This exam tips covers Exam Tips for the Great Plague within The Great Plague for GCSE History. Revise The Great Plague in Medicine Through Time for GCSE History with 8 exam-style questions and 5 flashcards. This topic appears less often, but it can still be a useful differentiator on mixed-topic papers. It is section 12 of 13 in this topic. Treat this as a marking guide for what examiners are looking for, not just a fact list.
Topic position
Section 12 of 13
Practice
8 questions
Recall
5 flashcards
💡 Exam Tips for the Great Plague
🎯 Question Types for This Topic (Paper 2, Section A):
- Source utility (8 marks, ~15 minutes) — "How useful is Source A for an enquiry into the response to the Great Plague of 1665?" Evaluate NOP (Nature, Origin, Purpose) and use own knowledge about Bills of Mortality, quarantine orders, miasma responses, and why the real cause was still unknown to support or challenge the source. Level 4 needs detailed NOP AND own knowledge used to support or challenge.
- Explain significance (8 marks, ~15 minutes) — "Explain the significance of the Great Plague of 1665 for the development of medicine and public health." Short-term significance: the epidemic showed that despite Vesalius and Harvey, theories about the cause of disease had barely changed since 1348. Long-term significance: the government's systematic response (Bills of Mortality, organised quarantine) established a precedent for state responsibility for public health that prefigured the 1848 and 1875 Public Health Acts. Explain what this meant for medical progress broadly.
- Change and continuity essay (16 marks including SPaG, ~30 minutes) — "How far did the response to epidemic disease change between c.1348 and c.1665?" Argue change: government organised Bills of Mortality, systematic quarantine, searchers; Harvey and Vesalius had improved anatomical understanding. Argue continuity: same miasma and humour theories used; same treatments (bleeding, prayer); real cause (Yersinia pestis, rat fleas) still completely unknown. SPaG marks: quarantine, miasma, Bills of Mortality, Yersinia pestis, continuity spelled correctly.
📈 How to Move Up Levels — This Topic Specifically:
- Level 2: "The Great Plague was similar to the Black Death because people still believed miasma caused it and used the same treatments." — Correct but basic. Identifies continuity without explaining it.
- Level 3: "Medical theories about the cause of plague had not changed between 1348 and 1665 — both outbreaks were attributed to miasma (bad air), God's punishment, and humour imbalance. As a result, the same ineffective treatments (bleeding, purging, theriac) were still used in 1665. This shows that Vesalius's anatomical advances and Harvey's discovery of circulation, while significant, had done nothing to explain the cause of infectious disease." — Explains continuity with mechanism and connects to broader context.
- Level 4: Add the change argument and a judgement: "However, there was significant change in government response: the 1665 plague orders introduced systematic quarantine, Bills of Mortality, and official searchers — measures that had no equivalent in 1348. Although based on the wrong theory, these organisational improvements reduced the proportional death toll (15-20% of London vs 30-50% nationally in 1348) and established a precedent for government responsibility for public health that would eventually produce the 1848 and 1875 Public Health Acts. The most accurate assessment is therefore: continuity in medical ideas but significant change in political response to disease."
⚠️ Common Mistakes to Avoid:
- Saying medicine had "not progressed at all" between 1348 and 1665. Vesalius (1543) and Harvey (1628) were genuine advances — just not relevant to plague. Always specify what had and had not changed.
- Treating the Great Fire as the main reason plague ended. Plague was already declining before the Fire. The Fire may have contributed but was not the primary cause.
- Forgetting Bills of Mortality as a specific piece of evidence for change. This is the most distinctive feature of the 1665 response — the first systematic death tracking. Always include it when discussing what changed.
- Not knowing the specific death figures. 7,000 deaths per week at peak; 100,000 total in London; 15-20% of city. Compare to Black Death: 30-50% of England. These numbers show the proportional improvement.
Quick Check: Why did the government's decision to kill dogs and cats during the 1665 plague make the situation potentially worse, even though it seemed logical at the time?
The government ordered dogs and cats killed because, within the miasma theory, they were thought to carry contaminated air on their fur and spread infection from house to house. This seemed entirely logical given the dominant theory. However, cats and dogs are natural predators of rats — and rats were the actual disease vector, carrying the fleas that spread Yersinia pestis. By killing cats and dogs, the government removed the natural controls on the rat population, potentially allowing rat numbers to increase and with them the flea population carrying plague. This is a classic example of the wrong theory producing a response that was not only ineffective but counterproductive. It illustrates why understanding the real cause of a disease is essential before any effective public health response is possible.