The Great Plague. The Story of London\'s Most Deadly Year

The Medical Marketplace • 107

shrewd publicity stunt. Angier chose the perfect site for his demonstration:
an infected house in Saint Giles in the Fields that had claimed four plague

victims and left two others sick out of twelve lodgers. Members of the king’s
inner circle eagerly accompanied Angier to the home. He came through the
test with flying colors (no more deaths). His ads multiplied, as did the shops
and taverns stocking his fumigants. A receipt for his fumigation of Mrs.

Southwall’s home in Saint Giles in the Fields has survived. He netted ten
pounds for that one call—more than the average household’s annual income
of seven pounds. In 1921 Angier’s accomplishments were proudly chronicled
in a commemorative booklet by the Angier Chemical Company at 86 Cler-

kenwell Road.
Dr. Cocke instructed householders that it was safe to throw saltpeter, oil,
or a bag of gunpowder into their outdoor braziers to ward off the infected air.

He also recommended ringing bells and firing off guns. Was he serious? At
least he was offering the poor a chuckle or two, as these costly prophylactics
were as elusive for them as was the horizon.

Something for the Poor

The swelling under the ears, armpits or in the groins... require the care and

skills of the expert Chirurgeon. But do not leave the poorer sort destitute of good

remedies:

Pull off the feathers from the tails of living cocks, hens, pigeons, or chickens,

and holding their bills, hold them hard to the Botch or Swelling and so keep

them at that part until they die [the birds that is]; and by this means draw out

the poison.

—College of Physicians,Certain Necessary Directions for... the Plague

Poor Londoners felt trapped by the plague in a way that Samuel Pepys and

Sir William Turner could scarcely comprehend. The poor were less mobile,
less able to pay for “physick,” less trusting of academic medicine, and far
more distant from medical texts because few of them could read.^24 If the Cer-
tain Necessary Directionsreached these unlettered folk by word of mouth,

they may have laughed painfully at its naiveté. Could anyone possibly find a
reasonably priced live fowl in the local markets during this visitation? And
what nurse could be conned into grasping a squawking bird and pressing it
against the running sore of a bubo while her patient squirmed in pain and

fright?