The weekly bills of mortality in London bear little evidence of unusual prevalence of fever in 1709, except in the weeks ending 13 and 20 September, when the fever-deaths were 96 and 75 (including "spotted fever"). But the unusual entry of "malignant fever" appears in three weekly bills, 19 July, 9 August and 23 August, one death being referred to it on each occasion. It was in the summer and autumn of 1710 that the fever reached a height in London, being attended with a very fatal smallpox. An essay on the London epidemic of 1710[88] is interesting chiefly for recording a probable case of relapsing fever, a form which was almost certainly part of the great febrile epidemic in London in 1727-29.
Mrs Simon, aged 20, had a burning fever, stifling of her breath, frequent vomiting and looseness, foul tongue, loss of sleep, restlessness, intermitting, low and irregular pulse. This terrible fever disappeared on the fourth day, and she thought herself recovered. But on the seventh day from her being taken ill the fever returned, she was light-headed, did not know her relatives, and was fevered in the highest degree. It looked like a malignant fever, but there were no spots.
The following table shows the very high mortality from fever (as well as from smallpox) in the epidemic to which the above case belonged.
_London: Weekly deaths from fever, smallpox and all causes._
Week Dead of Dead of Dead of Dead of ending fever spotted fever smallpox all diseases
May 2 103 [illegible] 99 571 9 90 6 60 517 16 84 7 71 502 23 93 15 71 503 30 106 11 83 550 June 6 93 2 98 508 13 79 8 84 509 20 106 12 99 574 27 105 15 86 503 July 4 106 7 99 482 11 107 13 97 467 18 126 16 89 509 25 109 13 105 562 Aug. 1 91 12 79 444 8 92 11 72 463 15 98 10 58 459 22 105 10 63 463 29 111 16 71 495 Sept. 5 76 4 63 414 12[89] 107 12 57 520 19 115 9 83 548 26 81 11 46 456 Oct. 3 98 9 45 469 10 79 10 49 480 17 90 5 41 477 24 107 5 45 470 31 106 14 51 421 Nov. 7 71 6 55 425 14 92 2 41 390 21 70 4 25 345
Throughout England, in country parishes and in towns, the first ten years of the 18th century were on the whole a period of good public health. In Short's abstracts of the parish registers to show the excess of deaths over the births, those years are as little conspicuous as any in the long series. It was a time when there was a great lull in smallpox, and probably also in fevers. The figures for Sheffield may serve as an example[90]. It will be seen from the Table that the burials exceeded the baptisms in every decade from the Restoration to the end of the century; after that for twenty years the baptisms exceeded the burials, the marriages having increased greatly.