International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)

No.2, 2021

Making us as cruel as dogs: plague in 16th and 17th century England (Abstract)

Andrew Wear

In the 16th and 17th centuries, successive epidemics of plague in England spaced over 10, 20, or 30 years produced mortality rates as high as 20% in urban areas, whilst the morbidity rate at times was more than double the death rate. Plague caused short-term economic damage to a country, since all those who had the means left a stricken area and prohibitions on trade were put in place. Medicine’s role seemed to be to support the govern ment in its attempt to keep order at a time when panic and fear were running through society. But the    reality was that there was a pitiful handful of practitioners who remained and they off ered hope but little else. What so many practitioners found diffi cult to accept was their outright failure, blaming instead the patient or other people’s treatments, something that perhaps is still apparent today.