A plague epidemic in voluntary quarantine

Abstract

In September 1665, an outbreak of plague occurred in Eyam, a small village 10 miles west of Sheffield, in an isolated valley of Derbyshire. Eighty per cent of the population died during the 14 months of the epidemic, a greater proportion than any other community in England. When plague threatened to cause panic and desertion of the village, the vicar of Eyam persuaded the villagers to stay, and to impose a voluntary quarantine on their village, in order to avoid spreading the plague to the surrounding villages. Quarantine was strictly observed for the last five months of the epidemic, when it was at its height. A boundary about one mile in diameter was marked out around the village, and food was left at the boundary for villagers to collect. The parish register can be used to describe the natural history of this plague epidemic in quarantine; in the light of current knowledge of plague epidemiology, it shows the traditional account of the origin of the Eyam plague to be improbable. The pattern of the epidemic suggests a typical epidemic of bubonic plague with a rodent reservoir. The policy of quarantine, rightly judged as heroic, was also tragically misguided, and was probably responsible for the unparalleled mortality.