y something of the merciful part of this
terrible judgment. The last week in September, the plague being come to
its crisis, its fury began to assuage. I remember my friend Dr. Heath,
coming to see me the week before, told me he was sure the violence of it
would assuage in a few days; but when I saw the weekly bill of that
week, which was the highest of the whole year, being 8,297 of all
diseases, I upbraided him with it, and asked him what he had made his
judgment from. His answer, however, was not so much to seek[307] as I
thought it would have been. "Look you," says he: "by the number which
are at this time sick and infected, there should have been twenty
thousand dead the last week, instead of eight thousand, if the
inveterate mortal contagion had been as it was two weeks ago; for then
it ordinarily killed in two or three days, now not under eight or ten;
and then not above one in five recovered, whereas I have observed that
now not above two in five miscarry. And observe it from me, the next
bill will decrease, and you will see many more people recover than used
to do; for though a vast multitude are now everywhere infected, and as
many every day fall sick, yet there will not so many die as there did,
for the malignity of the distemper is abated;" adding that he began now
to hope, nay, more than hope, that the infection had passed its crisis,
and was going off. And accordingly so it was; for the next week being,
as I said, the last in September, the bill decreased almost two
thousand.

It is true, the plague was still at a frightful height, and the next
bill was no less than 6,460, and the next to that 5,720; but still my
friend's observation was just, and it did appear the people did recover
faster, and more in number, than they used to do; and indeed if it had
not been so, what had been the condition of the city of London? For,
according to my friend, there were not fewer than 60,000 people at that
time infected, whereof, as above, 20,477 died, and near 40,000
recovered; whereas, had it been as it was before, 50,000 of that number
would very probably have died, if not more, and 50,000 more would have
sickened; for in a word the whole mass of people began to sicken, and it
looked as if none would escape.

But this remark of my friend's appeared more evident in a few weeks
more; for the decrease went on, and another week in October it decreased
1,843, so that the number dead of the plague was but 2,665; and the ne