Anti-semitism hits record high in UK

[Craig B]

The conditions in which disease spread were also known as urban life. There were no late medieval epidemiologists working out that rag-pickers got sick more than other poor people, who all lived and died like mayflies. Records of deaths, let alone causes of, are scant.

But by no means absent. Many governments in the late medieval period understood the importance of such data, and collected them as best they could. See here.

 

[Craig B]

The conditions in which disease spread were also known as urban life. There were no late medieval epidemiologists working out that rag-pickers got sick more than other poor people

That is most certainly not true of the early modern period, during which time Church-imposed restrictions on Jewish economic activity were at their peak. This account associates Jewish old clothes merchants with an outbreak of plague, albeit in Constantinople and not Rome.

The most famous outbreak of plague in England in 1665 was known to have been carried in a package of old clothing. See here

It was during the summer of 1665 that a resident of London -- 150 miles away -- shipped an Eyam tailor some cloth. The package of old clothes and cloth patterns arrived wet and the tailor's assistant, George Viccars, who lived with the family, was told to take the cloth outside and spread it out to dry.

Obviously, no one realized that the damp cloth was already infected by fleas carrying the curse of the plague. In just four days Viccars was dead, the first victim in Eyam to die of the plague, buried on Sept. 7, 1665. A plaque in front of the home, Plague Cottage, lists some of the household members who died within days of each other. Only one, the tailor's wife, Mary, survived. She lost 13 relatives.

Here is a report that during the 1665 London plague, the use of linen rags by paper mills was banned by the Privy Council, in an attempt to suppress the London rag trade during the epidemic, by cutting demand.