I've been seeing quite a lot about the idea of a cashless society being introduced under the auspices of pandemic control recently. This has some benefits, but causes many more problems, but what it did was remind of a small part of the story of Eyam.

For anyone who isn't aware, Eyam is a village in the Peak District that many primary aged children learn about. During the bubonic plague outbreak of 1665-66, it is believed that a bundle of cloth carrying rat fleas was brought into the village and left to dry out by the fire.

Given the heat and the fact that the cloth had been opened the fleas started to move about the house in that quite disturbing manner of theirs. As you'd expect, the disease started to spread throughout the village. The people of the village turned to the men of God for guidance.

Under the leadership of William Mompesson and Thomas Stanley, a number of measures were introduced in 1666 which helped to slow the spread of the bacterium which caused the disease. Many of these are eerily familiar in the age of Covid-19.

These included a village wide quarantine and the relocation of church services to a natural amphitheatre, allowing attendees to distance themselves from one another. The idea which triggered this thread was the way in which they handled paying for goods from outside the village.

On some of the boundary stones, marking the quarantined area, there were wells bored in. These were filled with vinegar and the coins were placed in this in an attempt to disinfect them.

I don't know whether this was actually effective, but certainly the plague did not seem to spread from the village. Quite a large portion of the population died (273 recorded plague deaths in a population possibly around 800).

There are many different stories surrounding the so-called "Plague Village"; some verifiable, some not. However, it is a fascinating place with a mythos which has been built up around this status and there are many parallels to be drawn.

I realise that I'm probably tweeting to myself here, but I just wanted to get my stream of thought together.