First English Edition of Nathaniel Hodges’ Eyewitness Account of the 1665 Plague – With Folding Mortality Table

“Loimologia: Or, an Historical Account of the Plague in London in 1665: With Precautionary Directions against the like Contagion. By Nath. Hodges, M.D. and Fellow of the College of Physicians, who resided in the City all that Time. To which is 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, M.D.”

-By Nathaniel Hodges (1629–1688), with an additional essay by John Quincy.

-8vo.

-First English edition

-Complete with the folding table recording the mortality of the London parishes during the Great Plague.

-Text on Page 12 consistent with the First edition reading “Eight Persons cut off”. This error was corrected to “Eight Thousand Persons cut off” in the second edition, also issued in 1720.

-Translated from Hodges’ Latin Loimologia, first published in 1672.

-Printed in London for E. Bell and J. Osborn.

-1720

-Ex Libris South Shields Master Mariner's Asylum

This is the first English edition of one of the most important contemporary medical accounts of the Great Plague of London. The work is an eyewitness of the plague written by Nathaniel Hodges (1629–1688), a physician and Follow of the Royal College of Physicians. Hodges remained in London throughout the bubonic plague epidemic in 1665, and personally treated its victims. While many wealthy inhabitants and physicians fled the capital, Hodges remained at his home in Walbrook and continued treating the sick at the height of the epidemic.

Drawing upon his direct experience, Hodges produced a detailed account of the symptoms, natural history, and treatment of the plague. He also discussed observations and theories on its transmission, and the measures employed to control it. Originally published in Latin in 1672 as Loimologia, sive Pestis nuperae apud populum Londinensem grassantis narratio historica, it remains one of the principal medical eyewitness accounts of the Great Plague.

The first English translation appeared in 1720. Plague had become a threat to London following a devastating outbreak in Marseille, and the renewed fear that plague might cross the Channel. This created a market for an English translation of Hodges’ account, nearly 50 years after it had first appeared in Latin. This edition also contains John Quincy’s essay on the causes and contagious nature of pestilential diseases, addressing “the Infection now in France”. 

Of particular interest is the large folding mortality table, recording deaths across the individual London parishes during 1665 and culminating in the extraordinary totals of 97,306 burials, of which 68,596 were attributed to plague. Published amid fears of a renewed epidemic, the table provided contemporary readers with a striking statistical demonstration of the potentially devastating consequences should plague once again reach London.

Hodges’ Loimologia became an important source for Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year (1722).

ESTC T108994