Bubonic plague may first have visited London around 166 or 167, when the town was called Londinium and was the center of Roman Britain. At that time, it was part of a general European epidemic, and although its true nature is not known with certainty, the sickness quite possibly was the plague. Archaeologists know that the rats that carry plague were in London by the third century, and probably earlier. Over its long history, London, like other great cities has had frequent epidemic diseases brought on by overcrowding, lack of sanitation and pest control, and no knowledge of preventive medicine. By the sixteenth century, London was one of the largest cities in the world, crowded with immigrants and subject to epidemics. An influenza virus killed many Londoners in 1558–1559, but plague came more often (and was never entirely absent) during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. An outbreak of plague in 1593 killed an estimated 18,000 people, and that of 1603 killed 30,000. But the worst of the plague epidemics, that of 1665, killed perhaps 65,000 to 110,000 people, although the exact figure can never be known.
Plague was difficult to diagnose in its early stages, because the symptoms varied among victims. Often, however, it started with a severe chill, followed in short order by convulsions and nausea, with protracted vomiting. Next came a period of malaise and depression, marked by severe headaches and loss of balance. At this point, some victims fell into a coma. Some died without regaining consciousness; others revived and in many cases, developed buboes (hence, the name bubonic plague). Buboes were purple, black, or red lumps that could appear in the groin, armpits, or less commonly, other parts of the body. These “plague tokens,” as they were often called, were frequently accompanied by delirium, irrational activities, and a high fever, followed in short order by death..................
