<P> According to the chronicle of the grey friars at King's Lynn, the plague arrived by ship from Gascony to Melcombe in Dorset--today normally referred to as Weymouth--shortly before "the Feast of St. John The Baptist" on 24 June 1348 . Other sources mention different points of arrival, including Bristol and Southampton . Though the plague might have arrived independently at Bristol at a later point, the Grey Friars' Chronicle is considered the most authoritative account . If it is assumed that the chronicle reports the first outbreak of the plague, rather than its actual arrival, then the arrival most likely happened around 8 May . </P> <P> From Weymouth the disease spread rapidly across the south - west . The first major city to be struck was Bristol . London was reached in the autumn of 1348, before most of the surrounding countryside . This had certainly happened by November, though according to some accounts as early as 29 September . Arrival in London happened by three principal roads: overland from Weymouth--through Salisbury and Winchester--overland from Gloucester, and along the coast by ship . The full effect of the plague was felt in the capital early the next year . Conditions in London were ideal for the plague: the streets were narrow and flowing with sewage, and houses were overcrowded and poorly ventilated . By March 1349 the disease was spreading in a haphazard way across all of southern England . </P> <P> During the first half of 1349 the Black Death spread northwards . A second front opened up when the plague arrived by ship at the Humber, wherefrom it spread both south and north . In May it reached York, and during the summer months of June, July and August, it ravaged the north . Certain northern counties, like Durham and Cumberland, had been the victim of violent incursions from the Scots, and were therefore left particularly vulnerable to the devastations of the plague . Pestilence is less virulent during the winter months, and spreads less rapidly . The Black Death in England had survived the winter of 1348--49, but during the following winter it gave in, and by December 1349 conditions were returning to relative normalcy . It had taken the disease approximately 500 days to traverse the entire country . </P> <P> In order to treat patients infected with the plague, various methods were used including sweating, bloodletting, forced vomiting, and urinating . Several symptoms of the illness included blotches, hardening of the glands under the groin and underarms, and dementia . Within the initial phase of the disease, bloodletting was performed on the same side of where the physical manifestations of the buboes or risings appeared . For instance, if a rising appeared on the right side of the groin the physician would bleed a vein in the ankle on the same side . In the case of sweating, it was achieved with such medicines as Mithridate, Venice - Treacle, Matthiolus, Bezoar - Water, Serpentary Roots and Electuarium de Ovo . Sweating was used when measures were desperate; if a patient had tokens, a severe version of risings, the physician would wrap the naked patient in a blanket drenched in cold water . This measure was only performed while the patient still had natural heat in his system . The desired effect was to make the patient sweat violently and thus purge all corruption from the blood which was caused by the disease . </P>

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