Story of the Plague Disease was rampant in the 17th century. In England, people anxiously read the Bills of Mortality, published every week, which listed the number of deaths and their causes. Plague was the most feared disease of all: people died of it every year, and the Black Death pandemic – which had killed nearly one third of Europe's population (20 million people) in the 1300s – still lived on in folk memory. The plague was terrifying because it struck so swiftly. Victims died within days, in agony from fevers and infected swellings. It spread at a horrifying rate, too, and could ravage a town or even a city within weeks. With no cure the authorities relied on drastic methods to contain it. Many continental countries built large plague hospitals – 'pest houses' – to hold victims, but England preferred cheaper local solutions. Its 'plague orders' decreed that victims should be shut into their own houses and left to die. www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/plague/story.html Sally Rolls Pavia sallypavia2001@yahoo.com “We have not inherited the world from our forefathers, we have borrowed it from our children.” . Kashmiri Proverb List Owner: GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES-L-request@rootsweb.com Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES "All incoming and outgoing email checked by Norton Anti-Virus"