920 Essex cloth-trading towns suffered dreadfully. 1663 01:41:19,920 --> 01:41:25,000 In Braintree, 865 people died, a third of the population. 1664 01:41:27,160 --> 01:41:30,200 In Colchester, it was even worse. 1665 01:41:30,200 --> 01:41:34,440 There were over 5,000 plague deaths here, half the population, 1666 01:41:34,440 --> 01:41:38,800 a higher proportion than any other major town, including London. 1667 01:41:41,120 --> 01:41:43,560 From there, the disease was transmitted 1668 01:41:43,560 --> 01:41:45,760 to the university town of Cambridge, 1669 01:41:45,760 --> 01:41:48,760 where, in a foreshadowing of the events of 2020, 1670 01:41:48,760 --> 01:41:50,680 the students were sent home. 1671 01:41:53,640 --> 01:41:57,840 Maritime trade with London took the disease to ports including 1672 01:41:57,840 --> 01:42:00,400 Portsmouth and Southampton. 1673 01:42:00,400 --> 01:42:03,560 And ships even carried it as far north as Newcastle. 1674 01:42:04,880 --> 01:42:08,200 In all these places, the graph of deaths was heading 1675 01:42:08,200 --> 01:42:12,240 upwards in the hot summer of 1665. 1676 01:42:18,360 --> 01:42:22,560 Death rates peaking in late summer was a pattern seen in earlier 1677 01:42:22,560 --> 01:42:24,640 plague outbreaks in Britain. 1678 01:42:24,640 --> 01:42:27,520 The relationship between the weather and the plague was 1679 01:42:27,520 --> 01:42:30,040 noticed by William Boghurst, 1680 01:42:30,040 --> 01:42:32,560 an apothecary who worked here on Drury Lane, 1681 01:42:32,560 --> 01:42:35,800 throughout the Great Plague, where the outbreak began. 1682 01:42:35,800 --> 01:42:39,320 Now, his shop would have been a stall inside this pub. 1683 01:42:39,320 --> 01:42:41,960 It's not the original building, but in fact there has been 1684 01:42:41,960 --> 01:42:45,200 a White Hart pub here since the 15th century. 1685 01:42:47,840 --> 01:42:50,560 Apothecaries were early pharmacists. 1686 01:42:50,560 --> 01:42:53,680 They dispensed complex herbal remedies 1687 01:42:53,680 --> 01:42:55,600 and performed simple medical treatments. 1688 01:42:57,040 --> 01:43:00,600 Boghurst noticed death rates changed according to the seasons. 1689 01:43:02,560 --> 01:43:05,680 They increased if hot conditions were followed by rain. 1690 01:43:06,840 --> 01:43:11,160 While frosty weather caused a massive decline in fatalities. 1691 01:43:11,160 --> 01:43:16,480 This is the opposite of infections like flu and coronavirus. 1692 01:43:18,320 --> 01:43:21,920 It seems the plague thrived in warm, humid conditions 1693 01:43:21,920 --> 01:43:25,080 but it didn't like it too hot, too cold or too dry. 1694 01:43:26,840 --> 01:43:32,840 The records show the summer of 1665 was both hot and humid. 1695 01:43:32,840 --> 01:43:36,760 Could this relationship, along with the massive death toll 1696 01:43:36,760 --> 01:43:39,800 in summer 1665, be related to the culprits 1697 01:43:39,800 --> 01:43:43,440 that I think are responsible for spreading the plague? 1698 01:43:43,440 --> 01:43:45,280 Human body lice and fleas. 1699 01:43:45,280 --> 01:43:48,320 Well, Raksha has gone to investigate. 1700 01:43:53,280 --> 01:43:57,280 I've come to meet Professor James Logan at the London School 1701 01:43:57,280 --> 01:43:59,800 Of Hygiene And Tropical Medicine to find out 1702 01:43:59,800 --> 01:44:04,040 if these insects' behaviour changes at different times of year. 1703 01:44:04,040 --> 01:44:07,160 In 1665, we're seeing this spike of plague cases, 1704 01:44:07,160 --> 01:44:09,560 in the summer. 1705 01:44:09,560 --> 01:44:12,440 Is there a link between temperature and insect behaviour? 1706 01:44:12,440 --> 01:44:13,600 Yeah, absolutely. 1707 01:44:13,600 --> 01:44:17,360 Temperature is hugely important to any insects including fleas. 1708 01:44:17,360 --> 01:44:19,560 So, we've actually set up an experiment, and what 1709 01:44:19,560 --> 01:44:22,040 we're going to do is have a look at the activity of the fleas 1710 01:44:22,040 --> 01:44:24,200 to see whether they're more active or less active 1711 01:44:24,200 --> 01:44:25,720 in the higher or lower temperature. 1712 01:44:27,360 --> 01:44:31,320 James has had one set of fleas kept at an autumn temperature 1713 01:44:31,320 --> 01:44:33,960 of 14 degrees centigrade for two days. 1714 01:44:35,800 --> 01:44:39,200 And some other fleas have spent two days at a hot summer 1715 01:44:39,200 --> 01:44:41,040 temperature of 28 degrees. 1716 01:44:43,800 --> 01:44:47,040 Ah-ha. These are the ones kept at 28 degrees 1717 01:44:47,040 --> 01:44:49,000 and these were kept at 14. 1718 01:44:49,000 --> 01:44:51,360 Brilliant. OK, thanks very much. 1719 01:44:51,360 --> 01:44:53,920 Right, well, this tube certainly feels colder. OK. 1720 01:44:53,920 --> 01:44:58,280 And it's just been brought out of the cold conditions. 1721 01:44:58,280 --> 01:44:59,720 So, these guys, you can see, 1722 01:44:59,720 --> 01:45:03,160 are crawling about, they're jumping around. Very, very active. 1723 01:45:03,160 --> 01:45:05,640 Whereas these guys are pretty slow. 1724 01:45:05,640 --> 01:45:09,080 In fact, lots of them are just not moving at all. 1725 01:45:09,080 --> 01:45:12,000 So you can see that ones that would be in the cold conditions, 1726 01:45:12,000 --> 01:45:14,880 in cold weather, would just be sort of chilling out. 1727 01:45:14,880 --> 01:45:17,720 Whereas the ones that you can see have been kept at 28 degrees 1728 01:45:17,720 --> 01:45:22,080 are super-active. So, does this explain why we see this big 1729 01:45:22,080 --> 01:45:25,600 spike in the plague being transmitted in the summer of 1665? 1730 01:45:25,600 --> 01:45:29,920 Yeah, I think that is absolutely a real possibility. 1731 01:45:29,920 --> 01:45:32,560 At that sort of temperature, in the height of summer, these 1732 01:45:32,560 --> 01:45:35,080 guys are going to be jumping around the place, they're going 1733 01:45:35,080 --> 01:45:37,920 to be jumping on and off the host, they're going to be feeding more. 1734 01:45:37,920 --> 01:45:40,320 And it's actually a bit more than that as well. They'll be 1735 01:45:40,320 --> 01:45:41,920 reproducing a little bit quicker. 1736 01:45:41,920 --> 01:45:44,960 And I think the transmission would've been quite high. 1737 01:45:47,000 --> 01:45:50,440 The other plague transmitting insects, body lice, 1738 01:45:50,440 --> 01:45:55,120 are also far less active, and breed more slowly, in cool temperatures. 1739 01:45:56,240 --> 01:46:00,560 And this helps explain why the death rate in London finally began 1740 01:46:00,560 --> 01:46:04,920 to decline as summer turned to autumn in 1665. 1741 01:46:10,360 --> 01:46:12,560 In the week to the 25th September, 1742 01:46:12,560 --> 01:46:17,520 5,533 Londoners died of plague, 1743 01:46:17,520 --> 01:46:20,400 around 1,500 fewer than the previous week. 1744 01:46:23,920 --> 01:46:27,720 It was a glimmer of hope that the worst had passed. 1745 01:46:29,040 --> 01:46:31,800 William Boghurst was one of the few medical men 1746 01:46:31,800 --> 01:46:33,640 left in London by this point. 1747 01:46:33,640 --> 01:46:36,760 Most doctors and surgeons had joined the great 1748 01:46:36,760 --> 01:46:39,400 exodus of professionals who'd fled the city. 1749 01:46:41,200 --> 01:46:43,040 At the time, this cowardice 1750 01:46:43,040 --> 01:46:45,440 horrified the abandoned people of London. 1751 01:46:46,720 --> 01:46:50,920 But because doctors then didn't understand bacterial disease, 1752 01:46:50,920 --> 01:46:53,280 and had no drugs to treat plague, 1753 01:46:53,280 --> 01:46:57,080 even the ones who stayed didn't much help the situation. 1754 01:47:03,840 --> 01:47:06,920 John Sergeant has headed to the St Bartholomew Hospital 1755 01:47:06,920 --> 01:47:10,400 Pathology Museum to see what treatments doctors attempted. 1756 01:47:18,040 --> 01:47:22,080 Among the 5,000 medical specimens kept here, 1757 01:47:22,080 --> 01:47:25,680 there are some from 19th century plague epidemics. 1758 01:47:28,160 --> 01:47:32,160 This is a rat infected by the plague. 1759 01:47:32,160 --> 01:47:34,720 That's gruesome, kept in formaldehyde. 1760 01:47:34,720 --> 01:47:37,400 And this is even more poignant, 1761 01:47:37,400 --> 01:47:42,120 this is a human lung from a plague victim. 1762 01:47:45,840 --> 01:47:47,280 I'm meeting Kevin Goodman, 1763 01:47:47,280 --> 01:47:50,440 an expert in early medicine and surgery 1764 01:47:50,440 --> 01:47:55,560 who's collected a vast array of 17th century medical instruments. 1765 01:47:55,560 --> 01:47:59,800 Well, this is an amazing collection of objects. Some of them, 1766 01:47:59,800 --> 01:48:02,000 I must say, rather sinister, 1767 01:48:02,000 --> 01:48:04,480 but these are all the medical tools of the trade at the time. 1768 01:48:04,480 --> 01:48:05,760 Yes. 1769 01:48:05,760 --> 01:48:08,320 So, what does that do? That's a fleam. 1770 01:48:08,320 --> 01:48:14,640 Now, a fleam was normally used for bleeding, for opening a vein. 1771 01:48:14,640 --> 01:48:16,880 For treatment of buboes, 1772 01:48:16,880 --> 01:48:21,080 you would perforate the buboe. 1773 01:48:22,240 --> 01:48:26,000 So, if you had the buboe here, you'd just stick it in you. Yes. 1774 01:48:26,000 --> 01:48:28,960 But this is all incredibly painful. 1775 01:48:28,960 --> 01:48:32,040 Oh, yes. OK, so how would you get the pus out? 1776 01:48:32,040 --> 01:48:36,040 I would then heat a cup up, place it on the buboe and, then, as it 1777 01:48:36,040 --> 01:48:42,640 cooled, the vacuum would draw out all the nasty pus, full of germs. 1778 01:48:42,640 --> 01:48:44,120 Oh, right. 1779 01:48:44,120 --> 01:48:47,360 So, you put this on, so this would go through there, 1780 01:48:47,360 --> 01:48:49,960 and the idea is to break the buboe, 1781 01:48:49,960 --> 01:48:51,920 that's the bit. 1782 01:48:51,920 --> 01:48:54,960 OK. Right, so they would think they were doing something useful. 1783 01:48:54,960 --> 01:48:57,320 So, what else have we got? What are all these things here? 1784 01:48:57,320 --> 01:49:01,640 I've got a selection of cauterising irons here. 1785 01:49:01,640 --> 01:49:03,280 You could heat that up, 1786 01:49:03,280 --> 01:49:06,560 place it into the middle of the buboe to burn it. 1787 01:49:11,200 --> 01:49:14,640 Horrible, isn't it? Making it so hot that the flesh burns. 1788 01:49:14,640 --> 01:49:17,800 Yes, the pain would've been agonising. 1789 01:49:17,800 --> 01:49:20,760 And, don't forget, there's going to be no pain control with this. 1790 01:49:20,760 --> 01:49:23,440 You had to bite down and endure it. 1791 01:49:23,440 --> 01:49:28,000 But would any of these methods actually work? 1792 01:49:28,000 --> 01:49:32,520 No. If you're going to start cutting into buboes or burning into them, 1793 01:49:32,520 --> 01:49:36,400 you're going to start letting out lots of germ-infested pus. 1794 01:49:36,400 --> 01:49:39,800 You're going to increase the risk of other people catching it. 1795 01:49:39,800 --> 01:49:43,000 Also, you're increasing the risk of infection. Right. 1796 01:49:43,000 --> 01:49:46,680 So, actually they're making things worse with all this stuff. Indeed. 1797 01:49:46,680 --> 01:49:49,400 At the time, people would be so fearful. 1798 01:49:49,400 --> 01:49:53,040 There'd be so much terror, that they'd sort of say give me 1799 01:49:53,040 --> 01:49:54,720 anything you can to help me, 1800 01:49:54,720 --> 01:49:56,720 because they were so desperate. 1801 01:49:56,720 --> 01:49:59,400 It is a time of desperation, 1802 01:49:59,400 --> 01:50:01,280 complete and utter. 1803 01:50:04,880 --> 01:50:09,200 I thought nothing could be more terrible than having the plague, 1804 01:50:09,200 --> 01:50:12,840 but it seems being treated for it could have been worse. 1805 01:50:16,680 --> 01:50:20,920 While these 17th century medical interventions may have done 1806 01:50:20,920 --> 01:50:23,800 more harm than good, we're about to discover 1807 01:50:23,800 --> 01:50:26,600 if other methods for controlling plague may have been more 1808 01:50:26,600 --> 01:50:29,040 effective than we ever imagined. 1809 01:50:35,560 --> 01:50:38,840 As the weather cooled in the autumn of 1665, 1810 01:50:38,840 --> 01:50:41,440 plague deaths in London continued to fall. 1811 01:50:45,600 --> 01:50:49,440 By mid-October, 4,500 fewer people a week 1812 01:50:49,440 --> 01:50:52,040 were dying, compared to a month earlier. 1813 01:50:53,320 --> 01:50:57,000 Most deaths were now in the eastern parishes of Aldgate 1814 01:50:57,000 --> 01:51:00,680 and Whitechapel, which were poorer parishes outside the city walls. 1815 01:51:02,160 --> 01:51:05,320 The disease had passed like a wave from the west 1816 01:51:05,320 --> 01:51:06,840 of the city to the east. 1817 01:51:08,440 --> 01:51:11,280 In the western parishes, where the outbreak began, 1818 01:51:11,280 --> 01:51:13,600 the vulnerable had already died, 1819 01:51:13,600 --> 01:51:17,240 and those who'd recovered now had some resistance to the disease. 1820 01:51:18,600 --> 01:51:22,160 It's thought that up to 80,000 people had fled London, 1821 01:51:22,160 --> 01:51:24,720 20% of the population. 1822 01:51:24,720 --> 01:51:29,920 And, among those who'd stayed, about one in five had died. 1823 01:51:29,920 --> 01:51:34,560 For those still alive, the city had changed beyond all recognition. 1824 01:51:38,600 --> 01:51:42,680 This was observed by puritan minister Thomas Vincent, one of 1825 01:51:42,680 --> 01:51:47,560 the few who continued to preach to his congregation and visit the sick. 1826 01:51:50,160 --> 01:51:54,240 He wrote that the terror of the disease had broken societal bonds, 1827 01:51:54,240 --> 01:51:57,240 and drained people's hearts of love and pity. 1828 01:51:59,040 --> 01:52:02,120 He was horrified to see families abandoning their loved ones. 1829 01:52:05,680 --> 01:52:08,160 In Spitalfields, his household of eight 1830 01:52:08,160 --> 01:52:10,360 had managed to escape the disease. 1831 01:52:10,360 --> 01:52:14,920 But, then, he tells us, plague came in dreadfully upon them. 1832 01:52:17,280 --> 01:52:19,040 Over the course of two weeks, 1833 01:52:19,040 --> 01:52:22,640 three of his household fell ill and died. 1834 01:52:27,320 --> 01:52:32,040 A story which was echoed in thousands of homes across the city, 1835 01:52:32,040 --> 01:52:34,320 many of which now stood empty. 1836 01:52:37,520 --> 01:52:39,920 The Lord Mayor now had to somehow deal 1837 01:52:39,920 --> 01:52:41,760 with these infected houses. 1838 01:52:43,160 --> 01:52:45,640 I'm going to take a look at the orders 1839 01:52:45,640 --> 01:52:48,800 he issued detailing how they should be disinfected. 1840 01:52:48,800 --> 01:52:53,040 I'm interested to discover if the methods would've been effective 1841 01:52:53,040 --> 01:52:57,400 against the human fleas and body lice we now know spread the plague. 1842 01:52:59,680 --> 01:53:02,880 There were instructions about what to do with these 1843 01:53:02,880 --> 01:53:04,840 abandoned, infected houses. 1844 01:53:04,840 --> 01:53:08,200 And the first was to keep them uninhabited for 40 days. 1845 01:53:08,200 --> 01:53:10,960 That's very effective against human body lice. 1846 01:53:10,960 --> 01:53:13,760 If they don't eat for 40 days, they die. 1847 01:53:13,760 --> 01:53:15,960 But there were other instructions as well. 1848 01:53:15,960 --> 01:53:18,600 Each infected house was to be fumed, 1849 01:53:18,600 --> 01:53:20,800 washed and whited with lime. 1850 01:53:20,800 --> 01:53:24,160 Now, whited with lime means whitewashed and fumed, 1851 01:53:24,160 --> 01:53:26,360 we have a description of what that is here. 1852 01:53:26,360 --> 01:53:30,720 And the recipe for fuming is to take "saltpetre, amber, brimstone, 1853 01:53:30,720 --> 01:53:34,320 "each of two parts, juniper one part, mix them in a powder, 1854 01:53:34,320 --> 01:53:37,600 "put thereof upon a red-hot iron or coals a little at once." 1855 01:53:39,000 --> 01:53:40,680 A Frenchman, James Angier, 1856 01:53:40,680 --> 01:53:44,080 had introduced this fumigation recipe to London, 1857 01:53:44,080 --> 01:53:47,920 claiming the smoke successfully decontaminated houses in Paris. 1858 01:53:50,400 --> 01:53:54,680 Now, I'm very curious to know if fuming or washing with lime 1859 01:53:54,680 --> 01:53:57,880 could possibly help in controlling the plague. 1860 01:53:59,320 --> 01:54:03,400 It seems unlikely that whitewash, commonly painted outside 1861 01:54:03,400 --> 01:54:05,960 and inside houses in the 17th century, 1862 01:54:05,960 --> 01:54:09,080 would have much effect on the plague bacteria. 1863 01:54:09,080 --> 01:54:10,360 Hi, Sam. 1864 01:54:10,360 --> 01:54:14,000 So, Raksha's putting it to the test with Dr Sam Willcocks. 1865 01:54:14,000 --> 01:54:18,320 So, what we have here are these three wooden tiles. 1866 01:54:18,320 --> 01:54:20,720 They're our pseudo, 17th-century walls, aren't they? 1867 01:54:20,720 --> 01:54:22,520 That's right. 1868 01:54:22,520 --> 01:54:25,960 Sam coats each tile with a spray of bacteria. 1869 01:54:25,960 --> 01:54:32,000 It's similar to plague, but not deadly, and then allows them to dry. 1870 01:54:32,000 --> 01:54:36,600 This spray is going to simulate a cough or body fluids that 1871 01:54:36,600 --> 01:54:37,920 have landed on a surface. 1872 01:54:39,040 --> 01:54:41,200 We treat one with modern anti-bac, 1873 01:54:41,200 --> 01:54:43,360 one with water, 1874 01:54:43,360 --> 01:54:46,120 and one with our limewash. 1875 01:54:46,120 --> 01:54:48,120 So, let's see if this one works. 1876 01:54:48,120 --> 01:54:51,200 Then we swab each one down, and transfer them 1877 01:54:51,200 --> 01:54:54,240 to agar plates to see if any bacteria will grow. 1878 01:54:58,600 --> 01:55:01,640 Two days later the results are in. 1879 01:55:01,640 --> 01:55:03,280 So, here are the plates. 1880 01:55:03,280 --> 01:55:05,760 Ooh, let's have a look, then. 1881 01:55:05,760 --> 01:55:07,400 That's our anti-bac. 1882 01:55:07,400 --> 01:55:10,760 That's right, this is our household anti-bac spray, 1883 01:55:10,760 --> 01:55:13,480 and there's no colony growth at all on that plate. 1884 01:55:13,480 --> 01:55:16,560 Which is what we were hoping for. It's clean as a whistle. 1885 01:55:16,560 --> 01:55:19,800 Our next plate was the sterile water that we sprayed on to the tiles, 1886 01:55:19,800 --> 01:55:22,920 and you can see some colonies growing quite nicely on the plate. 1887 01:55:22,920 --> 01:55:27,120 I can clearly see spots on that so that is the bacteria growing. 1888 01:55:27,120 --> 01:55:28,600 That's right, yeah. 1889 01:55:28,600 --> 01:55:32,240 Right, so, what about our final experiment? 1890 01:55:32,240 --> 01:55:35,680 OK. Well, the limewash, did kill all the bacteria. 1891 01:55:35,680 --> 01:55:38,880 SHE GASPS I can't see any colonies on there at all. It is as good as 1892 01:55:38,880 --> 01:55:43,360 the anti-bac spray that we use nowadays. It really is! 1893 01:55:43,360 --> 01:55:45,720 So, they kind of knew what they were doing, didn't they? 1894 01:55:45,720 --> 01:55:47,240 It worked. It worked. 1895 01:55:47,240 --> 01:55:49,720 I'm going to start limewashing my kitchen now. 1896 01:55:49,720 --> 01:55:51,120 SHE LAUGHS 1897 01:55:53,000 --> 01:55:56,960 In the 17th century, they wouldn't have known how it worked, 1898 01:55:56,960 --> 01:56:00,440 but, amazingly, they'd learnt from experience - 1899 01:56:00,440 --> 01:56:03,360 limewashing houses controlled disease. 1900 01:56:04,560 --> 01:56:06,400 But what about fumigation? 1901 01:56:08,080 --> 01:56:11,120 Our experiment this time is being carried out 1902 01:56:11,120 --> 01:56:15,080 in a very different location - a farm shed on the South Downs, 1903 01:56:15,080 --> 01:56:18,520 by pyrotechnics expert Mike Sansom. 1904 01:56:20,360 --> 01:56:22,280 Hello, Mike. Hi, there, how are you doing? 1905 01:56:22,280 --> 01:56:23,840 Talk about plague and pestilence, 1906 01:56:23,840 --> 01:56:26,000 you've definitely got a flood here, haven't you? 1907 01:56:26,000 --> 01:56:27,480 I know. Shocking day, isn't it? 1908 01:56:27,480 --> 01:56:30,720 I don't say this very often, but I've got fleas. 1909 01:56:30,720 --> 01:56:32,080 Oh, nice. 1910 01:56:32,080 --> 01:56:34,240 What I want to do is see if we can 1911 01:56:34,240 --> 01:56:37,360 recreate 17th-century fumigation. 1912 01:56:37,360 --> 01:56:40,200 I want to know if it was really effective in killing 1913 01:56:40,200 --> 01:56:43,960 fleas and lice, cos we know that these are the carrier of the plague. 1914 01:56:43,960 --> 01:56:45,800 Right, so I've got the chemicals that 1915 01:56:45,800 --> 01:56:48,320 I know were used for fumigation in the 17th century. 1916 01:56:48,320 --> 01:56:50,840 Brimstone, first of all. Sulphur. 1917 01:56:50,840 --> 01:56:52,840 So, the reason it was called brimstone was 1918 01:56:52,840 --> 01:56:54,880 because it was found on the brim of volcanos. 1919 01:56:54,880 --> 01:56:57,160 And then we've got the saltpetre, potassium nitrate, 1920 01:56:57,160 --> 01:56:59,360 which is a strong oxidising agent and I know these two 1921 01:56:59,360 --> 01:57:02,440 burn really well together because they're the main components 1922 01:57:02,440 --> 01:57:04,440 of gunpowder. They burn quite ferociously. 1923 01:57:04,440 --> 01:57:08,040 And then produce quite a noxious gas called sulphur dioxide. 1924 01:57:08,040 --> 01:57:09,280 Let's do it. 1925 01:57:10,520 --> 01:57:14,600 This shed will act as our infested 17th-century room. 1926 01:57:14,600 --> 01:57:16,960 It's a lovely little shed you've got here. 1927 01:57:18,400 --> 01:57:20,320 The lid of the flea container 1928 01:57:20,320 --> 01:57:23,280 is a porous mesh that will allow in the fumes. 1929 01:57:30,600 --> 01:57:34,400 So, this is a plume of gas coming out at a steady rate. 1930 01:57:34,400 --> 01:57:37,280 It's filling this whole shed up now, isn't it? Exactly, yeah. 1931 01:57:39,520 --> 01:57:42,160 They certainly don't look very active now, do they? No. 1932 01:57:43,480 --> 01:57:45,000 Oh, I just saw one drop. 1933 01:57:46,080 --> 01:57:47,640 They're all dropping! 1934 01:57:47,640 --> 01:57:50,200 They're dropping like fleas! 1935 01:57:50,200 --> 01:57:52,320 Let's have a look here. Right. 1936 01:57:54,040 --> 01:57:57,000 Woohoo. Smokey stuff. 1937 01:57:59,080 --> 01:58:01,360 Oh, gosh, they're definitely dead, aren't they? 1938 01:58:01,360 --> 01:58:03,120 I think that's worked really well. 1939 01:58:03,120 --> 01:58:06,160 It has. I mean, it's pretty spectacular, isn't it, 1940 01:58:06,160 --> 01:58:08,920 that in the 17th century they were using this method 1941 01:58:08,920 --> 01:58:10,320 to fumigate houses. 1942 01:58:10,320 --> 01:58:12,200 It's incredible. 1943 01:58:12,200 --> 01:58:14,400 It's a really effective insecticide. 1944 01:58:14,400 --> 01:58:17,400 They were getting rid of the things, the fleas and the lice, 1945 01:58:17,400 --> 01:58:20,040 that were killing and passing on the plague to other people. 1946 01:58:20,040 --> 01:58:21,280 Pretty amazing. 1947 01:58:24,080 --> 01:58:27,720 They didn't know how it was working, but this simple disinfection 1948 01:58:27,720 --> 01:58:31,200 method would've helped normality slowly to return to London. 1949 01:58:32,520 --> 01:58:37,600 And, in late October 1665, some life returned to the streets. 1950 01:58:39,280 --> 01:58:40,880 But things had changed. 1951 01:58:43,320 --> 01:58:47,160 Diarist Samuel Pepys says he walked to the Royal Exchange 1952 01:58:47,160 --> 01:58:51,760 and heard only conversations about who had died and who was still ill. 1953 01:58:53,160 --> 01:58:56,960 He also tells us there were still plague victims in the streets. 1954 01:58:58,400 --> 01:59:02,200 Although by now, the death rate was heading steadily downwards. 1955 01:59:03,600 --> 01:59:06,600 From the September peak of over 1,000 deaths a day, 1956 01:59:06,600 --> 01:59:12,160 by October 30th plague fatalities had dropped to 1,000 deaths a week. 1957 01:59:15,640 --> 01:59:19,120 The declining death rate encouraged the many thousands, 1958 01:59:19,120 --> 01:59:22,480 who'd fled to the countryside, to begin returning to London. 1959 01:59:25,320 --> 01:59:28,120 Daniel Defoe says they were tired of being away from London 1960 01:59:28,120 --> 01:59:32,880 so long, and were so eager to get back, they flocked into the city 1961 01:59:32,880 --> 01:59:35,640 here without any thought or fear. 1962 01:59:35,640 --> 01:59:40,720 This influx caused a brief spike in deaths in early November 1963 01:59:40,720 --> 01:59:44,960 because, as more people came back to the city, there were also 1964 01:59:44,960 --> 01:59:48,720 more people vulnerable to catching the infection. 1965 01:59:48,720 --> 01:59:53,640 But, from mid-November, plague deaths fell every week. 1966 01:59:55,000 --> 01:59:57,600 By mid-winter 1665, 1967 01:59:57,600 --> 02:00:01,400 the cold weather had reduced the death rate to around 40 a day. 1968 02:00:02,600 --> 02:00:06,640 After a year, the Great Plague epidemic in London 1969 02:00:06,640 --> 02:00:08,360 was coming to an end. 1970 02:00:10,920 --> 02:00:13,640 Finally, after Christmas, King Charles 1971 02:00:13,640 --> 02:00:16,440 and his court returned to his palace at Westminster. 1972 02:00:16,440 --> 02:00:20,280 They'd spent most of the year in Oxford, which, unlike many 1973 02:00:20,280 --> 02:00:23,880 towns in southern England, hadn't seen a single case of plague. 1974 02:00:23,880 --> 02:00:27,120 And that's probably because royal guards were posted 1975 02:00:27,120 --> 02:00:31,520 day and night on each of the four bridges that led in and out of town, 1976 02:00:31,520 --> 02:00:33,320 and they didn't let anyone in. 1977 02:00:35,680 --> 02:00:38,800 This was a highly effective form of quarantine, 1978 02:00:38,800 --> 02:00:41,960 and King Charles seems to have had a pleasant time in Oxford, 1979 02:00:41,960 --> 02:00:45,280 even managing to get one of his mistresses pregnant. 1980 02:00:46,840 --> 02:00:50,280 But his abandonment of his capital in its hour of need 1981 02:00:50,280 --> 02:00:52,760 didn't go down well with its inhabitants. 1982 02:00:56,160 --> 02:00:59,240 While London had now seen the worst of the epidemic, 1983 02:00:59,240 --> 02:01:02,240 the rest of the country was not so lucky. 1984 02:01:02,240 --> 02:01:05,120 In the spring of 1666, 1985 02:01:05,120 --> 02:01:09,040 towns across Britain were hit by plague again. 1986 02:01:10,240 --> 02:01:12,480 Like Oxford, many towns around the country 1987 02:01:12,480 --> 02:01:14,280 tried to quarantine themselves. 1988 02:01:14,280 --> 02:01:17,480 They stopped all trade with London, and armed volunteers 1989 02:01:17,480 --> 02:01:20,240 prevented strangers from entering towns and villages. 1990 02:01:20,240 --> 02:01:23,320 But they were often weren't as successful as the royal troops. 1991 02:01:24,840 --> 02:01:29,600 Plague again swept through towns like Colchester and Cambridge, 1992 02:01:29,600 --> 02:01:32,400 which had suffered terribly the previous year, 1993 02:01:32,400 --> 02:01:35,720 and, this time, the outbreaks were even more severe. 1994 02:01:37,360 --> 02:01:39,560 But it was the villagers of Eyam, 1995 02:01:39,560 --> 02:01:42,120 deep in the Derbyshire Peak District, 1996 02:01:42,120 --> 02:01:46,440 who would become famous for their heroic response to the disease. 1997 02:01:46,440 --> 02:01:48,720 I'm about to find out what they did. 1998 02:02:00,460 --> 02:02:04,780 Plague arrived here in Eyam in early September 1665. 1999 02:02:04,780 --> 02:02:07,620 It was brought in a shipment of clothing that was delivered 2000 02:02:07,620 --> 02:02:09,780 to a tailor who lived in the village. 2001 02:02:12,380 --> 02:02:17,380 The clothes in the shipment probably contained plague-infected body lice. 2002 02:02:19,380 --> 02:02:23,700 It began a chain of events which put all 700 of the village's 2003 02:02:23,700 --> 02:02:25,420 inhabitants at risk. 2004 02:02:26,580 --> 02:02:29,180 By December 1665, 2005 02:02:29,180 --> 02:02:30,940 28 of them had died. 2006 02:02:32,580 --> 02:02:33,980 Just like in London, 2007 02:02:33,980 --> 02:02:38,780 the cold of winter brought about a significant reduction in the deaths. 2008 02:02:38,780 --> 02:02:40,740 The disease bubbled along. 2009 02:02:40,740 --> 02:02:43,220 Two or three people died each month. 2010 02:02:43,220 --> 02:02:45,500 But the people in the village were relieved, 2011 02:02:45,500 --> 02:02:47,340 thinking the worst was over. 2012 02:02:47,340 --> 02:02:51,740 But, as spring turned to summer, the number of cases rocketed. 2013 02:02:53,500 --> 02:02:55,780 A story of extraordinary heroism 2014 02:02:55,780 --> 02:03:01,260 and self-sacrifice now unfolded in Eyam over the summer of 1666. 2015 02:03:03,380 --> 02:03:05,780 The instigator was the village vicar, 2016 02:03:05,780 --> 02:03:07,900 the Reverend William Mompesson. 2017 02:03:09,220 --> 02:03:12,020 When Mompesson realised that winter hadn't put an end 2018 02:03:12,020 --> 02:03:15,020 to the outbreak in the village, he sent his wife Catherine 2019 02:03:15,020 --> 02:03:18,500 and his children away to stay with friends in Yorkshire. 2020 02:03:18,500 --> 02:03:21,780 But Catherine returned to support her husband. 2021 02:03:24,180 --> 02:03:28,580 In late May 1666, Mompesson made a decision that would have 2022 02:03:28,580 --> 02:03:32,660 terrible consequences for everyone in the village. 2023 02:03:32,660 --> 02:03:36,100 To discover what happened, I'm meeting Joan Plant, 2024 02:03:36,100 --> 02:03:39,300 whose family have lived in Eyam since the time of the plague. 2025 02:03:40,900 --> 02:03:44,140 Tell me about this extraordinary decision made by Mompesson. 2026 02:03:44,140 --> 02:03:47,180 He'd seen instances of plague in the country before. 2027 02:03:47,180 --> 02:03:51,420 He got together with the previous minister, Stanley, 2028 02:03:51,420 --> 02:03:55,820 and they made a plan. They would close the church, 2029 02:03:55,820 --> 02:03:59,820 close the churchyard, and close the village. 2030 02:03:59,820 --> 02:04:04,140 And this is what Mompesson had to ask the village to do, 2031 02:04:04,140 --> 02:04:06,660 simply to contain the disease. 2032 02:04:06,660 --> 02:04:10,180 And they agreed, which was just incredible. 2033 02:04:10,180 --> 02:04:12,380 What does that mean to close a village back then? 2034 02:04:12,380 --> 02:04:15,500 Well, it means you put a border the whole way round, 2035 02:04:15,500 --> 02:04:18,220 nobody comes in and nobody goes out. 2036 02:04:18,220 --> 02:04:21,220 Tell me about the significance of this particular place. 2037 02:04:21,220 --> 02:04:25,140 So, Mompesson's Well is a running water well, and this 2038 02:04:25,140 --> 02:04:28,500 was the northern boundary point when they closed the village. 2039 02:04:28,500 --> 02:04:32,820 And the village people would leave money here for the provisions 2040 02:04:32,820 --> 02:04:36,140 that would be brought along the road from the Earl of Devonshire 2041 02:04:36,140 --> 02:04:38,100 and surrounding villages. 2042 02:04:38,100 --> 02:04:41,660 Families could've chosen to flee the infected village to save 2043 02:04:41,660 --> 02:04:43,940 themselves, just as happened in London. 2044 02:04:47,420 --> 02:04:50,780 But, incredibly, they chose to stay, 2045 02:04:50,780 --> 02:04:53,460 hoping to prevent the disease spreading and, so, 2046 02:04:53,460 --> 02:04:57,700 save the neighbouring villages and towns from the same fate. 2047 02:04:57,700 --> 02:05:01,220 I think the older I get, the more I think about that, 2048 02:05:01,220 --> 02:05:05,500 and think how brave and courageous they must have been. 2049 02:05:05,500 --> 02:05:08,980 It's almost like facing a certain death. 2050 02:05:10,380 --> 02:05:13,420 The villagers knew the terrible sacrifice they were making 2051 02:05:13,420 --> 02:05:17,060 because dozens of their neighbours had already fallen ill, 2052 02:05:17,060 --> 02:05:19,180 and the contagion was accelerating. 2053 02:05:21,540 --> 02:05:24,420 The price they paid for their selfless decision can be 2054 02:05:24,420 --> 02:05:27,020 seen in the parish church registers. 2055 02:05:28,980 --> 02:05:30,740 So, this is the record of deaths 2056 02:05:30,740 --> 02:05:32,900 in Eyam during the period of the plague. 2057 02:05:32,900 --> 02:05:34,700 So, you can see here it says, 2058 02:05:34,700 --> 02:05:36,180 "Here follows the names with 2059 02:05:36,180 --> 02:05:38,940 "the numbers of persons who died of the plague." 2060 02:05:38,940 --> 02:05:40,980 And we start with the first victim, 2061 02:05:40,980 --> 02:05:45,420 George Viccars, September 7th of 1665. 2062 02:05:45,420 --> 02:05:49,140 But it really gets going in the summer of the next year. 2063 02:05:51,900 --> 02:05:55,620 If I turn to June, we see we've got 21 deaths, 2064 02:05:55,620 --> 02:05:58,780 then, in July there are 58 deaths, 2065 02:05:58,780 --> 02:06:00,940 and, then, turning to August, 2066 02:06:00,940 --> 02:06:03,060 we get 80 deaths. 2067 02:06:04,780 --> 02:06:10,220 This entire page filled with families completely wiped out. 2068 02:06:11,980 --> 02:06:15,260 In a small village, that's extraordinary, and that trajectory 2069 02:06:15,260 --> 02:06:17,740 is the same thing we saw in London 2070 02:06:17,740 --> 02:06:19,540 in the summer of the previous year. 2071 02:06:20,940 --> 02:06:24,340 Of course, it's an extraordinary document in terms of public health, 2072 02:06:24,340 --> 02:06:27,580 in terms of data about how the epidemic spread, 2073 02:06:27,580 --> 02:06:30,180 but the other thing that's so overwhelming 2074 02:06:30,180 --> 02:06:33,300 when you look at it is the number of deaths in a small community. 2075 02:06:33,300 --> 02:06:35,700 All these people friends and family. 2076 02:06:35,700 --> 02:06:37,660 It must have been absolutely 2077 02:06:37,660 --> 02:06:40,780 horrific living through this, completely terrifying. 2078 02:06:51,100 --> 02:06:52,940 This isolated burial plot, 2079 02:06:52,940 --> 02:06:55,580 on a hillside overlooking the village, 2080 02:06:55,580 --> 02:06:59,500 gives some sense of the horrific scale of these tragedies. 2081 02:07:02,060 --> 02:07:05,500 I'm visiting with Dr Lilith Whittles, who's investigated 2082 02:07:05,500 --> 02:07:08,580 if the plague in Eyam was spread here 2083 02:07:08,580 --> 02:07:10,860 in the same way as it spread in London. 2084 02:07:12,540 --> 02:07:15,380 Seven members of the Hancock family are buried here, 2085 02:07:15,380 --> 02:07:16,780 near where they lived. 2086 02:07:18,580 --> 02:07:20,780 Six children and their father, 2087 02:07:20,780 --> 02:07:23,460 who all died within one week of each other. 2088 02:07:25,460 --> 02:07:28,060 Only the mother, Elizabeth, survived. 2089 02:07:30,500 --> 02:07:32,580 It's a pretty bleak image, isn't it? 2090 02:07:32,580 --> 02:07:37,700 Elizabeth Hancock up here, she's not doing fancy gravestones or anything. 2091 02:07:37,700 --> 02:07:40,660 She's digging holes and dragging her family members into them. 2092 02:07:40,660 --> 02:07:43,300 And there's no funeral, there's no vicar, there's no mourners. 2093 02:07:43,300 --> 02:07:46,740 It's just her. Well, the social distancing measures 2094 02:07:46,740 --> 02:07:48,740 the villagers had taken meant 2095 02:07:48,740 --> 02:07:50,340 they weren't coming to funerals, 2096 02:07:50,340 --> 02:07:52,540 they weren't helping out with burials. They couldn't. 2097 02:07:52,540 --> 02:07:55,140 So, what you're able to do with the computer is simulate 2098 02:07:55,140 --> 02:07:57,500 what if the epidemic was spread by rats, 2099 02:07:57,500 --> 02:07:59,300 what if it was spread in different ways? 2100 02:07:59,300 --> 02:08:02,100 And you can figure out what the most likely way of it spreading was. 2101 02:08:02,100 --> 02:08:03,860 Exactly that. And what do you find? 2102 02:08:03,860 --> 02:08:06,660 The most likely explanation for the transmission was 2103 02:08:06,660 --> 02:08:09,500 the plague being transmitted from human to human, 2104 02:08:09,500 --> 02:08:12,980 through ectoparasites, such as human lice and human fleas. 2105 02:08:14,140 --> 02:08:17,620 For a long time, there's been this story that the villagers of Eyam 2106 02:08:17,620 --> 02:08:20,380 kind of pointlessly quarantined themselves. 2107 02:08:20,380 --> 02:08:23,220 They quarantined themselves against a disease 2108 02:08:23,220 --> 02:08:25,420 that wasn't spread by humans, it was spread by rats. 2109 02:08:25,420 --> 02:08:27,620 And, actually, your modelling suggests 2110 02:08:27,620 --> 02:08:30,460 that what they did was really important. Absolutely. 2111 02:08:30,460 --> 02:08:33,340 If the plague was spread by human to human contact 2112 02:08:33,340 --> 02:08:35,060 through their ectoparasites, 2113 02:08:35,060 --> 02:08:38,620 then, by distancing themselves from the surrounding area, 2114 02:08:38,620 --> 02:08:41,700 they stopped the spread of plague to places like Sheffield, 2115 02:08:41,700 --> 02:08:45,580 where, if an infected person had started an outbreak there, 2116 02:08:45,580 --> 02:08:47,740 we could have seen many, many more deaths, 2117 02:08:47,740 --> 02:08:49,740 like we did in the London outbreak. 2118 02:08:49,740 --> 02:08:52,420 So, I kind of imagine Elizabeth Hancock up here 2119 02:08:52,420 --> 02:08:53,980 digging these graves, 2120 02:08:53,980 --> 02:08:58,620 and I guess now we can see she is doing something really important. 2121 02:08:58,620 --> 02:09:00,900 She saved a lot of lives. Absolutely. They all did 2122 02:09:00,900 --> 02:09:03,420 something extraordinary, the villagers of Eyam. Wow. 2123 02:09:07,460 --> 02:09:12,860 So, now we know Eyam's quarantine was both heroic and worthwhile. 2124 02:09:16,300 --> 02:09:21,700 The village's last plague victim was buried on the 1st November 1666. 2125 02:09:23,940 --> 02:09:28,940 In total, 257 people died of the disease, 2126 02:09:28,940 --> 02:09:31,100 about 40% of the population. 2127 02:09:34,220 --> 02:09:37,140 William Mompesson, the vicar who instigated the village's 2128 02:09:37,140 --> 02:09:40,300 quarantine, also paid a heavy price. 2129 02:09:40,300 --> 02:09:44,060 His wife Catherine, who'd returned to support her husband's work 2130 02:09:44,060 --> 02:09:47,460 in Eyam, died of plague in August. 2131 02:09:47,460 --> 02:09:50,140 As the vicar's wife, she was the only person 2132 02:09:50,140 --> 02:09:52,460 allowed to be buried in the churchyard. 2133 02:10:01,460 --> 02:10:05,380 While the plague raged in Eyam in the summer of 1666, 2134 02:10:05,380 --> 02:10:07,260 London was reporting few cases. 2135 02:10:09,020 --> 02:10:11,620 Fatalities had dropped by 95%, 2136 02:10:11,620 --> 02:10:13,740 and life was returning to normal. 2137 02:10:15,180 --> 02:10:19,340 But, then, unbelievably, the capital was hit by another tragedy. 2138 02:10:21,620 --> 02:10:26,060 In September, the Great Fire destroyed much of the walled city. 2139 02:10:29,180 --> 02:10:30,740 Although it's widely believed 2140 02:10:30,740 --> 02:10:32,860 that this burnt the plague out of London... 2141 02:10:35,820 --> 02:10:38,740 ..the statistics suggest it was a coincidence. 2142 02:10:40,460 --> 02:10:44,740 The epidemic was already ending by the time the flames took hold. 2143 02:10:50,540 --> 02:10:52,940 We'll never know for certain how many Londoners 2144 02:10:52,940 --> 02:10:54,740 died during the Great Plague, 2145 02:10:54,740 --> 02:10:59,740 but the official estimate of around 70,000 is undoubtedly too low. 2146 02:10:59,740 --> 02:11:02,060 Many cases of plague were misidentified 2147 02:11:02,060 --> 02:11:04,420 and many burials went unrecorded. 2148 02:11:04,420 --> 02:11:08,100 So, it's actually thought that over 100,000 Londoners 2149 02:11:08,100 --> 02:11:10,420 died during the plague. 2150 02:11:10,420 --> 02:11:13,260 That's around a quarter of the population. 2151 02:11:16,900 --> 02:11:21,660 The last plague death recorded in London was in 1679, 2152 02:11:21,660 --> 02:11:25,900 and there were no other outbreaks in Britain until the early 1900s, 2153 02:11:25,900 --> 02:11:28,860 when the third plague pandemic swept the world. 2154 02:11:31,220 --> 02:11:34,420 From 1900, there were plague deaths in port towns, 2155 02:11:34,420 --> 02:11:38,060 including Glasgow, Cardiff, and Liverpool. 2156 02:11:40,500 --> 02:11:45,100 The most recent plague outbreak in Britain was in Suffolk in 1918. 2157 02:11:50,780 --> 02:11:53,940 None of the outbreaks of plague in 20th-century Britain 2158 02:11:53,940 --> 02:11:57,380 turned into epidemics, and that's because modern hygiene means 2159 02:11:57,380 --> 02:12:02,780 there aren't the body lice or human fleas around to fuel the spread. 2160 02:12:02,780 --> 02:12:05,580 But plague isn't the only pandemic we face, 2161 02:12:05,580 --> 02:12:10,420 and, in fact, coronavirus itself is only one of the many diseases 2162 02:12:10,420 --> 02:12:13,380 that have swept the world since the 17th century. 2163 02:12:16,140 --> 02:12:17,940 Through most of human history, 2164 02:12:17,940 --> 02:12:21,580 disease has killed far more than war or natural disasters. 2165 02:12:23,740 --> 02:12:26,060 Epidemics like cholera, smallpox, 2166 02:12:26,060 --> 02:12:31,380 and tuberculosis killed hundreds of millions in the 20th century alone. 2167 02:12:33,580 --> 02:12:36,820 Modern medicine has helped bring about a massive reduction 2168 02:12:36,820 --> 02:12:39,020 in these ancient pandemic diseases. 2169 02:12:39,020 --> 02:12:44,300 But, as Covid-19 reminds us, new diseases emerge all the time. 2170 02:12:44,300 --> 02:12:47,860 And, in fact, with modern travel, population growth, 2171 02:12:47,860 --> 02:12:50,180 and environmental destruction, 2172 02:12:50,180 --> 02:12:52,700 we now face more outbreaks than ever before. 2173 02:12:55,740 --> 02:12:59,900 In 1918, the Spanish Flu killed up to 50 million people. 2174 02:13:02,140 --> 02:13:08,620 Since 1980, we've suffered SARS, MERS, Ebola and, the deadliest, 2175 02:13:08,620 --> 02:13:13,220 Aids, which has so far killed an estimated 32 million people. 2176 02:13:15,380 --> 02:13:17,980 And now there's Covid-19. 2177 02:13:21,100 --> 02:13:24,620 The methods that we use to respond initially to these disasters 2178 02:13:24,620 --> 02:13:27,860 are the same ones we used during the Great Plague - 2179 02:13:27,860 --> 02:13:30,700 quarantine and social distancing. 2180 02:13:30,700 --> 02:13:34,940 But we now also have modern science, which has successfully controlled, 2181 02:13:34,940 --> 02:13:40,460 and, in some cases, defeated almost every disease humanity has faced. 2182 02:13:40,460 --> 02:13:42,940 New diseases will continue to emerge, 2183 02:13:42,940 --> 02:13:46,300 but, unlike our ancestors during the Great Plague, 2184 02:13:46,300 --> 02:13:49,460 we are now in a much better position to fight back.