What caused the great plague of 1665?
The “Great Plague” was an epidemic of the bubonic plague in England. The bubonic plague, known then as “The Black Death,” killed nearly all of it’s victims, and very quickly at that. In that time period, there was no efficient way to dispose of waste, so human waste was thrown into the Thames, and garbage littered the streets. This provided an ideal breeding ground for rats, which carried the disease across England. However, at the time, people beleived that the plague was spread by cats and dogs. So, people would go out and kill the cats and dogs. Unfortunately for them, the cats and dogs are rat’s naturaly enemy. So the rat population grew and the plague was spread even faster.
