Plague Data

March 4, 2024 1:39 AM

One of the most dreaded diseases in early modern London was plague. Starting in 1603, government officials published weekly plague mortality statistics in a broadside series known as the Bills of Mortality. The bills grew to include not just plague deaths but also dozens of other causes of death, ensuring their continued publication for decades after the final outbreak of plague in England. Between 1603 and 1752, almost 8,000 different weekly bills were published. Death by Numbers aims to transcribe and publish the information in these bills in a dataset suitable for computational analysis.
posted by chavenet (10 comments total)

When I opened the page, two words from the images jump out:

- “St Mary Abchurch.” The church for which this parish was named still stands. It hosts an AA meeting on Friday evenings, which was the first I ever went to. To reach it, I had to pick my way through throngs of City boys (workers in the finance industry) who were standing outside the pubs, holding cold pints of lager in the late-summer sun.
- “Southwarke”, or Southwark, just over London Bridge, and where I lived for five years until recently, near a church yard with crumbled headstones.

I grew up in London. Every now and then you get the feeling that you are the briefest bacteria teeming in the body of some enormous, ancient organism. I had the same uncanny feeling reading this. I get it when I’m in Paris or New York, as well. (But not LA).
posted by Probabilitics at 2:50 AM on March 4 [15 favorites]

I hadn't realised that we don't know why the bubonic plague ended (or stopped being a devastating plague, the illness still exists).

I see that all kinds of theories , for example that brown rats outcompeted the black rats initially responsible for the spread, and brown rats aren't as susceptible to the plague carrying fleas.

Also, quarantine measures, the fire of London, unusually cold winters, better sanitation.

I suppose there's no one reason, but a combination. Makes me aware of the chaotic nature of our universe.

I remember the first days of the Covid pandemic, when we still knew so little. I kept thinking about The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, and what it must have been like to live through those times.
posted by Zumbador at 3:04 AM on March 4 [3 favorites]

So many ways to go, so many only applicable to neonates.
Also "accidental deaths in Tudor England" MetaPrev 2014.
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:50 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Today I learned that in 18th century London, it actually was possible to die of mortification.

Does "wolf" mean attacked by a wolf? Were there wolves in London in 1703?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:30 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Check out wiki/unusual deaths. There are some dusies. I believe it reached back to olden olden times.
posted by Czjewel at 6:51 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Were there wolves in London in 1703?

I heard that there were some there even in the 1970s and '80s.
posted by rory at 6:55 AM on March 4 [4 favorites]

Does "wolf" mean attacked by a wolf?

It was a contemporary term for breast cancer.
posted by greycap at 7:15 AM on March 4 [5 favorites]

Well, that's much less entertaining.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:26 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Of course, "what you must never forget is that every one of those figures comes from the...village watchman, who just puts down what he damn pleases." An exaggeration, but an important caution to keep in mind when doing statistical analysis. (This was originally a complaint about the Indian civil service, but applies to basically every premodern society and not a few modern ones.)
posted by praemunire at 7:31 AM on March 4 [4 favorites]

dibs on the band name!
posted by ergomatic at 12:41 PM on March 6