Coleman M P
Int J Epidemiol. 1986 Sep;15(3):379-85. doi: 10.1093/ije/15.3.379.
In September 1665, an outbreak of plague occurred in Eyam, a small village 10 miles west of Sheffield, in an isolated valley of Derbyshire. Eighty per cent of the population died during the 14 months of the epidemic, a greater proportion than any other community in England. When plague threatened to cause panic and desertion of the village, the vicar of Eyam persuaded the villagers to stay, and to impose a voluntary quarantine on their village, in order to avoid spreading the plague to the surrounding villages. Quarantine was strictly observed for the last five months of the epidemic, when it was at its height. A boundary about one mile in diameter was marked out around the village, and food was left at the boundary for villagers to collect. The parish register can be used to describe the natural history of this plague epidemic in quarantine; in the light of current knowledge of plague epidemiology, it shows the traditional account of the origin of the Eyam plague to be improbable. The pattern of the epidemic suggests a typical epidemic of bubonic plague with a rodent reservoir. The policy of quarantine, rightly judged as heroic, was also tragically misguided, and was probably responsible for the unparalleled mortality.
1665年9月，在谢菲尔德以西10英里处、位于德比郡一个与世隔绝山谷中的小村庄伊姆爆发了一场瘟疫。在疫情持续的14个月里，80%的村民死亡，这一比例高于英格兰的任何其他社区。当瘟疫有可能引发恐慌并导致村民逃离村庄时，伊姆村的教区牧师说服村民留下来，并对他们的村庄实施自愿隔离，以避免将瘟疫传播到周边村庄。在疫情最严重的最后五个月里，隔离措施得到了严格遵守。在村庄周围划定了一个直径约一英里的边界，并在边界处留下食物供村民领取。教区登记簿可用于描述这场在隔离状态下的瘟疫疫情的自然史；根据目前对鼠疫流行病学的了解，它表明关于伊姆村瘟疫起源的传统说法不太可能。疫情模式表明这是一场典型的腺鼠疫疫情，存在啮齿动物宿主。隔离政策虽被正确地视为英勇之举，但也不幸被误导了，而且很可能是造成空前死亡率的原因。
