Intersensory Experiences of the Plague in Seventeenth-Century London

Abstract

This article contends that intersensory experiences of the plague are key to comprehending how the inhabitants of seventeenth-century London understood outbreaks of epidemic disease. Interplay between the senses influenced how people understood the processes of disease transmission, the vulnerability of bodies to contract disease and disease prevention. Previous research into the sensory histories of the plague has focused on smell and touch as isolated sensory phenomena. In doing so, studies have tended to suggest that the plague was understood as either an airborne or contagious disease. An intersensory approach reveals that this binary between miasma and contagion was not so clear cut. People navigated their relationships with their bodies, neighbours and the city via a complex web of understandings of epidemic disease, many of which were born out of interactions between the senses.