Historians estimate that this act of selflessness, by preventing the spread of plague, saved hundreds of thousands of lives throughout England. It also tells us that for the next year, people from the surrounding villages left food and supplies outside the town so that Eyam would not starve.
“I do not have the freedom of the historian, my friend; you may recount the movements of men and armies, trace the intricate course of state intrigues, balance victories and defeats, relate births and deaths—and yet still be free, in the wise simplicity of your task, from the awful weight of a kind of knowledge that I cannot name but that I more and more nearly apprehend as the years draw on.”