north sides, into those eastern and south sides as for
safety; and, as I verily believe, carried the plague amongst them there
perhaps sooner than they would otherwise have had it.

Here also I ought to leave a further remark for the use of posterity,
concerning the manner of people's infecting one another; namely, that
it was not the sick people only from whom the plague was immediately
received by others that were sound, but the well. To explain myself: by
the sick people I mean those who were known to be sick, had taken their
beds, had been under cure, or had swellings and tumours upon them, and
the like; these everybody could beware of; they were either in their
beds or in such condition as could not be concealed.

By the well I mean such as had received the contagion, and had it really
upon them, and in their blood, yet did not show the consequences of it
in their countenances: nay, even were not sensible of it themselves, as
many were not for several days. These breathed death in every place, and
upon everybody who came near them; nay, their very clothes retained the
infection, their hands would infect the things they touched, especially
if they were warm and sweaty, and they were generally apt to sweat too.

Now it was impossible to know these people, nor did they sometimes, as I
have said, know themselves to be infected. These were the people that so
often dropped down and fainted in the streets; for oftentimes they would
go about the streets to the last, till on a sudden they would sweat,
grow faint, sit down at a door and die. It is true, finding themselves
thus, they would struggle hard to get home to their own doors, or
at other times would be just able to go into their houses and die
instantly; other times they would go about till they had the very tokens
come out upon them, and yet not know it, and would die in an hour or
two after they came home, but be well as long as they were abroad. These
were the dangerous people; these were the people of whom the well
people ought to have been afraid; but then, on the other side, it was
impossible to know them.

And this is the reason why it is impossible in a visitation to prevent
the spreading of the plague by the utmost human vigilance: viz., that
it is impossible to know the infected people from the sound, or that
the infected people should perfectly know themselves. I knew a man who
conversed freely in London all the season of the plague in 1665, and
kept a