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.