Editing Great Plague of London (section)

==The recording of deaths==
{{Further|Searcher of the dead}}
In order to judge the severity of an epidemic, it is first necessary to know how big the population was in which it occurred.  There was no official census of the population to provide this figure, and the best contemporary count comes from the work of [[John Graunt]] (1620–1674), who was one of the earliest [[Fellow of the Royal Society|Fellows of the Royal Society]] and one of the first [[Demography|demographer]]s, bringing a scientific approach to the collection of statistics. In 1662, he estimated that 384,000 people lived in the City of London, the Liberties, Westminster and the out-parishes, based on figures in the [[Bills of Mortality]] published each week in the capital. These different districts with different administrations constituted the officially recognized extent of London as a whole. In 1665, he revised his estimate to "not above 460,000". Other contemporaries put the figure higher (the French Ambassador, for example, suggested 600,000), but with no mathematical basis to support their estimates. The next largest city in the kingdom was [[Norwich]], with a population of 30,000.<ref name="Leasor27"/><ref>Bell, Folio Soc. edn., p. 7.</ref>

There was no duty to report a death to anyone in authority. Instead, each parish appointed two or more "[[searchers of the dead]]", whose duty was to inspect a corpse and determine the cause of death. A searcher was entitled to charge a small fee from relatives for each death they reported, and so habitually the parish would appoint someone to the post who would otherwise be destitute and would be receiving support from the parish poor rate. Typically, this meant searchers would be old women who were illiterate, might know little about identifying diseases and who would be open to dishonesty.<ref name=Bellf10>Bell Folio Soc. edn., pp.&nbsp;10–11.</ref> Searchers would typically learn about a death either from the local [[Sexton (office)|sexton]] who had been asked to dig a grave or from the tolling of a church bell. Anyone who did not report a death to their local church, such as [[Quakers]], [[Anabaptists]], other non-Anglican Christians or [[Jewish people|Jews]], frequently did not get included in the official records. Searchers during times of plague were required to live apart from the community, avoid other people and carry a white stick to warn of their occupation when outdoors, and stay indoors except when performing their duties, to avoid spreading the diseases. Searchers reported to the Parish Clerk, who made a return each week to the Company of Parish Clerks in Brode Lane. Figures were then passed to the Lord Mayor and then to the Minister of State once plague became a matter of national concern.<ref name=Bellf10/> The reported figures were used to compile the Bills of Mortality, which listed total deaths in each parish and whether by the plague. The system of Searchers to report the cause of death continued until 1836.<ref name=Bellf12 />

Graunt recorded the incompetence of the Searchers at identifying true causes of death, remarking on the frequent recording of 'consumption' rather than other diseases which were recognized then by physicians. He suggested a cup of ale and a doubling of their fee to two groats rather than one was sufficient for Searchers to change the cause of death to one more convenient for the householders. No one wished to be known as having had a death by plague in their household, and Parish Clerks, too, connived in covering up cases of plague in their official returns. Analysis of the Bills of Mortality during the months plague took hold shows a rise in deaths other than by plague well above the average death rate, a tell-tale sign of misrepresentation of the true cause of death.<ref name=Bellf12>Bell, Folio Soc. edn., p. 12.</ref> As plague spread, a system of [[quarantine]] was introduced, whereby any house where someone had died from plague would be locked up and no one allowed to enter or leave for 40 days. This frequently led to the deaths of the other inhabitants, by neglect if not from the plague, and provided ample incentive not to report the disease. The official returns record 68,596 cases of plague, but a reasonable estimate suggests this figure is 30,000 short of the true total.<ref name="Bell Folio ed p 13">Bell, Folio Soc. edn., p. 13.</ref> A plague house was marked with a red cross on the door with the words "Lord have mercy upon us", and a [[Watchman (law enforcement)|watchman]] stood guard outside.<ref name=Leasor27/>