college; and as it was particularly calculated for the use of the poor,
and for cheap medicines, it was made public, so that everybody might see
it, and copies were given gratis to all that desired it. But as it is
public and to be seen on all occasions, I need not give the reader of
this the trouble of it.

It remains to be mentioned now what public measures were taken by the
magistrates for the general safety and to prevent the spreading of the
distemper when it broke out. I shall have frequent occasion to speak of
the prudence of the magistrates, their charity, their vigilance for the
poor and for preserving good order, furnishing provisions, and the like,
when the plague was increased as it afterwards was. But I am now upon
the order and regulations which they published for the government of
infected families.

I mentioned above shutting of houses up, and it is needful to say
something particularly to that; for this part of the history of the
plague is very melancholy. But the most grievous story must be told.

About June, the lord mayor of London, and the court of aldermen, as I
have said, began more particularly to concern themselves for the
regulation of the city.

The justices of the peace for Middlesex,[77] by direction of the
secretary of state, had begun to shut up houses in the parishes of St.
Giles-in-the-Fields, St. Martin's, St. Clement's-Danes, etc., and it was
with good success; for in several streets where the plague broke out,
upon strict guarding the houses that were infected, and taking care to
bury those that died as soon as they were known to be dead, the plague
ceased in those streets. It was also observed that the plague decreased