NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 60 1 



time was still largely tinctured by superstitions resulting from 

 mediaeval modes of thought; hence that plague was generally 

 attributed to the divine wrath caused by " the prophaning of the 

 Sabbath." Texts from Numbers, the Psalms, Zechariah, and the 

 Apocalypse were dwelt upon in the pulpits to show that plagues 

 are sent by the Almighty to punish sin ; and perhaps the most 

 ghastly figure among all those fearful scenes described by De 

 Foe is that of the naked fanatic walking up and down the streets 

 with a pan of fiery coals upon his head, and, after the manner of 

 Jonah at Nineveh, proclaiming woe to the city and its destruc- 

 tion in forty days. 



That sin caused this plague is certain, but it was sanitary sin ; 

 both before and after this culmination of the disease cases of 

 plague were constantly occurring in London throughout the sev- 

 enteenth century ; but about the beginning of the eighteenth cent- 

 ury it began to disappear ; the great fire had done a good work by 

 sweeping off many causes and centers of infection, and there had 

 come wider streets, better pavements, and improved water-sup- 

 ply ; so that with the disappearance of the plague, other diseases, 

 especially dysenteries, which had formerly raged in the city, be- 

 came much less frequent. 



But while these epidemics were thus checked in London, others 

 developed by sanitary sin raged fearfully both there and else- 

 where, and of these perhaps the most fearful was the jail-fever. 

 The prisons of that period were vile beyond belief. Men were 

 confined in dungeons rarely if ever disinfected after the death 

 of previous occupants, and on corridors connecting directly with 

 the foulest sewers ; there was no proper disinfection, ventilation, 

 or drainage; hence in most of the large prisons for criminals 

 or debtors the jail-fever was supreme, and from these centers 

 it frequently spread through the adjacent towns. This was espe- 

 cially the case during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 

 In the Black Assize at Oxford in 1577 the chief baron, the sheriff, 

 and about three hundred men died within forty hours. Lord 

 Bacon declared the jail-fever " the most pernicious infection next 

 to the plague." In 1730, at the Dorsetshire Assize, the chief 

 baron and many lawyers were killed by it. The High Sheriff of 

 Somerset also took the disease and died. A single Scotch regi- 

 ment being infected from some prisoners, lost no less than two 

 hundred. In 1750, the disease was so virulent at Newgate, in 

 the heart of London, that two judges, the lord mayor, sundry 

 aldermen, and many others died of it. 



It is worth noting that while efforts at sanitary dealing with 

 this state of things were few, the theological spirit developed 

 special forms of prayer for prisoners, and especially that a new 

 prayer was placed in the Irish Prayer-book. 



