“Having withdrawn, living separate from everybody else, they settled down and locked themselves in, where no sick person or any living person could come, they ate small amounts of food and drank the most delicate of wines and avoided all luxury, refraining from speech with outsiders, refusing news of the dead or the sick or anything else, diverting themselves with music or whatever was pleasant.

Others, who disagreed with this, affirmed their drinking beer, enjoying oneself, and going around singing and ruckus-raising and satisfying all one’s appetites whenever possible and laughing at the whole bloody thing which was the best medicine.” (my paragraphing)

Investors Chronicle 11^th December 2020 quoting Giovanni Boccaccio 1353 p61