Others, on the contrary, considered eating and drinking to excess, amusements of all descriptions, the indulgence of every gratification, and an indifference to what was passing around them, as the best medicine, and acted accordingly.

They wandered day and night from one tavern to another, and feasted without moderation or bounds.

In this way they endeavoured to avoid all contact with the sick, and abandoned their houses and property to chance, like men whose death-knell had already tolled.
"Amid this general lamentation and woe, the influence and authority of every law, human and divine, vanished.

Most of those who were in office had been carried off by the plague, or lay sick, or had lost so many members of their family, that they were unable to attend to their duties; so that thenceforth every one acted as he thought proper.

Others in their mode of living chose a middle course.