Isolating Oneself during a Pandemic: A Very Old Concept

We are living in unusual times - trying to adapt to life in a global pandemic. But there have been epidemics before! 

Suddenly I'm curious in knowing... How did people manage?

Reading a book entitled Sacred Spaces (published in 2013 - long before the current pandemic), I came across a reference to the 1665 epidemic in Britain. At that time, in the region of Britain where the author Margaret Silf lives - Derbyshire - people were dying in large numbers from the bubonic plague.

She writes: In a communal act of selflessness the villagers [in one village] agreed to isolate themselves, in an effort to protect the neighboring settlements from contagion. They marked out their isolation perimeter by a circle of boundary stones, one of which was also a well. People from the surrounding area brought food, medication and news to these boundary markers to be collected by the stricken villagers...

She goes on to explain that the well became a symbol of those difficult times. After the plague was over, people began a tradition of decorating the well with flowers, a tradition that continues to this day.

I find it interesting that, in spite of one village's isolation, water - the well - was shared... It was on the border where it could be accessed by both sides... Also that people in the healthy villages left food and other essentials at the boundary for those in the stricken village. In other words, they cared for each other...

Reading this, I'm surprised that some things haven't changed: 350 years ago, people may not have known what caused the plague, but they knew the power of self-isolation to protect others.