Diary of Samuel Pepys shows how life under the Bubonic Plague mirrored today’s pandemic

The Conversation ^ | April 24, 2020 | Ute Lotz-Heumann

[MikelTackNailer]

In early April, writer Jen Miller urged New York Times readers to start a coronavirus diary.

“Who knows,” she wrote, “maybe one day your diary will provide a valuable window into this period.”

During a different pandemic, one 17th-century British naval administrator named Samuel Pepys did just that. He fastidiously kept a diary from 1660 to 1669 – a period of time that included a severe outbreak of the bubonic plague in London. Epidemics have always haunted humans, but rarely do we get such a detailed glimpse into one person’s life during a crisis from so long ago.

[GreyFriar]

I definitely remember polio, the March of Dimes to fight it and receiving the Salk vaccine.

[MikelTackNailer]

My bad - 1666 was 354 years ago, not 500. Looks like I qualify for a job at CNN or MSNBC.

I'm old enough to remember when phone numbers began with two letters!

And big fun with the X-Ray machine at the shoe store, I bet. Hang in there - you're posts are great.

It's 2020; we have modern, Western medicine, labs, scientists, researchers, hospitals, and medicines; We the (Quarantined) People are healthy.

Yet with all these tools we're still seeing the supposed experts look like idiots trying to get a handle. And it's the sick who should be quarentined, not the healthy. Good estimate is that 20% of the population has already had it and never knew it, thinking headaches and colds. It's the feeble bastards like myself who need to practice all that safety crap.

Every time the dead cart comes around on our street I make a note of it in my diary.

I follow Sam on twitter where bits of his diary are posted as if he’s tweeting each day and people react.

That's way cool - like Orson Wells' alien invasion and the old "And You Are There" series.

They undoubtedly under counted the dead. Did they bury live people?

Pretty doubtful as the bubonic plague had an almost 100% rate of fatality. hence Pepys writing his will. The fascinating "Safety Coffins" where a revived person could ring a bell via an attached cord didn't arrive until the 1790s.

I’m surprised Pepsy (pronounced Peeps), had time to keep a diary with all the fornicating he did.

He was the forerunner of the British S.A.S. motto: "Those Who Dare, Win."

And Truthoverpower, viruses shouldn't exist here as they're neither live or dead, just machine-like organisms that possess an astonishing ability to evolve, surmounting any obstacle in their way. They may be of unearthly origin. Fortunately most of them just use us for nourishment, replication and transmission without killing us outright.

[fella]

A far better journal than anything we are getting today that claims to be journalism.

[miserare]

I still remember my phone number from Brooklyn:

SO 8-8890

SO for South.

[flaglady47]

“And Truthoverpower, viruses shouldn’t exist here as they’re neither live or dead, just machine-like organisms that possess an astonishing ability to evolve, surmounting any obstacle in their way. They may be of unearthly origin. Fortunately most of them just use us for nourishment, replication and transmission without killing us outright.”

A certain amount of profundity here...

[MikelTackNailer]

Thank you, ma'am, but it's also a curse. Three quarters of my classmates on FaceBook are media-numbed NPCs who I've stopped trying to reason with.

One's a medal-laden retired super-soldier who believes the Muslims can be reasoned with despite his having to ventilate so many of them.

Exasperating.
Be safe and well!

[bboop]

very interesting re England/ police force.

I can see why. I love those 4 sheriffs in northern Michigan who told the Gov they would not enforce her lock-down laws.