Historical fiction; London (England) -- History -- 17th century -- Fiction; Plague -- Fiction
The master of every house, as soon as any one in his house
complaineth either of botch, or purple, or swelling in any part of
his body, or falleth otherwise dangerously sick without apparent
cause of some other disease, shall give notice thereof to the
examiner of health, within two hours after the said sign shall
appear.
_Sequestration of the Sick._
As soon as any man shall be found by this examiner, chirurgeon, or
searcher, to be sick of the plague, he shall the same night be
sequestered in the same house; and in case he be so sequestered,
then, though he die not, the house wherein he sickened shall be
shut up for a month after the use of the due preservatives taken by
the rest.
_Airing the Stuff._
For sequestration of the goods and stuff of the infection, their
bedding and apparel, and hangings of chambers, must be well aired
with fire, and such perfumes as are requisite, within the infected
house, before they be taken again to use. This to be done by the
appointment of the examiner.
_Shutting up of the House._
If any person shall visit any man known to be infected of the
plague, or entereth willingly into any known infected house, being
not allowed, the house wherein he inhabiteth shall be shut up for
certain days by the examiner's direction.
_None to be removed out of Infected Houses, but, etc._
Item, That none be removed out of the house where he falleth sick
of the infection into any other house in the city (except it be to
the pesthouse or a tent, or unto some such house which the owner of
the said house holdeth in his own hands, and occupieth by his own
servants), and so as security be given to the said parish whither
such remove is made, that the attendance and charge about the said
visited persons shall be observed and charged in all the
particularities before expressed, without any cost of that parish
to which any such remove shall happen to be made, and this remove
to be done by night. And it shall be lawful to any person that hath
two houses to remove either his sound or his infected people to his
spare house at his choice, so as, if he send away first his sound,
he do not after send thither the sick; nor again unto the sick, the
sound; and that the same which he sendeth be for one week at the
least shut up, and secluded from company, for the fear of some
infection at first not appearing.
_Burial of the Dead._
That the burial of the dead by this visitation be at most
convenient hours, always before sunrising, or after sunsetting,
with the privity[80] of the churchwardens, or constable, and not
otherwise; and that no neighbors nor friends be suffered to
accompany the corpse to church, or to enter the house visited, upon
pain of having his house shut up, or be imprisoned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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