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.