Great Plague was an outbreak of the bubonic plague that struck London in 1665 and was particularly severe during August and September. In one week, 7,165 people died of the plague. The total number of deaths was about 70,000. The disease was carried by fleas that lived on black rats . The effects of the disease were terrible—fever and chills, swelling of the lymph nodes, and usually death. People at the time did not know what caused the disease or how to control its rapid course. It was later shown that Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that caused other catastrophic plague outbreaks, was also behind London’s Great Plague.
Victims of the Great Plague were buried in large pits. Many people fled from London. The epidemic diminished with the coming of cold weather in October 1665. It ended when the Great Fire of London destroyed much of the city in September 1666.
