notion of the plague being at hand was among them, and which may be said
to be from about Michaelmas,[74] 1664, but more particularly after the
two men died in St. Giles's, in the beginning of December; and again
after another alarm in February, for when the plague evidently spread
itself, they soon began to see the folly of trusting to these
unperforming creatures who had gulled them of their money; and then
their fears worked another way, namely, to amazement and stupidity, not
knowing what course to take or what to do, either to help or to relieve
themselves; but they ran about from one neighbor's house to another, and
even in the streets, from one door to another, with repeated cries of,
"Lord, have mercy upon us! What shall we do?"

I am supposing, now, the plague to have begun, as I have said, and that
the magistrates began to take the condition of the people into their
serious consideration. What they did as to the regulation of the
inhabitants, and of infected families, I shall speak to[75] by itself;
but as to the affair of health, it is proper to mention here my having
seen the foolish humor of the people in running after quacks,
mountebanks, wizards, and fortune tellers, which they did, as above,
even to madness. The lord mayor, a very sober and religious gentleman,
appointed physicians and surgeons for the relief of the poor, I mean the
diseased poor, and in particular ordered the College of Physicians[76]
to publish directions for cheap remedies for the poor in all the
circumstances of the distemper. This, indeed, was one of the most
charitable and judicious things that could be done at that time; for
this drove the people from haunting the doors of every disperser of
bills, and from taking down blindly and without consideration, poison
for physic, and death instead of life.

This direction of the physicians was done by a consultation of the whole