Discover English: THE PLAGUE AND THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON

9/02/2014

THE PLAGUE AND THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON

During the 17th century, plagues happened all over Europe.

Plague is caused by a microbe which attacks the black rat. The fleas that live on the rat carry the disease to human beings by biting them.

London was stuck by plague in 1603, 1625 and 1665 when the most severe outbreak took place and 68,000 people died. Doctors and scientists didn’t know what caused the disease so, what did they do to stop the plague from spreading?

In London, the sick were shut up in their houses for a month and whole families died. Red crosses where painted on the doors of houses where plague had struck so as to warn passers-by. The dead were buried at night or early in the morning, when few people were about. So many people died that great pits were dug to burry the bodies together. To protect themselves against the disease, doctors wore long leather coats with hoods and gloves. They also wore a mask which was stuffed with herbs.

Rich people left the city by boat to go to the country. The poor, whose houses were crowded and dirty, suffered most. The left the city on foot or by cart but they were often turned away by villagers who were afraid of the plague.

The plague of 1665 had hardly ended when a second disaster struck. On September 2nd 1666, a great fire started in a bakery near London Bridge. Charles II ordered to pull down the houses in the path of the fire but it was useless. There was panic in the city and people fought to escape to safety across the River Thames. Four days later, the worst fire in London’s history had died down. It destroyed a large part of the city, including most of the civic buildings, old St Paul’s Cathedral, 87 churches and about 13,000 houses. It is incredible to think that only six people died.

The only good thing about the fire was that it killed off the rats which carried the plague fleas, for the plague never visited London again.