Remarkable Errors
In the late Writings of
Dr. Mead, Quincey, Bradley,
&c. on the Plague.
he great Apprehensions that all Europe has received from the dreadful and raging Plague which has lately destroyed the greatest Part of the Inhabitants of Marseilles, has given that just Alarm to our Ministry, who under the Direction of His Majesty, by their wise and prudent Management, to the Duty of Publick Prayers, with that of a General and Solemn Fast throughout the Kingdom, have not been wanting, as much as possible, to prevent that direful Contagion which now threatens, and might be brought amongst us by the Sailors, or by Merchandize comeing from Places that are infected; and have ordered a strict Quarentine to be observed by all Ships in all the Maritime Ports liable to that Invasion.
And to be Assistant to so great a Work, the Neglect of which the Lives of the Nation being at stake, we have some the most eminent of the Physicians now in Vogue, who from that Duty to their Profession, and their Zeal to the Publick Good, have publish’d some Essays, not only of the Nature, Cause, Symptoms, Prognosticks, and Affections of this fatal Distemper; but likewise of the proper Means to be used in preventing, and fortifying against, with the proper Applications of recovering those that are seiz’d by this fatal Enemy to Mankind. Books of this kind lately published are, a short Discourse concerning Pestilential Contagion, by Dr. Mead. The Plague of Marseilles consider’d by Dr. Bradley. Dr. Hodges’s Loimologia of the Plague in London, Anno 1665; reprinted by Dr. Quincy: To which is added, an Essay of his own, with Remarks of the Infection now in France. To those worthy Gentlemen are we indebted for their ready Help, to their philosophical Enquiries, their learned and analytical Explanations in all the Stages of this raging Ill; and farther, by what physical Power it corrupts the Blood, destroys the Spirits, and is follow’d by Death at the last.
The Apologies that are made in their Preface, viz. of a short Warning, of their little Leisure, the Uncorrectness of Style, and the Typographical Errors should be favourably construed from so great an Aim of doing the Publick so great a Good; and it would be esteemed a base Ingratitude, meerly for the sake of Contradiction, to quarrel with the Hand that directs, and may support us in the greatest Extremity.
But where there may be a sufficient Reason to undeceive, or amend such Errors, as might otherwise be prejudicial to their intended Purpose of preserving the Common Weal, or advancing some other necessary Instructions which they have omitted; I can’t but perswade myself that I shall have their Approbation, if not their Thanks in prosecuting the Advancement of that good End they so greatly have desired in their Publications.
It is very certain, that Essay of Doctor Hodges de Peste, is the best of any hitherto publish’d of that Kind; and if the Gentleman who has annex’d his Treatise to that of his own, has taken Care to remove the most affected Peculiarities, and Luxuriances of his Enthusiastick Strain, he should have avoided that Contagion himself, which are discover’d in his crabbed and dogmatical Terms of Formulæ, Miasms, Miasmata, Nexus, Moleculæ, Spicula, Pabulum, &c. Such Terms being too abstruse and difficult to be understood by the People in general, for whose Instruction and Benefit we have the Charity to believe he undertook his Publication. Nay, it cannot be doubted, and will need no Confirmation by those that carefully peruse Dr. Hodges, but will find that there is scarcely any advanced Method in what they have writ, or but what may be found in his Treatise, unless in this one Hint of Quincy, from the Use of Pulvis Fluminans in dispersing the stagnate Air instead of the fucing of great Guns, &c. And he is no ways out in his Policy by tacking his own Remarks with those of the good old Doctors, which are the best Recommendations of their passing to his own Advantage.
Hodges in his Introduction tells you, “That the first Discoveries of the late Plague began in Westminster, about the Close of the Year 1664, for at that Season two or three Persons died there, attended with like Symptoms as manifestly declar’d their Origin; that in the Months of August and September, the Contagion chang’d its former slow and languid Pace, having, as it were, got Master of all, made a most terrible Slaughter, so that three, four or five thousand died in a Week, and once eight thousand: Who can express the Calamities of those Times! None surely in more pathetick and bewailing Accents than himself, who gives us so melancholly a Description of their dismal Misery, as affects the Mind with the same Passions and despairing Sorrow they were then overloaded with; and as Virgil has it,
Horror ubique Animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent.
Hærent in fixi pectore Vultus.
The British Nation wept for the Miseries of her Metropolis. In some Houses Carcases lay waiting for Burial; and in others, Persons in their last Agonies; in one Room might be heard dying Groans, in another the Raveings of a Delirium, and not far off Relations and Friends bewailing both their Loss and the dismal Prospect of their own sudden Departure; Death was the sure Midwife to all Children, and Infants passed immediately from the Womb to the Grave; Who would not burst with Grief to see the Stock of a future Generation hang upon the Breasts of a dead Mother? or the Marriage-Bed changed the first Night into a Sepulchre, and the unhappy Pair meet with Death in the first Embraces? Some of the Infected run about staggering like drunken Men, and fall and expire in the Streets; while others lie half dead and comatous, but never to be waked but by the last Trumpet; some lie vomiting, as if they had drank Poison; and others fall dead in the Market while they are buying Necessaries for the Support of Life.
Not much unlike was it in the following Conflagration; where the Altars themselves became so many Victims, and the finest Churches in the whole World carried up to Heaven Supplications in Flames, while their marble Pillars, wet with Tears, melted like Wax; nor were Monuments secure from the inexorable Flames, where many of their venerable Remains passed a second Martyrdom; the most august Palaces were soon laid waste, and the Flames seem’d to be in a fatal Engagement to destroy the great Ornament of Commerce; and the burning of all the Commodities of the World together, seem’d a proper Epitome of this Conflagration: Neither confederate Crowns, nor the drawn Swords of Kings could restrain its phanatick and rebellious Rage; large Halls, stately Houses, and the Sheds of the Poor, were together reduced to Ashes; the Sun blush’d to see himself set, and envied those Flames the Government of the Night which had rivall’d him so many Days: As the City, I say, was afterwards burnt without any Distinction, in like Manner did this Plague spare no Order, Age, or Sex; the Divine was taken in the very Exercise of his priestly Office, to be inroll’d amongst the Saints above; and some Physicians, as before intimated, could not find Assistance in their own Antidotes, but died in the Administration of them to others; and although the Soldiery retreated from the Field of Death, and encamped out of the City, the Contagion followed and vanquished them; many in their old Age, others in their Prime, sunk under its Cruelties; of the female Sex, most died; and hardly any Children escaped; and it was not uncommon to see an Inheritance pass successively to three or four Heirs in as many Days; the Number of Sextons were not sufficient to bury the Dead; the Bells seem’d hoarse with continual tolling, until at last they quite ceased; the Burying-places would not hold the Dead, but they were thrown into large Pits dug in waste Grounds in Heaps, thirty or forty together; and it often happened, that those who attended the Funerals of their Friends one Evening, were carried the next to their own long Home.”
———Quis talia fundo
temperet à lacrymis?——
About the Beginning of September the Disease was at the Height, in the Course of which Month more than Twelve thousand died in a Week[4] but from this Time its Force began to relax; and about the Close of the Year, that is, at the Beginning of November, People grew more healthful, and such a different Face was put upon the Publick, that although the Funerals were yet frequent, yet many who had made most haste in retiring, made the most to return, and came into the City without Fear; insomuch that in December they crowded back as thick as they fled; and although the Contagion had carried off, as some computed, about One hundred thousand People; after a few Months this Loss was hardly discernable.
The Doctor himself comes to no determinate Number of those that died of this Distemper, but in the Table that he has writ of the Funerals in the several Parishes within the Bills of Mortality of the Cities of London and Westminster for the Year 1665, he tells you, 68596 died of the Plague. Dr. Mead in the same Year 1665, that it continued in this City about ten Months, and swept away 97306 Persons. Dr. Bradley, in his Table from the 27th of December, 1664/5, takes no notice of any buried of that Distemper, but of one on the 14th of February following, and two on April the 25th, and in all, to the 7th of June, 89. The next following Months, to October the 3d, there were buried 49932, in all 50021. Why he should here break up from giving any further Account may be from the Weakness of his Intelligence, which so widely differs from all other Accounts; and in this one, with Dr. Hodges, who tells you, that about the Beginning of September, at which Time the Disease was at the Height, in the Course of which Month, more than 12000 Persons died in a Week: Whereas in Bradley, the most that were buried in one Week, i. e. from the 12th of September to the 19th, amounted to no more than 7165. But computing after the Manner of Dr. Hodges, we find (taking one Week with another, from August the 29th to the 27th of September, the Time of its greatest Fury) the exact Number of 6555; which falls short very near to one half of the Number accounted to be buried of that Distemper by Dr. Hodges; and we have abundant Reason to believe, that the greatest Account hitherto mentioned, may be short of the Number dying of that Distemper. If we do but observe the strict Order then published to shut up all infected Houses, to keep a Guard upon them Day and Night, to withhold from them all Manner of Correspondence from without; and that after their Recovery, to perform a Quarentine of 40 Days, in which Space if anyone else of the Family should be taken with that Distemper, the Work to be renewed again; by which tedious Confinement of the Sick and Well together, it often proved the Cause of the Loss of the Whole.
These, besides many other great Inconveniencies, were sufficient to affright the People from making the Discovery, and we may be certain, that many died of the Plague which were returned to the Magistracy under another Denomination, which might easily be obtained from the Nurses and Searchers, whether from their Ignorance, Respect, Love of Money, &c.
And if they vary so much in their Computation of those that died; we shall find them as widely different in the Time when ’tis said the Plague first began.
The great Dr. Mead on this important Subject, may establish by his Name whatever he lays down, with the same Force and Authority as the Ancients held of that ipse dixit of Aristotle; but as that great Master of Nature was not exempt from slipping into some Errors, & humanum est errare, it can be no Shock to the Reputation of this Gentleman, if we shall find him no less fallible than of some others of the Faculty who has treated on this Subject; and to this part of the time when ’tis said the Plague first began. Doctor Mead, by what Information he has not thought fit to tell us, does affirm, That its Beginning was in Autumn before the Year 1664/5; whereas Dr. Hodges says, in the very first Page of his Liomologia, that it was not till the Close of the Year 1664; at that Season two or three Persons died suddenly in one Family at Westminster, of which he gives a further Light from his visiting the first Patient in the Christmas Holidays, and fully confirmed by the Weekly Bills of Mortality, whose first Account of those who died of the Plague were from December the 27th, 1664/5.
As those Gentlemen have forfeited their Infallibility by what I have proved hitherto against them, we have further Reason to suspect, whether or not the late Plague in 1665 was occasioned by that Bale of Cotton imported from Turkey to Holland, and thence to England, as Dr. Hodges makes irrefregable, and Dr. Mead’s Authority indisputable; which is no less a Subject of Wonder and Admiration how many Years we have escaped from the Plagues that have happened and are frequent in so many Parts of Turkey; as at Grand Cairo, which is seldome or never free from that Distemper, at Alexandria, Rosetta, Constantinople, Smyrna, Scanderoon, and Aleppo, from which Places we have the most considerable Import of any of our Neighbours, and of such Goods as are most receptive of those infectious Seeds, such as Cotton, Raw Silk, Mohair, &c. And though Coffee may seem less dangerous, from its Quality of being more able to resist its pestilential Effluvia, yet from the many Coverings the Bales are wrapped in, it is not hard to conceive the contagious Power might be latent in some Part of the Packidge; which Escape is the more surprising and to be wondred at from the great Encrease of our Trade and Shipping which yearly arrive from those Countries; and yet to be preserved from the like Misfortune near to this 60 Years.
Gockelius informs us, [5]“That the Contagion in the same Year 1665 was brought into Germany by a Body of Soldiers returning from the Wars in Hungary against the Turks, spread the Infection about Ulm and Ausburgh, where he then lived, and besides the Plague, they brought along with them the Hungarian and other malignant Fevers, which diffused themselves about the Neighbourhood, whereof many died.[6]
And with Submission to the wise Judgment and Opinion of these learned Triumviri, who have cited no fuller Authority for this Assertion than a bare Relation of it from Hodges de Peste; it may be no unreasonable Conjecture to have its first Progress from Hungary, Germany, and to Holland, from which last Place they all have agreed we certainly received the Contagion; and that we have had the Plague convey’d to us by the like Means may be found in the Bibliotheca Anotomica, being brought to us by some Troops from Hungary sent thither against the Turks by Henry VI. King of England.
Dr. Mead, who thinks it necessary to premise somewhat in general concerning the Propagation of the Plague, might, to the three Causes he has laid down, of a bad Air, diseased Persons, and Goods transported from Abroad, have added the Aliment or Diet, because affording Matter to the Juices it does not less contribute to the Generation of Diseases: And it may be observed, that in the Year before the pestilential Sickness, there was a great Mortality amongst the Cattel from a very wet Autumn, and their Carcasses being sold amongst the ordinary People at a very mean Price, a great many putred Humours might proceed from thence; and this, in the Opinion of many, was the Source of our late Calamities, when it was observed this fatal Destroyer raged with greater Triumph over the common People: And the feeding on unripened and unsound Fruits are frequently charged with a Share in Mischiefs of this Kind. Galen[7] is very positive in this Matter, and in one Place accuses[8] his great Master to Hippocrates with neglecting the Consequence of too mean a Diet: From this ’tis generally observed, that a Dearth or Famine is the Harbinger to a following Plague. And we have an Account from our Merchants trading to Surat, Bencoli, and some other Parts of the East-Indies, that the Natives are never free from that Distemper, which is imputed to their low and pitiful Fare. The Europeans, especially the English, escaping by their better Diet, by feeding on good Flesh, and drinking of strong generous Wine, which secures them from the Power of that Malignancy.
Their Hypotheses as widely differ in the very Substance or Nature of the Pestilence; and Dr. [9]Hodges, [10]Mead, and [11]Quincey, have asserted, that it proceeds from a Corruption of the Volatile Salts, or the Nitrous Spirit in the Air.
Dr. [12]Bradley, from the Number of poisonous Animals, Insects, or Maggots which at that Time are swimming or driving in the circumambient Air; and being sucked into our Bodies along with our Breath, are sufficiently capable of causing those direful Depredations on Mankind called the Plague. Both these Opinions are supported by the Authorities of Learned Men.
And if Hodges, &c. have the Suffrages of the greatest of the ancient Physicians, with those of Wolfius, Agricola, Forestus, Fernelius, Belini, Carolus de là Font, &c. Bradley may challenge to him the famed Kirchir, Malhigius, Leeuwenhooch, Morgagni, Redi, and Mangetus.
It is almost endless as well as altogether needless, to cite all the Authorities for the different Opinions, that might be collected from the most remote Antiquity down to the present Age.
And although it is yet to be contested, and might be held an occult Quality with those learned Gentlemen, we shall find, each Doctor passes his favourite Opinion upon the World with as much Infallibility as a Demonstration in Euclid.
[13]And for that Opinion of the famous Kirchir, about animated Worms, (says Hodges) ‘I must confess I could never come at any such Discovery with the Help of the best Glasses, nor ever found the same discovered by any other; but perhaps in our cloudy Island we are not so sharp-sighted as in the serene Air of Italy; and with Submission to so great a Name, it seems to me very disconsonant to Reason, that such a pestilential Seminium, which is both of a nitrous and poisonous Nature, should produce a living Creature.’ And he is well assured, that he is in the right, when he says, ‘[14]Every one of those Particulars are as clear as the Light at Noon-Day; and those Explications are so obvious to be met with in the Writings of the Learned, that it would be lost Labour to insist upon any such Thing here.’
[15]Dr. Mead chimes in here very tuneably with Hodges, and is pleased to say, ‘That some Authors have imagined Infection to be performed by the Means of Insects, the Eggs of which may be conveyed from Place to Place, and make the Disease when it comes to be hatch’d. As this is a Supposition grounded upon no Manner of Observation, so I think there is no need to have Recourse to it.’
Dr. Bradley, who hatches this Distemper by the smaller Kind of Insects floating in the Air, is greatly jealous of his favourite Egg, from which that fatal Cockatrice breaks forth and disperses Death in every Quarter: He may be seen to promote this Hypothesis in that Discourse of his new Improvement of Planting, &c. and with no less Pursuit in his late Pamphlet on the Plague at Marseilles; where in his Preface, p. 13, he tells you, ‘That to suppose this malignant Distemper is occasioned by Vapours only arising from the Earth, is to lay aside our Reason, &c.’
And it may be farther observed, That they are as remote from their Consent to one another, as in the distant Place from whence they would trace its Origin.
[16]Dr. Mead, from a bare Transcription of Matthæus Villanus, does affirm, That the Plague in the Year 1346, had its first Rise in China, advancing through the East-Indies, Syria, Turkey, &c. and by Shipping from the Levant, brought into Europe, which in the Year 1349. seized England. This is directly against Dr. Bradley,[17] who suggests the Plague is no where to be found in India, China, the South Parts of Africa and America, and has taken the Pains in filling up three Pages in the Defence of this Assertion.
It would be well if their Opposition ended here; but when it affects us more near, when their Difference becomes more wide in the very Means of our Preservation, and what by one is laid down as a soveraign and real Good, to be returned by another as the most fatal and destructive, is a Weight of no small Consequence, nor a less melancholly Reflection, if it should please God to inflict us with the same Calamities.
And as to those preservative Means which the Government have only a Power to direct, the making of large Fires in the Streets, as has been practised in the Times of Contagion, is a Point largely contested.
Dr. Hodges[18] seems inveterate against this Custom, and tells us, ‘That before three Days were expired after the Fires made in 1665, the most fatal Night ensued, wherein more than 4000 expired; the Heavens both mourn’d so many Funerals, and wept for the fatal Mistake, so as to extinguish even the Fires with their Showers. May Posterity, (says he) be warned by this Mistake, and not like Empericks, apply a Remedy where they are ignorant of the Cause.’
And Dr. Mead[19] has an Eye to this Remark, when he tells us, ‘The fatal Success of the Trials in the last Plague is more than sufficient to discourage any farther Attempts of this Nature.’ Whereas on the contrary, the making of Fires in the Streets were practised from the greatest Antiquity, and supported by Mayerne, Butler, and Harvey in the two great Plagues before the Year 1665, and recommended by Dr. Quincey[20] for the Dissipation of Pestilential Vapours, &c. And without all manner of Dispute, Dr. Bradley[21] must be wholly on his Side, when he tells us, ‘That the Year 1665, was the last that we can say raged in London, which might happen from the Destruction of the City by Fire the following Year 1666, and besides the destroying of the Eggs or Seeds of those poisonous Animals that were then in the stagnating Air, might likewise purifie the Air in such a Manner as to make it unfit for the Nourishment of others of the same kind, which were swimming or driving in the circumambient Air.’
What has been said of Fires is likewise to be understood of firing of Guns, which some have too rashly advised. Says Dr. Mead[22], ‘The proper Correction of the Air would be to make it fresh and cool.’ And here quotes from the Practice of the Arabians out of Rhazes de re Medica, &c. Dr. Quincey[23] ‘That as the Air being still and as it were stagnate at such Times, and as it favours the Collection of poisonous Effluvia, and aggravates Infection, thinks it more effectual to let off small Parcels of the common Pulvis Fulminans, which must afford a greater Shock to the Air by its Explosion than by the largest Pieces of Ordnance.’ In favour of which last Assertion, the Experience both of Soldiers, will justifie the firing of great Guns and Ordnance, which is frequently used in Camps, for the Dissipation of the collected pestilential Atoms, which by Concussion as well as its constituent Parts of Nitre and Sulphur, tend greatly to the Purification of the grosser Atmosphere within the Compass of their Activity; and by the Seamen in their Voyages in the Southern Parts of the World, when sometimes the Air is so gross, and hangs so low upon them, as to be almost suffocated. And in the late Plague at Marseilles the constant firing of great Guns at Morning and Evening, by the Appointment of Monsieur le Marquis de Langeron their Governour, was esteemed of great Relief to the Inhabitants.
Nay, their Contest will not end in a Pipe of Tobacco, against which Dr. Hodges[24] declares himself a profess’d Enemy: ‘But whether (says he) we regard the narcotick Quality of this American Henbane; or the poisonous Oil which exhales from it in Smoaking, or that prodigious Discharge of Spittle which it occasions, and which Nature wants for many other important Occasions, besides the Aptitude of the pestilential Poison to be taken down along with it; he chose rather to supply its Place with Sack.’
Dr. Bradley[25] redeems it from this low Character, and represents it as a great Antidote in the last Plague Anno 1665. ‘The Distemper did not reach those who smoak’d Tobacco every Day, but particularly it was judged best to smoak in a Morning: He farther gives you an Account of a famous Physician, who in the pestilential Time took every Morning a Cordial to guard his Stomach, and after that a Pipe or two, before he went to visit his Patients; at the same time he had an Issue in his Arm, by which, when it begun to smart, he knew he had received some Infection (as he says) and then had recourse to his Cordial and his Pipe.’ By this Means only he preserved himself, as several others did at that Time by the same Method.
I could heartily wish those worthy Gentlemen had struck in with greater Harmony to the Satisfaction and Security of the People, whose Expectations were greatly raised by the Hopes of their Assistance, by gaining a greater Light into the Nature, Quality, Symptoms, and Affections of this definitive Ill, to have promoted their Safety, by giving the necessary Indications relating to the Cure, as well as the necessary Precautions in order to guard us from that secret Attack which may approach us by very minute and unheeded Causes; the which, from their different Notions and positive Contradictions, lay too deep from the narrow Re-searches of those Philosophizing and Learned Gentlemen, and for the Manner whereby it kills, its Approaches are generally so secret, that Persons seiz’d with it seem to be fallen into an Ambuscade or a Snare, of which there was no Manner of Suspicion. And there are very few Discourses relating to the Pestilence but what abound in many Instances of this kind: And the Learned Boccace, in his Admirable Description of the Plague at Florence (quoted by Dr. Mead[26] Anno 1348) relates what himself saw, ‘That two Hogs finding in the Streets some Rags which had been thrown off from a poor Man dead of the Disease, after snuffling upon them, and tearing them with their Teeth, fell into Convulsions, and died in less than an Hour.’
The Misfortune which happened in the Island of Bermudas about 25 Years since, which Account is from Dr. Halley; A Sack of Cotton put ashore by Stealth, lay above a Month without any Prejudice to the People of the House where it was hid; but when it came to be distributed among the Inhabitants, it carried such a Contagion along with it, that the Living scarce sufficed to bury the Dead.
And Dr. Quincey[27] has somewhere read a strange Story in Baker’s Chronicle, ‘of a great Rot amongst Sheep, which was not quite rooted out until about Fourteen Years time, that was brought into England by a Sheep bought for its uncommon Largeness, in a Country then infected with the same Distemper.’
Fracastorius[28], an eminent Italian Physician, tells us, ‘That in the Year 1511, when the Germans were in Possession of Verona, there arose a deadly Disease amongst the Soldiers, from the wearing only of a Coat purchased for a small Value; for it was observed, that every Owner of it soon sickned and died; until at last the Cause of it was so manifestly known from some Infection in the Coat, that it was ordered to be burned.’ Ten thousand Persons, he says, were computed to fall by this Plague before it ceased.
And Kephale, in his Medela Pestilentiæ, printed Anno 1665, acquaints us, That the following Plagues were produced from the following Causes.
That in the Year 1603, the contagious Seeds were brought to England amongst Seamens Clothes in White-Chappel; and in that Year there died of the Plague 30561.
That in the Year 1625, was bred and produced by rotten Mutton at Stepney; of which died 35403 Persons.
That in the Year 1630, was brought to us by a Bale of Carpets from Turkey, of which died 1317 Persons.
That in the Year 1636, was brought over to us by a Dog from Amsterdam; of which died 10400 Persons.
That in the Year 1665, was brought from Turkey in a Bale of Cotton to Holland, thence to England; in this great Plague died no less than 100,000 People.
And at Marseilles, in this present Year 1720, the Plague has swept away more than 70000 Persons, which was brought in Goods from Sidon, a fam’d and ancient City and Sea-port in Phœnicia, and the same which sometimes is mentioned in Holy Writ.
From the Neighbourhood of this last Contagion, the frightful Apprehensions of the People are rais’d to the greatest Height; and when every one is consulting his own Security, how to guard and preserve himself from that dreadful Enemy, nothing can come more seasonably to their Relief, than to lay before them a Compendium of the best and approved Rules for their Conduct; to which End I have carefully collected, from the successful Practice of Dr. Glisson, Sir Thomas Millington, Dr. Charlton, and other Learned Physicians in the last Plague, with what only may be of Use from the abounding Prescripts of those who have lately published, and as this Evil is supported throughout the general Practice, it appears to be the Result of the Reasoning of some of the Learned Sons of Æsculapius, to marshal into the Field as many Compositions as if only by their Number they might be able to pull down the Tyranny of this fatal Destroyer.
It would be a Work insuperable, and altogether foreign to the Method I have gone by, to extract all the Medicines which some Writers abound with for this End; it is our Business here chiefly to take Notice of that saving Regimen, that Rule of Self-governing, which proved more successful in the Preservation of the People in the late Plague, than all the abounding Nostrums that have been crouded into the Practice, the which has become a due Reproach to the Faculty.
Turpe est Doctori, quem culpa redarguit ipsum.
And it is here worthy of our first Remark, That the last Plague, in the Year 1665, as well from the late Accounts we have of that at Marseilles, the poorer Sort of People were those that mostly suffered, which can only be attributed to their mean and low Fare, whereas the most nutritive and generous Diet should be promoted, and such as generate a warm and rich Blood, Plenty of Spirits, and what easily perspires, which otherwise would be apt to ferment and generate Corruption.
Your greatest Care is, to have your Meat sweet and good, neither too moist nor flashy, having a certain Regard to such as may create an easy Digestion, and observing that roasted Meats on those Occasions should be preferred; as Beef, Mutton, Lamb, Venison, Turkey, Capon, Pullet, Chicken, Pheasant, and Partridge: But Pidgeon, and most Sort of Wild and Sea Fowl to be rejected: Salt Meats to be cautiously used; all hot, dry, and spicey Seasonings to be avoided; most Pickles and rich Sauces to be encouraged, with the often Use of Garlick, Onion, and Shallot; the cool, acid, and acrid Herbs and Roots, as Lettuce, Spinnage, Cresses, Sorrel, Endive, and Sellery; all windy Things, which are subject to Putrefaction, to be refrained, as all kind of Pulse, Cabbage, Colliflower, Sprouts, Melons, Cucumbers, &c. as also most Summer Fruits, excepting Mulberries, Quinces, Pomegranates, Raspers, Cherries, Currants, and Strawberries, which are of Service when moderately eat of.
All light and viscid Substances to be avoided, as Pork, most Sorts of Fish, of the latter that may be eat, are Soles, Plaise, Flounder, Trout, Gudgeon, Lobster, Cray-fish, and Shrimps, no Sort of Pond-Fish being good; and for your Sauce, fresh melted Butter, or Oil mixed with Vinegar or Verjuice, the Juice of Sorrel, Pomegranates, Barberries, of Lemon or Seville Orange, which two last are to be preferred, from their Power of resisting all Manner of Putrefaction, as well to cool the violent Heat of the Stomach, Liver, &c.
For your Bread, to be light, and rather stale than new, not to drink much of Malt Liquors, avoiding that which is greatly Hopped, or too much on the ferment, Mead and Metheglin are of excellent Use, and good Wines taken moderately are a strong Preservative, Sack especially being accounted the most Soveraign and the greatest Alexipharmick: Excess is dangerous to the most healthy Constitution, which may beget Inflammations of fatal Consequence in pestilential Cases.
Let none go Home fasting, every one, as they can procure, to take something as may resist Putrefaction; some may take Garlick with Bread and Butter, a Clove two or three, or with Rue, Sage, Sorrel, dipt in Vinegar, the Spirit of Oil of Turpentine frequently drank in small Doses is of great Use; as also to lay in steep over-Night, of Sage well bruis’d two Handfuls, of Wormwood one Handful, of Rue half a Handful, put to them in an Earthen Vessel four Quarts of Mild Beer; which in the Morning to be drank fasting.
The Custom that prevails now of drinking Coffee, Bohea-Tea, or Chocolate, with Bread and Butter, is very good; at their going abroad ’tis proper to carry Rue, Angelica, Masterwort, Myrtle, Scordianum or Water-Germander, Wormwood, Valerian or Setwal-Root, Virginian Snake-Root, or Zedoary in their Hands to smell to, or of Rue one Handful stampt in a Mortar, put thereto Vinegar enough to moisten it, mix them well, then strain out the Juice, wet a Piece of Sponge or a Toast of brown Bread therein, tie it in a Bit of thin Cloth to smell to.
But there is nothing more grateful and efficacious than the volatile Sal Armoniac, well impregnated with the essential Oils of aromatick Ingredients, which may be procured dry, and kept in small Bottles, from a careful Distillation of the common Sal Volatile Oleosum.
Sometimes more fœtid Substances agree better with some Persons than the more grateful Scents, of which the most useful Compositions may be made of Rue, Featherfew, Galbanum, Assafœtida, and the like, with the Oil of Wormwood, the Spirit or Oil drawn and dropt upon Cotton, so kept in a close Ivory Box, though with Caution to be used, the often smelling to, dilating the Pores of the Olfactory Organs, which may give greater Liberty for the pestilential Air to go along with it. A Piece of Orris Root kept in the Mouth in passing along the Streets, or of Garlick, Orange or Lemon Peel, or Clove, are of very great Service. As also Lozenges of the following Composition, which are always profitable to be used fasting; of Citron Peel two Drams, Zedoary, Angelica, of each, prepar’d in Rose Vinegar, half a Dram, Citron Seeds, Wood of Aloes, Orris, of each two Scruples, Saffron, Cloves, Nutmeg, one Scruple, Myrrh, Ambergrease, of each six Grains, Sugarcandy one Ounce; make into Lozenges with Gum Traganth and Rose-water.
I know not indeed a greater Neglect than not keeping the Body clean, and the keeping at a distance any thing superfluous and offensive, to keep the House airy and fresh, and moderately cool, and to strew it with Herbs, Rushes, and Boughs, which yield refreshing Scents, and contribute much to the purifying of the Air, and resisting the Infection; of this kind all Sorts of Rushes and Water Flags, Mint, Balm, Camomil Grass, Hyssop, Thyme, Pennyroyal, Rue, Wormwood, Southernwood, Tansy, Costmary, Lime-tree, Oak, Beech, Walnut, Poplar, Ash, Willow, &c. A frequent Change of Clothes, and a careful drying or airing them abroad, with whisking and cleaning of them from all Manner of Filth and Dust, which may harbour Infection, as it is likewise to keep the Windows open at Sun-Rise till the Setting, especially to the North and East, for the cold Blasts from those Quarters temper the Malignity of pestilential Airs.
Preservative Fumigations are largely talked of by all on those Occasions, and they with good Reason deserve to be practised. And of the great Number of Aromatick Roots and Woods, I should chiefly prefer Storax, Benjamin, Frankinsense, Myrrh, and Amber, the Wood of Juniper, Cypress and Cedar, the Leaves of Bays and Rosemary, and the Smell of Tarr and Pitch is no ways inferior to any of the rest, where its Scent is not particularly offensive, observing the burning of any or more of those Ingredients at such proper Distances of Time from each other, that the Air may always be sensibly impregnated therewith.
Amongst the Simples of the Vegitable Kind, Virginian Snake-Root cannot be too much admired, and is deservedly accounted the most Diaphoretick and Alexipharmick for expelling the pestilential Poison; its Dose, finely powder’d, is from four or six Grains to two Scruples, in a proper Vehicle; due Regard being had to the Strength and Age of the Patient.
The next is generally given to the Contrayerva Root, (from which also a Compound Medicine is admirably contrived, and made famous by its Success in the last Plague;) the Dose of this in fine Powder is from one Scruple to a Dram, in Angelica or Scordium Water, or in Wine, &c.
There are other Roots likewise of which many valuable Compounds are form’d in order to effect that with an united Force which they could not do singly; in this Class are the Roots of Angelica, Scorzonera, Butterbur, Masterwort, Tormentil, Zedoary, Garlick, Elicampane, Valerian, Birthwort, Gentian, Bitany, and many others, which may be found in other Writings.
Ginger, whether in the Root, powder’d, and candy’d deserve our Regard; for it is very powerful both to raise a breathing Sweat and defend the Spirits against the pestilential Impression.
From these Roots may be made Extracts, either with Spirit of Wine or Vinegar, for it is agreed by all, that the most subtil Particles collected together, and divested of their grosser and unprofitable Parts, become more efficacious in Medicinal Cases.
The Leaves of Vegetables most us’d in Practice are Scordiam, Rue, Sage, Veronica, the lesser Cataury, Scabious, Pimpinel, Marygolds, and Baum, from which, on Occasion, several Formulæ are contrived.
Good Vehicles to wash down and to facilitate the taking of many other Medicines, should be made of the Waters distilled from those Herbs while they are fresh and fragrant (having not yet lost their volatile Salt) for those which are commonly kept in the Shop, are insipid and of little Use.
FINIS.
Footnotes:
[1] An Ægyptian, and the first Inventor of Physick;
[2] The Son of Apollo, begotten upon Coronis, the Daughter of Phlegia.
[3] The two eldest Daughters of Æsculapius.
[4] See Hodges of the Plague, reprinted per Qincey, p. 19.
[5] Vid. Gockelius de peste, p. 25.
[6] Vid. Gockelius de peste, p. 25.
[7] Lib. 1. de differ. Feb. Cap. 3. & de cibis mali & boni succi.
[8] Lib. 6. Obser. 9. 26.
[9] Liomologia, p. 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 42, 44, 52, 53, 54, 75.
[10] Short Discourse, p. 11, 17.
[11] Different Causes, p. 266.
[12] Plague, Marseilles, p. 17, 30, 31, 36, 41.
[13] Hodges’s Limologia, p. 64.
[14] Hodges’s Limilogia, p. 32.
[15] Short Discourse, p. 16.
[16] Short Discourse, p. 10.
[17] Plague, Marseilles, p. 31, 32, 33.
[18] Loimologia, p. 20.
[19] Short Discourse, p. 46.
[20] Liomologia Causes and Cures, p. 281.
[21] Plague, Marseilles, p. 9.
[22] Short Discourse, p, 46.
[23] Loimologia, p. 283.
[24] Loimologia, p. 218.
[25] Plague, Marseilles, p. 40.
[26] Short Discourse, p. 24.
[27] Loimologia, Causes and Cures, p. 255.
[28] De Morbis Contag. Lib. II. Cap. 7.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Other than the corrections noted by hover information, spelling inconsistencies/errors have been retained from the original.