Pandemic

Humans have always lived with various communicable diseases and to a large extent an equilibium based on immunity develops. More serious issues arise when a new disease enters a human population. This can occur due to contact between previously separate human populations, such as the introduction of diseases into the Americas by Europeans, or by transfer from another species. 95% of the indigenous population of the Americas are believed to have been killed off by diseases brought by the Europeans. Species which can harbour diseases capable of spreading to humans include livestock such as swine, poultry and cattle, as well as migratory bird species. Other host species include rats, bats and insects. Aggravating factors in the spread of epidemics to become pandemics have always included long-range trade, climatic change (possibly leading to changes in migration patterns) and social disturbances such as war. Pandemics can themselves lead to further social and economic changes due to factors which include a breakdown of authority or changes in the labor market.

This article looks at the pandemics which have affected Chester and some of their possible causes and social consequences. Of course, it is impossible to say "what might have been" had a particular person not died young as a result of disease, but it is possible to note where the death does seem worth considering in the light of related events concerning Chester.

165: The Antonine Plague


The Antonine Plague of 165 to 180 AD, also known as the Plague of Galen (after Galen, the physician who described it), was an ancient pandemic brought to the Roman Empire by troops who were returning from campaigns in the Near East. Scholars have suspected it to have been either Smallpox or, less likely, a form of Measles. These diseases were not differentiated by medical writers until the 9th century. Both are highly infectious viral diseases. Measles is so contagious that if one person has it, 90% of nearby non-immune people will also become infected. Smallpox is effectively less contagious because of the obvious signs of disease. Neither appears to have an animal host other than humans, which indicates that people have been living with the disease for a very long period, although Camelpox, which humans can catch a mild case of, is the closest relative of Smallpox. The Measles virus appears to have from the now eradicated but formerly widespread Rinderpest virus, which infected cattle.

Ancient sources agree that the plague appeared first during the Roman siege of the Mesopotamian city Seleucia in the winter of 165–166. The following year as the Legions returned to Rome, the plague swept across the Roman empire and may have even, from the evidence of a mass grave in Gloucester (discovered in 2008), have eventually reached Britain. The haphazard character of these burials suggested a community under severe stress, with ritual norms being overridden by the need for the emergency disposal of a large number of corpses. In Rome itself, the most densely inhabited location within the Empire, thousands of the dead were carted unceremoniously away for disposal. The Antonine Plague provides an early example of mass-transport systems facillitating the spread of disease. Prior to large scale or rapid movement of people it is possible that a virulent and often fatal condition would "burn-out" before it could spread far. However an army on the move can, by serial infections, maintain cases of the disease and carry it from place to place.

In the period of disturbance which followed the outbreak tribes along the Danube took the opportunity to make incursions into Roman teritory: the first time that this had happened for over two centuries. One further possible consequence of the pandemic was that the Romans could no longer simply use Roman citizens to make up the legions. In 175, 8000 Samartian cavalry were recruited into the army. Of these 5,500 were redeployed to Britain, also suggesting that the plague had reached Britain along Roman trade routes, depleting the garrisons there. This may have had a rather strange consequence. The Dragon or "Draco" ("dragon" or "serpent", plural dracones) was a military standard of the Roman cavalry. Carried by the Draconarius, the Draco was the standard of the auxiliary cohort as the eagle (aquila) was that of the legion. The Draco may have been introduced to the Roman cavalry by auxiliary units in the 2nd century. It was rather like a wind-sock than a simple banner and may be derived from the Dacians. A tombstone showing a Dacian or Sarmatian rider with a Draco from Roman Chester is on display at the Grosvenor Museum. The missing portion of the stone would have shown that the rider is holding a dragon standard, for which the Sarmatians were known and feared. It consisted of a bronze dragon’s head, with fanged jaws wide open, mounted on top of a long pole. The back of the head was also open, and on to it was fastened a long tube made out of brightly coloured fabric. When the horseman rode into battle at full speed the wind rushed into the dragon’s mouth. The size and shape of the holes in the head were cunningly made, so that the force of the wind not only filled out the tail but made a terrifying shrieking sound. It has been suggested that the "Welsh Dragon" may be derived from this Roman military symbol, via the post-Roman military forces which existed after the departure of the Romans.

The Romans departed from Britain around the year 400 as part of a general collapse of the Western Empire. The people left behind included a Romanised native population and a number of Roman settlers, many of whom would be retired military. These "remainers" would have organised some form of military defence and security forces amongst this "sub-Roman" society. This possibly survived for quite some time in Wales, i.e. that part of the country which is furthest from the eastern coast which was to become threatened by the Anglo-Saxons. The church as introduced by the Romans survived in Wales and made use of many Roman sites, and presumably the roads.

541: The Plague of Justianian
The Plague of Justinian or Justinianic Plague (541–549 AD) was possibly the beginning of the first Old World pandemic of Bubonic Plague, the contagious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. There had almost certainly been earlier pandemics, but much less is known about them, and as is discussed above their consequences can only really be the subject of speculation as regards events in and around Chester.

Yersinia pestis can cause several different types of disease depending on the route of infection. The natural hosts are rodents, but the disease can be spread by fleas. Y. pestis is a versatile killer. In addition to rodents and humans, it is known to have killed camels, chickens, and pigs. People can be exposed by coming into contact with an infected animal (dead or alive), or inhaling infectious droplets that a sick dog or cat has coughed into the air. DNA evidence published in 2015 indicates Y. pestis infected humans 5,000 years ago in Bronze Age Eurasia, but genetic changes that made it highly virulent did not occur until about 4,000 years ago.

The Plague of Justianian afflicted the entire Mediterranean Basin, Europe, and the Near East, severely affecting the Sasanian Empire and the Byzantine Empire and especially its capital, Constantinople. From historical descriptions, as much as 40% of the population of Constantinople died from the plague. It is named after the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) emperor Justinian (11 May 482 – 14 November 565). The plague weakened the Byzantine Empire at a critical point, when Justinian's armies had nearly retaken all of Italy and the western Mediterranean coast. The evolving conquest would have reunited the core of the Western Roman Empire with the Eastern Roman Empire. Some historians have suggested that the plague was the final stage in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the onset of the "Dark Ages". Some historians believe the plague of Justinian was one of the deadliest pandemics in history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 25–50 million people during two centuries of recurrence, a death toll equivalent to 13–26% of the world's population at the time of the first outbreak, others see these figures as an exaggeration. However, the plague was almost certainly the most severe pandemic until the Black Death.

A noted death at around this time was that of Maelgwn Gwynedd who died c.547. Gildas, writing about 540 comments extensively on Maelgwn but does not mention his death, which helps to date the text of Gildas. Gildas makes an allegorical condemnation of five British kings by likening them to the beasts of the Book of Revelation 13:2 - the lion, leopard, bear, and dragon, with the dragon supreme among them. He says that Maelgwn is the "dragon of the island", and goes on with a litany of moral accusations, in the process describing him almost as a regional high king over the other kings (the power-giving dragon of the Apocalypse). The fact that the plague managed to spread to North Wales shows that there was still some movement of goods or people between Europe and Britain, however the route which the pandemic took is not established.

Gildas appears to be writing at a time when there was a pause in the settlement of Britain by the Anglo-Saxons. This pause may have been associated with an instance of "climate change" brought about by volcanic activity. The extent to which Western Europe was afflicted by famines through an “Extreme Weather Event” of circa 535 AD is disputed, but in 535 the Byzantine historian Procopius recorded in his (AD 536) report on the wars with the Vandals,


 * "..during this year a most dread portent took place. For the sun gave forth its light without brightness ... and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear..".

Gildas perhaps alludes to a similar dense cloud:


 * "a certain thick mist and black night of their offences sit(s) upon the whole island"

It is possible that this weakening of the sun was due to a volcanic eruption. Various candidates have been put forward for the location of this volcano, but none has been identified with certainty. The co-incidence of plague, war and climatic events has led to much speculation about how these events might be inter-related. Shortly after these events, there was a period of considerable political flux in Britain, with a large number of conflicts taking part in the years 600-685. As part of this cycle of conflicts Chester saw the Battle of Chester c.616. At that time Chester appears to have been a city of the British (i.e. Welsh) and was possibly an ecclesiastical center.

Until we come to the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, the only authorities are the Irish annals; and in them, the first undoubted entry of a great plague corresponds in date with that of Beda’s history, the year 664. The plague of 664 is the only epidemic in early British annals that can be regarded as a plague of the same nature, and on the same great scale, as the devastation more than a century earlier. The pestilence broke out suddenly in the year 664, and after “depopulating” the southern parts of England, "seized upon the province of Northumbria, where it raged for a long time far and wide, destroying an immense multitude of people". Bede puts this down to the Anglo-Saxon "lapse" into Paganism. There were other isolated instances of disease: in the year 829, all the monks at Canterbury save five are said to have died of pestilence, so that the monastery was left almost desolate.

Of special significance for Chester is the possible plague which raged in the camp of the Vikings at Repton in 875 and may have led directly to the translation of the relics of Werburgh to Chester. Archaeological work at Repton is still ongoing (2020) and it is unclear whether there was an outbreak of disease. One interpretation of the mass grave found there is that Viking dead from elsewhere had been relocated to the site for a ceremonial burial, taking over the former rroyal burial place of the Mercians and incorporating destroyed Christian stonework into new funerary monuments to make a clear assertion of political power and control of the land.

11th-13th Cent: Leprosy and Famine
There were major outbreaks of famine-pestilences in 1196, 1258 and 1315, and many shortages and outbreaks in between. Only one of these is mentioned in the records at Chester and that is the famine following events in 1315. The Great Famine of 1315–1317 (occasionally dated 1315–1322) was the first of a series of large-scale crises that struck Europe early in the 14th century. Most of Europe (extending east to Russia and south to Italy) was affected. The famine caused many deaths over an extended number of years and marked a clear end to the period of growth and prosperity from the 11th to the 13th centuries. The onset of the Great Famine coincided with the end of the Medieval Warm Period. Between 1310 and 1330, northern Europe saw some of the worst and most sustained periods of bad weather in the entire Middle Ages, characterized by severe winters and rainy and cold summers. The Great Famine may have been precipitated by a volcanic event, perhaps that of Mount Tarawera, New Zealand, which lasted about five years. The effects were certainly felt in Chester as Chester merchants were licensed to go to Ireland to buy corn and other victuals for the king (Edward II).

The incubation period of Leprosy can range between 9 months and 20 years. It appears to be one of the oldest human diseases having infected hominids for millions of years. The long incubation period and relatively slow disease progress is often characteristic of a disease which has been evolving along with its host for an extended period. The pre-human host has not been identified, although it may be rodents, in particular red squirrels. Leprosy grew into a pandemic in Europe in the Middle Ages, resulting in the building of numerous leprosy-focused hospitals to accommodate the vast number of victims. Exactly what constituted "Leprosy" in various historical times extended somewhat beyond the modern definition of the disease, and at times it appears to have been used as a "catch-all" for any kind of disfiguring ailment or progressive skin disease. Leprosy was apparently a particular concern of the Normans, with the French being noted for outbreaks of Ergotism ("ignis") and the English notorious for famine in general. A medieval proverb reads:


 * "Tres plagae tribus regionibus appropriari solent, Anglorum fames, Gallorum ignis, Normannorum lepra" - Quoted, without date, by Marchand, Étude historique et nosographique sur quelques épidémies et endémies du moyen âge. Paris, 1873.

The Norman familiarity with "Leprosy" may be one reason why the development of at least some primitive "hospitals" started after the conquest. This indicates some progress away from simply shunning those who were suffering from less fatal disease. The Leper Hospital at Chester was located near the site of St Giles Cemetery at Boughton, and gave the area its sometime name of "Spital Boughton". In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Spital Boughton so:


 * "BOUGHTON (Spittle), an extra-parochial tract, in Great Boughton district, Cheshire; contiguous to St. John Baptist parish within Chester city."

The assocoation with St Johns is evident from the much damaged statue above the doorway of St Johns. This shows the figure of St Giles whose patronage extends to many forms of diability. The third Lateran Council (1179) based one of its decrees upon what must have been a common experience, namely, that lepers were unable to mix freely with others, and that they were objected to in the same church, and even as corpses in the same churchyard. Segregating them at the city limits (an area also used for public executions) was possibly not the most harsh solution. The inscription on a stone slab marking the cemetery reads:


 * "Here stood the Leper hospital and chapel of St Giles founded early in the 12th Century and endowed by successive Norman earls of Chester they remained in constant use until 1643 when defensive measures during the siege of Chester necessitated the demolition of buildings outside the city walls. The cemetery remained to mark the site and in time the little village of Spital clustered round it. In 1644 the royalist defenders suffered great loss of life in a gallant sortie in Boughton and many of the fallen were buried here. It was also used for victims of the plagues which ravaged the city in the 16th and 17th centuries. Being extra-parochial the site was granted to the corporation by Charles II in 1685 as a burial ground and through a period in the charge of St John's parish it remains in their hands. When the protestant martyr George Marsh was burnt at the stake on Gallows Hill close by his ashes were collected by his friends and buried here. The last burial took place in 1854."

While the hospital is said to have been founded by Ranulf de Blondeville, earl of Chester but the hospital possibly existed before 1181 as 20 shillings. a year was paid to the 'infirm' of Chester during the minority of Ranulph and that sum was paid in the 14th century to the lepers of Boughton as "ancient alms". Ranulph gave an annual rent charge of 10s. to St. Werburgh's from which the monks were to feed 100 paupers once a year and to give 20d. a year to the lepers of Boughton to commemorate his father Hugh de Kevelioc. Another foundation of Henry II.’s reign was the leper-hospital of St Mary Magdalen at Sponne, outside the walls of Coventry. It was founded by an Earl of Chester, who, having a certain leprous knight in his household, gave in pure alms for the health of his soul and the souls of his ancestors his chapel at Sponne with the site thereof, and half a carucate of land for the maintenance of such lepers as should happen to be in the town of Coventry. There was one priest to celebrate, and with him were wont to be also certain brethren or sisters together with the lepers, praying to God for the good estate of all their benefactors.

"Leprosy" (or "Hansens's Diseease") is a long-term infection by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae or Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Leprosy has a low pathogenicity and 95% of people who contract M. leprae do not develop the disease. Despite the establishment of some "hospital" facilities, the social perception of leprosy in medieval communities was generally one of fear, and people infected with the disease were thought to be unclean, untrustworthy, and morally corrupt. Segregation from mainstream society was common, and people with leprosy were often required to wear clothing that identified them as such or carry a bell announcing their presence. However, the inmates of the hospital at Boughton enjoyed extensive privileges, which included a toll on all food bought for sale in Chester and a fishing boat on the Dee. The hospital also came to possess land and rents in and near Chester - some came to the hospital with new inmates: land in Eastgate Street was given by the relatives of Yseult, who, 'smitten by the scourge of a visitation from on high', had been admitted to the hospital. When Henry III annexed the earldom of Chester after 1237 he proved a generous patron of the hospital. Between 1237 and 1240 he gave £5 yearly and in 1238-9 and 1240 additional grants of 10 marks towards its maintenance. The relations of the hospital with the citizens of Chester and the monks of St. Werburgh's were not always happy. Around 1300 the masters were involved in legal disputes concerning detention of rents, tolls or alms, the Dee fishery, and usury. The privilege of collecting the tolls was still being claimed in 1499 and exercised in 1537 when the city authorities pointed out that, whereas the privilege had originally been granted to relieve the sick, the inmates of the hospital were able-bodied; it was ordered that admissions should be confined to the sick of the city of Chester on penalty of loss of the market tolls. Also in 1537 the inmates were forbidden to wash food or clothes in the newly built conduit at Boughton (which transported water from the Boughton springs to the town and abbey) and were ordered to prevent their animals damaging the conduit and to see that the pipes were properly covered.

1350: The Black Death
The most authoritative contemporary account of the Black Death is found in a report from the medical faculty in Paris to Philip VI of France. It blamed the heavens, in the form of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars conjoined in the sky, under the sign of Aquarius, and a solar eclipse on the same day. This March 24th, 1345 event was interpreted as causing a "great pestilence in the air" (according to the "miasma theory").

The predominant modern theory is that due to climate change in Asia, rodents began to flee the dried-out grasslands to more populated areas, spreading the disease. The mechanism by which Y. pestis is usually transmitted was established in 1898 by Paul-Louis Simond and was found to involve the bites of fleas whose midguts had become obstructed by replicating Y. pestis several days after feeding on an infected host. This blockage starves the fleas and drives them to aggressive feeding behaviour and attempts to clear the blockage by regurgitation, resulting in thousands of plague bacteria being flushed into the feeding site, infecting the host.

The most likely of the fourteenth-century English annalists to have given us a good account of the Black Death was the historian Ranulphus Higden, author of the Polychronicon, who became a monk of St Werburgh’s abbey at Chester about the beginning of the century, and lived to see the disastrous year of 1349, although by then he was very old for his times. Under the year 1348 he begins the subject of the great mortality, speaks of the incessant rains of the second half of the year from Midsummer to Christmas, refers to the ravages of the plague at Avignon, the then ecclesiastical capital of Christendom, just mentions England and Ireland, and then lets the pen fall from his hand. The period from 1348 to 1352 is an absolute blank. He comes to the edge of the great subject of that time, as if he had intended to deal with it comprehensively, beginning with a notice of the previous weather, which is by no means irrelevant, and after two or three lines more he breaks off. Most of the monastic chronicles are interrupted at the same point; if there is an entry at all under the year 1349 it is for the most part merely the words "magna mortalitas". Higden's sudden silence at the end of his epic work, clearly indicates the massive impact of the pestilence.

Responsible for the death of one-third of the world population, this second large outbreak of the Bubonic Plague possibly started in Asia and moved west in caravans. Entering through Sicily in 1347 A.D. when plague sufferers arrived in the port of Messina, it spread throughout Europe rapidly. Edward III, crowned king of England in 1327, lost his fourteen-year-old daughter Joan to the lethal clutches of are earlier wave of plague. Nearly fifty years later, his grandson King Richard II was stricken with the same grief when his wife, Queen Anne of Bohemia, succumbed to it. Historians have speculated that her counsel had a moderating effect on Richard during her lifetime and that his tyranical behaviour towards the end of his rule, which wouls eventually lead to his downfall at Chester, was in part a result of her death.

The development of quarantine was one consequence of the Black Death. The word "quarantine" originates from quarantena, the Venetian language form, meaning "forty days". This is due to the 40-day isolation of ships and people practised as a measure of disease prevention related to the plague. A document from 1377 states that before entering the city-state of Ragusa in Dalmatia (modern Dubrovnik in Croatia), newcomers had to spend 30 days (a trentine) in a restricted place (originally nearby islands, such as Lokrum) waiting to see whether the symptoms of Black Death would develop. The Venetians increased the length of this period giving rise to the modern term. Venice founded the first lazaret (on the small island of Lazzaretto Vecchio adjoining the city) in 1403. A lazaretto or lazaret (from Italian: lazzaretto a diminutive form of the Italian word for beggar) is a quarantine station for maritime travellers.

There was no effective cure for the Black Death, although some ineffective methods were suggested. One of the most popular cures was the “Vicary Method”, named after the English doctor Thomas Vicary, who first proposed it. A healthy chicken was taken and its back and rear plucked clean; this bare part of the live chicken was then applied to the swollen nodes of the sick person and the chicken strapped in place. When the chicken showed signs of illness, it was thought to be drawing the disease from the person. It was removed, washed, and strapped back on and this continued until the chicken or the patient (or both) died.

The Black Death would have indirect consequences for Chester. At the start of the 14th century, the majority of English people worked in the countryside economy that fed the country's towns and cities and supported an extensive international trade. Across much of England, production was organised around manors, controlled by local lords – including the gentry and the Church – and governed through a system of manorial courts. Then the Black Death arrived. After an initial period of economic shock, England began to adapt to the changed economic situation. The death rate among the peasantry meant that suddenly land was relatively plentiful and labourers in much shorter supply. Labourers could charge more for their work and, in the consequent competition for labour, wages were driven sharply upwards. In turn, the profits of landowners were eroded. The trading, commercial and financial networks in the towns disintegrated. The authorities responded to the chaos with emergency legislation; the Ordinance of Labourers was passed in 1349, and the Statute of Labourers in 1351. These attempted to fix wages at pre-plague levels, making it a crime to refuse work or to break an existing contract, imposing fines on those who transgressed. The plague hit the monastic institutions hard leading to a shortage of clerics and this class of writers and record keepers were needed for the rapidly changing economy. Monastic vows of chastity did not sit well with many of this class of scribes and the first stirrings of what was to become Protestantism were seen, as well as doubt in the power of the established church. One result was the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, which should be seen as indicative of wider social changes rather than an isolated event. The Peasants' Revolt was followed by the reign of Richard II, a king very much associated with Chester. Possibly to avoid the on-going social and political uphevals in the south, Richard established a power-base at Chester (and kept his Royal Treasure nearby).

1485: Sweating Sickness
Sweating sickness, also known as the sweats, English sweating sickness, English sweat or sudor anglicus in Latin, was a mysterious and contagious disease that struck England and later continental Europe in a series of epidemics beginning in 1485. The last outbreak occurred in 1551, after which the disease apparently vanished. Nothing is known for certain about whether it had an animal carrier. Relapsing fever, a disease spread by ticks and lice, has been proposed as a possible cause. It occurs most often during the summer months, as did the original sweating sickness. Specific similarities between the English sweating sickness and diseases caused by various species of hantavirus indicate that a hantavirus may have been the cause of the sweating sickness. Humans may become infected with hantaviruses through contact with rodent urine, saliva, or feces, although human to human transmission is rare.

The onset of symptoms was sudden, with death often occurring within hours. As the first confirmed outbreak was in August 1485 at the end of the Wars of the Roses, which has led to speculation that it may have been brought over from France by the French mercenaries whom Henry Tudor used to gain the English throne. However, an earlier outbreak may have affected the city of York in June 1485, before Tudor's army landed, although the record of that disease's symptoms is not adequate enough to be certain. The Croyland Chronicle mentions that Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby used the sweating sickness as an excuse not to join with Richard III's army prior to Tudor's victory over Richard at the Battle of Bosworth.

In March 1502, Arthur Tudor and his wife Catherine were afflicted by an unknown illness, "a malign vapour which proceeded from the air". While Catherine recovered, Arthur died on 2 April 1502 at Ludlow, six months short of his sixteenth birthday. The sickness did seem to be more fatal for men: at Chester in 1507 it is said, the sweating sickness destroyed 91 in three days, of whom only four were women. A 1517 record at Chester mentions an outbreak of "plague", which is taken to mean sweating sickness; it is said also to have been "probably more serious than in 1507"; many died, others fled; and the grass grew a foot high at the High Cross.

The final wave of Sweating Sickness saw the death of Gregory Cromwell who died of it on 4 July 1551 at his home, Launde Abbey, Leicestershire.

The Upton Plague-Stone
Plague stones were set up in order that the people might barter for food. People from the afflicted districts came to the district plague stone and placed money in a bowl which contained disinfectants (such as vinegar) and then retired to a safe distance. Food, in exchange, was placed on or near the stone. One of the most notable plague stones is at Eyam in Derbyshire.

The Upton stone formerly stood at the Upton cross-roads. The "bowl" was restored by Mr. J. Collins, The Blue Coat School, Chester, in 1938 and is now located in the churchyard. It is locally referred to as the "Wealstone" by some.

Smallpox
The young monarch King Edward VI was just fourteen when he fell prey to smallpox and measles, and despite a relatively swift recuperation, then succumbed (1553) to a bout of tuberculosis which was attributed to the compromised state of his immune system. Although Edward reigned for only six years and died at the age of 15, his reign made a lasting contribution to the English Reformation and the structure of the Church of England. The last decade of Henry VIII's reign had seen a partial stalling of the Reformation, a drifting back to more conservative values. By contrast, Edward's reign saw radical progress in the Reformation. In those six years, the Church transferred from an essentially Catholic liturgy and structure to one that is usually identified as Protestant. Queen Mary's attempts to undo the reforming work of her brother's reign faced major obstacles, but had Mary lived longer, her Catholic reconstruction might have succeeded, leaving Edward's reign, rather than hers, as a historical aberration. On Mary's death in 1558, the English Reformation resumed its course, and most of the reforms instituted during Edward's reign were reinstated in the Elizabethan Religious Settlement.

Edward VI left his mark on Chester in the form of the motto "The Fear of the Lord is a Fountain of Life" found on a house in Park Street. This is sometimes said to be the inscription on an "ancient" (some say Roman) coin found on the site, - it is also found in Proverbs [14:27] (so unlikely to be on a Roman coin). However almost the same words: "TIMOR . DOMINE . FONS . VITAE" were struck onto a (now incredibly rare) issue of silver shillings of Edward VI in 1549, as well as on the gold half-sovereign of the same year (and some groats amd other coins). Just because something is written in latin, that does not mean that what it is written on is a Roman relic!

1665: The Great Plague
In another devastating appearance, the bubonic plague led to the deaths of 20 percent of London’s population. As human death tolls mounted and mass graves appeared, hundreds of thousands of cats and dogs were slaughtered as the possible cause. The plague had not gone away completely since the last outbreak. In Chester there was an outbreak in 1558. The records atate that many fled the town, although the deaths were few. A State paper of February 25, 1559, speaks of the county of Cheshire as "weakened by the prevalence of plague". The plague struck again in 1574, when "plague began, but was stayed with the death of some few in the crofts", although it apparently spread through Chester to Ireland.

Chester in 1603-5
For Chester there are full particulars of a great plague. It began in September, 1602, in a glover’s house in St John’s Lane, where 7 died, and kept increasing until the weekly deaths reached 60. In 1603 there died of the plague 650, and of other diseases 61. In 1604 the plague-deaths were 986, of which 55 were in one week. From October 14, 1604, to March 20, 1605, 812 died, and about 100 more until the 9th January, 1606, when the infection ceased for a time. Cabins outside the city were erected for the plague-stricken. In some houses, especially of sailors, five or six of the same family died in the course of two or three weeks.

Although the Midsummer show and fair were cancelled, citizens seem to have flouted safety measurers: John Aldersey, for example, was moved from Eastgate Street to Watergate Street while sick. Richer citizens, perhaps more worried about the state of their businesses after the first phase than about the disease itself, may have delayed flight too long. William Aldersey, another former mayor, left only when the weekly death-toll reached 58 and his next-door neighbour's family had been almost wiped-out.

In the long term, the double epidemic of 1603-5 was not a serious demographic setback for Chester. Only in the "final" year was there a net loss in numbers of householders. For a time afterwards families may have been on average smaller, though there seems to have been an immediate baby-boom. But the plague did not go away completely: in 1608 14 died of it "at the Talbot" and in 161o "many died of the plague".

Henry, Chester's Prince (died 1612)
Henry died from typhoid fever at the age of 18, during the celebrations that led up to his sister Elizabeth's wedding. (The diagnosis can be made with reasonable certainty from written records of the post-mortem examination, which was ordered to be carried out in order to dispel rumours of poisoning.)

Chester in 1647
The plague arrived in June 1647, perhaps with troops bound for Ireland. The onslaught was unprecedented. In 16 weeks 1,863 people died. The first week alone claimed 64 victims, more than the week of highest mortality in 1605. The peak was the seventh week, with 209 dead, and the worst of the epidemic was over in the sixteenth week with 52 dead, after which there was a long tail of intermittent deaths, lasting until April 1648 and numbering 236. The plague was reported as taking its victims 'very strangely, strikes them black of one side, and then they run mad;. . . they die within a few hours'. It was evidently bubonic plague, and Chester was one of two places in the British Isles hit hardest in the outbreak. Total deaths between June 1647 and April 1648 amounted to 2,099, perhaps 35 per cent of the population if it had remained stable after the end of the siege. By contrast with the epidemic of 1603-5, recovery was slow. In the 1650s even prosperous parishes like St. Peter's and St. Michael's had only two thirds of their pre-plague population. The plague lingered into 1651, but was then mostly present in the surrounding villages. Whitmore writes:


 * "It is well known,” he says, “that this disease in the year 1651 [the same fever that he describes more fully for the years 1658 and 1659] first broke out by the seaside in Cheshire, Lancashire, and North Wales.... In Cheshire in the year 1651 this disease seized most upon the country people who were laborious, the seeds being sooner dispersed in them through the agitation of the humours and spirits in their harvest labours, than on those who lead a more sedentary life; and that might be one reason why we were so free in the city of Chester, when within three or four miles of us round about, whole towns were infected with it, there being 80 and 100 sick at a time in small villages, as at Stanney, Dunham-on-the-hill, Norton and all there abouts by the water side it extremely raged."

Chester did not recover from the combined effects of the siege and the epidemic until perhaps 1700, but even that may have been at someone else's expense. Nationally, the closing decade of the seventeenth century saw the generally favourable economic conditions that had dominated since the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, come to an end. The 1690s marked the lowest point of the Little Ice Age, of colder and wetter weather. This reduced the altitude at which crops could be grown and shortened the growing season by up to two months in extreme years. There were four years of failed harvests (1695, 1696 and 1698–99). Climatic conditions were so poor that the "seven ill years" was a period of national famine in Scotland which killed 5–15 per cent of the Scottish population. In 1698 the privy council openly admitted that Scotland was in the grip of:


 * "..not only a Scarcity, but a perfeit Famine, which is more sensible than ever was known in this Nation"

The massive eruptions of volcanoes at Hekla in Iceland (1693) and Serua (1693) and Aboina (1694) in Indonesia may have polluted the atmosphere and filtered out significant amounts of sunlight. In addition, the "Maunder Minimum" which occurred between 1645 and 1715, and when very few sunspots were observed, may have had climatic effects. With the Nine Year's War (1689-87) in progress, merchants (and the gentry) looking to use their idle capital became supporters of trading in shares. Construction of "The Exchange" at Chester may well have been prompted by this time of financial speculation which saw not only the first major stock-market boom but also the creation of the Bank of England (and bank-notes).

1702: Ergotism
1702 brought a rare outbreak of what was most likely Ergotism. Historically, eating grain products, particularly rye, contaminated with the fungus Claviceps purpurea was the cause of ergotism. The disease is one of crops and cannot be passed from person to person. The results of ergot poisoning may be one of the causes of the medieval Dancing Mania otherwise known as "St Vitus Dance". Numerous hypotheses have been proposed for the causes of dancing mania, and it remains unclear whether it was a real illness or a social phenomenon. However one of the most prominent theories is that victims suffered from ergot poisoning, which was known as St. Anthony's fire in the Middle Ages. The "ergot" theory cannot account for all of the symptoms of the mania, such as the large numbers suddenly affected.

An account of might well have been the "index case" was sent to the Royal Society by Dr Charles Leigh:


 * "We have this year [1702] had an epidemical fever, attended with very surprising symptoms. In the beginning, the patient was frequently attacked with the colica ventriculi; convulsions in various parts, sometimes violent vomitings, and a dysentery; the jaundice, and in many of them, a suppression of urine; and what urine was made was highly saturated with choler. About the state of the distemper, large purple spots appeared, and on each side of ’em two large blisters, which continued three or four days: these blisters were so placed about the spots that they might in some measure be term’d satellites or tenders: of these there were in many four different eruptions. But the most remarkable instance I saw in the fever was in a poor boy of Lymm in Cheshire, one John Pownel, about 13 years of age, who was affected with the following symptoms:— Upon the crisis or turn of the fever, he was seized with an aphonia, and was speechless six weeks [? days], with the following convulsions: the distemper infested the nerves of both arms and legs which produced the Chorea Sancti Viti, or St Vitus’s dance; and the legs sometimes were both so contracted that no person could reduce them to their natural position. Besides these, he had most terrible symptoms, which began in the following manner: [description of convulsions follows] ... and then he barked in all the usual notes of a dog, sometimes snarling, barking, and at the last howling like an hound. After this the nerves of the mandibles were convulsed, and then the jaws clashed together with that violence that several of his teeth were beaten out, and then at several times there came a great foam from his mouth.... These symptoms were so amazing that several persons about him believed he was possessed. I told them there was no ground for such suppositions, but that the distemper was natural, and a species of an epilepsy, and by the effects I convinced them of the truth of it; for in a week’s time I recovered the boy his speech, his senses returned, his convulsions vanished, and the boy is now very cheerful. There have been other persons in this country much after the same manner."

This epidemic of 1702 in Lancashire and Cheshire was recorded as something unusual, and it indeed appears that while "Dancing Mania" and "St Anthony's Fire" were fairly common in Europe it was virtually unknown in England.

Cholera
Though cholera has been around for many centuries, the disease came to prominence in the 19th century where there were a series of pandemics. The second pandemic originated in India and spread along trade and military routes to Eastern and Central Asia and the Middle East.

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. It is spread mostly by unsafe water and unsafe food that has been contaminated with human feces containing the bacteria. Undercooked seafood is a common source. Humans are the only animal affected. The word cholera is from Greek: χολέρα kholera from χολή kholē "bile". Cholera likely has its origins in the Indian subcontinent as evidenced by its prevalence in the region for centuries. The first cholera pandemic occurred in the Bengal region of India, near Calcutta starting in 1817 through 1824. The disease dispersed from India to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Eastern Africa. The movement of British Army and Navy ships and personnel is believed to have contributed to the range of the pandemic, since the ships carried people with the disease to the shores of the Indian Ocean, from Africa to Indonesia, and north to China and Japan.

1832
By autumn of 1830, cholera had made it to Moscow. The spread of the disease temporarily slowed during the winter, but picked up again in spring of 1831, reaching Finland and Poland. It then passed into Hungary and Germany. The disease subsequently spread throughout Europe, including reaching Great Britain for the first time via the port of Sunderland in late 1831. The public became gripped with widespread fear of the disease and distrust of authority figures, most of all doctors. Unbalanced press reporting led people to think that more victims died in the hospital than their homes, and the public began to believe that victims taken to hospitals were killed by doctors for anatomical dissection, an outcome they referred to as "Burking". This fear resulted in several "cholera riots" in Liverpool during 1832. 1832 was also a year of political gatherings: the cholera had occurred at the same time as the struggle for parliamentary reform that culminated in the passage of the Great Reform Act in June 1832. Hostility was a common feature of the popular response to the epidemic across Europe. In European cities it often centred upon conspiracy theories about the poisoning of the poor by doctors on behalf of the upper classes.

Cholera riots were also not just an English phenomenon. The Cholera Riots (Холерные бунты) in Russia started due to the anti-cholera measures, undertaken by the tsarist government, such as quarantine, armed cordons and migratory restrictions. Influenced by rumors of deliberate contamination of ordinary people by government officials and doctors, agitated mobs started raiding police departments and state hospitals, killing hated functionaries, officers, landowners and gentry. In Britain the first riots appear to have been in Aberdeen. The city of Liverpool experienced more riots than elsewhere. Between 29 May and 10 June 1832, eight major street riots occurred, with several other minor disturbances. The "Burking" issue was of special concern to the Liverpool citizenry because in 1826, thirty-three bodies had been discovered on the Liverpool docks, about to be shipped to Scotland for dissection. Two years later a local surgeon, William Gill, was tried and found guilty of running an extensive local grave robbing system to supply corpses for his dissection rooms.

1866
The 1866 Chester Cholera epidemic followed a cattle plague the previous year. At the time people believed that this was due to drinking water being contaminated by surface drainage from places where dead cattle had been buried in haste. At a meeting of the Assembly in May 1866 it was decided to provide two places for Cholera wards within the City in case the outbreak reached Chester. One of these was located in a disused farmhouse on the land which was to become Grosvenor Park. The heftiest women from the local workhouse were selected as potential nurses but there was some concern that they were neither honest nor sober, had no training and that it was unwise to put them in charge of either patients or medicines. Fortunately Frances Wilbraham (1815-1905) of Kings Buildings (King Street), a wealthy member of the local gentry volunteered to oversee them. The first two case of cholera appeared on 1st September 1866. One was a woman from a tenement in Goss Street the other Alderman John Trevor, a former mayor and editor of the Chester Chronicle: both were dead within days. The ward in the park was soon full of the sick and dying, but Francis Wilbraham nursed them tirelessly and by November the outbreak began to abate. The Duke of Westminster called Frances Wilbraham the "Florence Nightingale of Chester". The farmhouse was demolished before Grosvenor Park was opened.

1899: Isolation Hospital
The idea of isolating patients suffering from infectious fevers in special hospital wards or confining them to their own homes was recognised at the end of the 18th century by Dr John Haygarth who retired to Bath after 30 years in Chester. His views were embodied in letters he wrote to British and American doctors which were read to the Bath Philosophical Society, although Bath did not establish an isolation hospital for many years. In Chester, Haygarth had put his ideas into practice at the Infirmary. In 1778 Haygarth helped found the Smallpox Society of Chester; the group advocated inoculation, an unpopular position at the time, and tried to educate the populace so as to avoid casual contraction of the disease. Only four years after this effort began, Chester's smallpox mortality rate had been reduced by almost 50%. In an experiment starting in 1785 had Haygarth turned some lumber out of a long attic, got windows open and make a fever isolation ward. As typhus/typhoid (Enteric Fever) is transmitted by lice or rat-fleas, it was essential that floors were scrubbed, clothes and linen washed or disposed of and that all utensils were marked for use in this ward alone. Unfortunately, no-one would come and work there. Eventually a male patient who had had surgery volunteered to look after men, but he caught fever and died. Presently a nurse, Lowry Thomas, came forward. She served men and women for eleven years. Four times she contracted fever, the fifth time she died. There was also Jane Bird, catching fever twice in four years and then resigning. Haygarth complained they had done too much. Most patients survived, the spread of diseases was reduced and no-one in the rest of the hospital caught an infection.

The city council opened its own isolation hospital on the south side of Sealand Road almost at the city boundary in 1899 to meet its statutory obligation to provide treatment for patients with certain notifiable infectious diseases, among which scarlet fever, diphtheria, and typhoid were the most common. The hospital was designed by Harry Beswick with an administration block and four separate pavilion wards, accommodating 46 patients in all. It cost £21,300. In 1900 the corrugated-iron buildings at Infirmary field were moved to an even more remote site off Bumper's Lane, south of the isolation hospital, and arranged as two wards for up to 12 smallpox patients.

The hospital usually had between 10 and 20 patients at any one time, and coped with more serious outbreaks by putting up temporary accommodation. When smallpox infected 67 people in 1903, for example, the council's public health committee put up tents near the smallpox wards. Its other measures including opening vaccination points in Lower Bridge Street and Saltney, closing schools in Handbridge, and cancelling or postponing some of the regular summer entertainments, and fatalities were restricted to just six. In 1909 tents were again used for an outbreak of scarlet fever.

The smallpox wards, virtually disused after 1903, housed German prisoners of war in 1918–19. It seems to have played little part in the influenza outbreak. As part of the changes leading up to the creation of the National Health Service, the isolation hospital was closed in 1947 and patients were treated at Clatterbridge Hospital on Wirral until isolation wards were opened at the City Hospital. The buildings at Sealand Road were made over to the city council's public assistance committee and reopened in 1948 as an old people's home, Sealand House.

1918: Spanish Flu and the 20th Century
There are four genera of influenza virus, each containing only a single species, or type. Influenza A and C infect a variety of species (including humans), while influenza B almost exclusively infects humans, and influenza D infects cattle and pigs. The type A viruses are the most virulent human pathogens among the three "human" influenza types and cause the most severe disease. Flu viruses vary widely in their host range, infectiveness and the seriousness of infection. Migratory birds can spread influenza across long distances. An example of this was when an H5N1 strain in 2005 infected birds at Qinghai Lake, China, which is a stopover and breeding site for many migratory birds, subsequently spreading the virus to more than 20 countries across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The virus can be transmitted from wild birds to domestic free-range ducks and in turn to poultry through contaminated water and aerosols. Transmission to poultry typically occurs in backyard farming and live animal markets where multiple species interact with each other. However for some strains transmission between species is rare.

The word "influenza" comes from the Italian word influenza, from medieval Latin influentia, originally meaning "visitation" or "influence" of the stars. This referred to the disease's cause, which at the time was ascribed by some to unfavorable astrological conditions. Before the start of the 20th Century it has been estimated that ther had been around ten flu' pandemics. Between March 1918 and May 1919, approximately 228,000 Britains lost their lives to what is often termed "the Spanish Flu". By comparison the deaths in Britain due to WW1 (1914-1918) were less than three times this figure: about 700,000. Worldwide, it had been estimated that the pandemic killed at least 20-50 million people (possibly as many as 100 million): more in one year than the Black Death killed in a century. Despite its name, the first recorded cases and deaths from Spanish flu were in the US (in Kansas), with later cases being identified in France, Germany, and the UK. However, the near-simultaneous appearance of influenza in March–April 1918 in North America, Europe, and Asia makes definitive assignment of a geographic point of origin difficult. Convincing evidence has been put forward that a significant part of the spread was through troops involved in the First World War.

Most countries — already suffering from the devastating effects of World War I — imposed censorship on their press. But Spain remained neutral during the war, which meant national newspapers reported freely on the impact of the virus. This, and the fact that the Spanish King (Alfonso XIII) caught it, led to the false impression that the virus originated in Spain. Scientists offer several possible explanations for the high mortality rate of the 1918 influenza pandemic, including a severe 6-year climate anomaly that affected the migration of disease vectors and increased the likelihood of the spread of the disease through bodies of water. Others consider that the virus was a particularly deadly strain, while yet others have concluded that it was no more deadly than other strains and that malnourishment, overcrowded medical camps and hospitals, and poor hygiene, all exacerbated by the recent war, promoted bacterial superinfection which killed most of the victims. Some writers appear to place much emphasis on particular reasons for the high mortality.

In England, the Registrar General’s figures showed four of the five towns with the worst death rates per 100,000 from Spanish Flu were in the North East and Yorkshire – Hebburn (1194); Jarrow (877); Kidderminster (849); Barnsley (835) and Wallsend (828). In 1918 American soldiers began to arrive in Chester and baseball matches were held to make them feel welcome. Despite the onset of the 'Spanish' influenza epidemic, peace was celebrated 'exuberantly', with huge bonfires. Attempts to contain the virus were made in some places. Relative to the average number of flu deaths per week over the course of the epidemic, the number of flu deaths at the peak was lower in cities that pursued more aggressive policies, such as school closing and prohibition of public gatherings, but the numbers are suspect simply because the measures that were put in place were typically only enforced for about one month.

Overcrowding and poor sanitation encouraged the spread of tuberculosis and diphtheria in Chester. By the 1930's most zygomatic diseases had begun to retreat, but diphtheria remained intractable. Between 1930 and 1942, when immunization was voluntary, there were 1,269 cases and 83 deaths in Chester. After compulsory vaccination was introduced in 1942, deaths from diphtheria ceased. While the overall death rate in Chester was not much higher than the national average, it always exceeded that for small towns, the category in which the city was classed.

SARS, COVID
Coronavirus is the common name for Coronaviridae and Orthocoronavirinae, also called Coronavirinae. Coronaviruses cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans, the viruses cause respiratory infections, including the common cold, which are typically mild, though rarer forms such as SARS (including the one causing COVID-19) and MERS can be lethal. Coronavirus is only very distantly related to the influenza virus. Both are Orthornavirae, but this "kingdom" includes most human, animal, and plant viruses. The corresponding level of relation for humans would be to all other animals, e.g. the degree of relation between the common cold and influenza can be likened to that between a jellyfish and a wasp. As recent events have shown some few members of this family of viruses, particularly those in the genus "Betacoronavirus" are associated with serious health issues. The common cold and COVID have the same (Genus) level of relationship as humans have to Homo floresiensis ("Flores Man"; nicknamed "hobbit")

The full effect of the 2020 COVID outbreak on Chester is yet to be seen. As of 2021 the effects are significant but fall far short of the effects of, for example, the Black Death. The longer term effects of pandemics are often possible to speculate upon in hindsight, but impossible to predict in advance.

Conclusions
Over the centuries Chester has been afflicted with many of the infections which have occurred elsewhere in Britain. The reasons for the outbreaks are much the same as elsewhere: pathogen introduction and/or mutation, complicated by a lack of knowledge, and one or more of poor living conditions, famine and war. Chester's function as a port at times made matters worse.

John Haygarth's work at Chester set the pattern for dealing with many infectious diseases, particularly Smallpox: find every case; isolate the infected individual and immunise all their contacts.

Sources and Links
The links below relate to the history of pandemics and, where possible, their impact on Chester. While it is useful to compare the past instances of pandemics with the present (2020/1) pandemic, the links should not be considered as a source of medical advice.

Related Pages

 * Infirmary
 * St Giles Cemetery;

Online

 * The Aurelian Plague; Pandemic Events and the Military;
 * Demography 1550-1762;
 * A History of Epidemics in Brtain;
 * Resolving Repton;
 * Stories of an influenza pandemic;
 * The Origin and Virulence of the 1918 “Spanish” Influenza Virus;