———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.