2 min. read
The Results Are In! DNA Finally Confirms The Cause Of The Great Plague Of London!
The Great Plague that lasted from 1665-1666 wiped out a quarter of London's population, and was only stopped by the Great Fire of London.
A mass burial site for plague victims was uncovered last year during excavations around Liverpool Street. About 3,500 bodies were found, and a lab confirmed the presence of the DNA from the parasite that caused the bubonic plague meaning these bodies all definitely were victims of the plague.
Although we have a vague idea of how the medieval plague functioned, there's much we still don't know about the disease, or why the outbreak in 1665 was the final big outbreak in the UK. Contemporaneous accounts of the plague are pretty grim...
"The plague, as I suppose all distempers do, operated in a different manner on differing constitutions; some were immediately overwhelmed with it, and it came to violent fevers, vomitings, insufferable headaches, pains in the back, and so up to ravings and ragings with those pains...others with swellings and tumours in the neck or groin, or armpits, which till they could be broke put them into insufferable agonies and torment; while others, as I have observed, were silently infected."
All of the bodies in the pit were buried immaculately, and have been incredibly useful for researchers and historians. DNA results have been able to confirm the presence of the bubonic plague virus, and scientists are hopeful that this fact will enable them to answer many more questions.
Researchers were unable to identify any of the victims, but a headstone was discovered near the site belonging to Mary Godfree, who died in September of 1665. Rest in Peace Mary, rest in peace.
(And don't worry, you can't catch the plague from these victims)
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