1665 — A Journal of the Plague Year — Physicians
A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe 1722
Part of a series — A Journal of the Plague Year — An Annotated Text
Physicians / Apothecary
Sir Edward Alston (1595–1669)
was the president of the College of Physicians.
while the college was unguarded during the plague, thieves carried off the money.
William Boghurst — Apothecary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ditton,_Kent#Notable_people
William Boghurst was an apothecary, and native, of Ditton, who remained in London during the Great Plague of 1665. During the plague, his medical practice expanded and he made his name. He stayed in the city throughout the epidemic, treating by his own account “40, 50 or 60 patients a day”. By the end of the year his reputation was sufficient to attract offers from the corporation of Norwich, which tried to employ him when the infection reached there. He wrote a book about his experience which, although not printed at the time, was subsequently published in 1894 for the Epidemiological Society of London under the title Loimographia: an Account of the Great Plague of London in the year 1665
Nathaniel Hodges
Nathaniel Hodges M.D. (1629–1688) was an English physician, known for his work during the Great Plague of London and his written account Loimologia of it.
Contrayerva, or contrajerva, is the medicinal rhizome of various tropical Central American and South American species
“It is agreed on, by the generality of Writers, that the Contra-yerva Root is one of the best Anti-epidemics yet known. Dr. Hodges, in his treatise of laft London-Plague (= Great Plague of London), has a Receipt (= recipe) which he said was attended with great success, and of which this Root was one of the chief ingredients.”[27] The recipe of Dr. Hodges is called Lapis Contrayerva and is given in his treatise Loimologia of 1672.
Loimologia, or, an historical Account of the Plague in London in 1665, With precautionary Directions against the like Contagion is a treatise by Dr. Nathaniel Hodges (1629–1688), originally published in London in Latin (Loimologia, sive, Pestis nuperæ apud populum Londinensem grassantis narratio historica) in 1672; an English translation was later published in London in 1720. The treatise provides a first-hand account of the Great Plague of London; it has been described as the best medical record of the epidemic.[1] While most physicians fled the city, including the renowned Thomas Sydenham, and Sir Edward Alston, president of the Royal College of Physicians, Hodges was one of the few physicians who remained in the city during 1665, to record observations and test the effectiveness of treatments against the plague.[2] The book also contains statistics on the victims in each parish.[3]
The English translation (1720) was released while a plague was spreading throughout Marseilles, and people in England were fearful of another outbreak.[4] To this 1720 edition was added An essay on the different causes of pestilential diseases, and how they become contagious ; with remarks on the infection now in France, and the most probable means to prevent its spreading here, by John Quincy.[4]
Loimologia was one of the sources used by Daniel Defoe when writing A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).
George Starkey
George Starkey (1628–1665) was a Colonial American alchemist, medical practitioner, and writer of numerous commentaries and chemical treatises that were widely circulated in Western Europe and influenced prominent men of science, including Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton. After relocating from New England to London, England, in 1650, Starkey began writing under the pseudonym Eirenaeus Philalethes.[1] Starkey remained in England and continued his career in medicine and alchemy until his death in the Great Plague of London in 1665.
Thomas Wharton (1614–1673)
Thomas Wharton (1614–1673) was an English physician and anatomist best known for his descriptions of the submandibular duct (one of the salivary ducts) and Wharton’s jelly of the umbilical cord.
He obtained the appointment of physician to St Thomas’s Hospital on 20 November 1659, and retained it till his death in 1673. Wharton was one of the very few physicians who remained at his post in London during the whole of the outbreak of the plague of 1665. His services were recognised by a promise of the first vacant appointment of physician in ordinary to the king.
Case: Rose v Royal College of Physicians
Apothecaries were the lowest category of doctor, originating from general shopkeepers, gaining a separate identity from 1617 and establishing a right to treat the sick during the Plague of 1665, when many physicians and their rich patients fled London. The House of Lords judgment upheld this right, and the decision established the legal recognition of apothecaries as doctors.
Physicians
At the Restoration he was made one of the king’s physicians in ordinary, and was known in his profession particularly for his treatment of smallpox and all sorts of fevers. In 1661, Gilbert Sheldon, bishop of London, and the other bishops, deans, and archdeacons, met at his house, and proceeded to St Paul’s Cathedral to open the first session of convocation for the revising of the Book of Common Prayer. When the Great Plague of London broke out in 1665, he was one of the few physicians who stayed; and he is mentioned by Nathaniel Hodges in his account of the plague Loimologia for his services in London, while attending the daily service at the cathedral and working with the clergy there.
Though the plague could not drive him from his home, the Great Fire of London did in 1666: his house was burned down with St Paul’s.
George Thomson (c. 1619–1676)
George Thomson (c. 1619–1676) an English physician, medical writer and pamphleteer. He was a leading figure in an attempt to create a “College of Chemical Physicians”, a rival to the established Royal College of Physicians.
Around 1656, he performed a splenectomy on a dog, successfully keeping the animal alive afterwards for more than 2 years. This challenged the prevailing humoralist theory of the body, and attracted the attention of physicians and scientists in London, including William Harvey and Robert Boyle.[2][6] During the great plague of 1665 he lived in London, and made a special study of the symptoms, even dissecting the body of a plague victim.[2] In 1665 he published “Loimologia: a Consolatory Advice, and some brief Observations concerning the present Pest”, in which he reflected on the conduct of those members of the Royal College of Physicians who left the city during the plague. He accused them of running away and “leaving this great city destitute of their help, when it most needed it”.[7] This pamphlet drew a furious reply from John Heydon.
Daniel Duncan (1649–1735) was a Scottish-French physician, Huguenot by religion, known as a writer of iatrochemical works.
He passed two years in London, where he employed himself especially in collecting information about the great plague of 1666.
Dr Robert Uvedale (1642–1722) was an English cleric teacher and horticulturist.
During the Great Plague of 1665 the whole of Uvedale’s household escaped the disease, owing, it was thought, to their inhaling the vapour of vinegar poured over a red-hot brick.