Lord Bacon declared the jail fever "the most pernicious infection next to the plague." In 1730, at the Dorsetshire Assize, the chief baron and many lawyers were killed by it.

The High Sheriff of Somerset also took the disease and died.

A single Scotch regiment, being infected from some prisoners, lost no less than two hundred.

In 1750 the disease was so virulent at Newgate, in the heart of London, that two judges, the lord mayor, sundry aldermen, and many others, died of it.
It is worth noting that, while efforts at sanitary dealing with this state of things were few, the theological spirit developed a new and special form of prayer for the sufferers and placed it in the Irish Prayer Book.
These forms of prayer seem to have been the main reliance through the first half of the eighteenth century.

But about 1750 began the work of John Howard, who visited the prisons of England, made known their condition to the world, and never rested until they were greatly improved.