AND Lastly, to conclude this Doctrine concerning the Spirits Infection, this irrefragable Argument may be produced from the Intention of Cure; for I have experienced by more than a thousand Instances, that the more cardiack and alexipharmick Medicines are subtile and spirituous, the more certainly do they encounter the pestilential Poison with Success; whereas, on the contrary, those Medicines which are
coarser and slower of Exertion, do little or no Good. But this we refer to the curative Part hereafter in another Section.
SECTION IV.
Of the Complication of a Pestilence with
other Distempers, and particularly with
the Scurvy.
AS the Pestilence is the most powerful of all other Distempers, so it also claims a particular Privilege of joining with all others; so that it does not more excel in its own Contrariety and Antipathy to Nature, than it asserts a Prerogative over all those various Evils which the humane Frame is subjected to, and draws them into its Assistance in exercising its cruel Power over Mankind.
THIS Assertion might be supported by a Multitude of Instances, if it were not for taking up too much of the Reader’s Time; for which Reason we shall only take Notice, that amongst all those Distempers which are thus inclined to join their Forces with this most powerful Enemy, some seem to have a more particular
Fitness for such a Union, from a common Affinity in the Nature of their Infection, and the Energy of their Poison.
ONE of the First of this Class is the venereal Disease, with which the pestilential Venom does in a very familiar Manner unite it self. At the first breaking out indeed of the last Sickness it was given out by common Fame, that those who were previously infected with any foul Distemper, as the Pox in particular, would be secured thereby against the pestilential Taint; but wicked and impious was the Consequence of such a Suggestion; for many were hereby encouraged to seek the most lascivious and filthy Prostitutions, on purpose to be secur’d by one previous Infection against another: But besides the poisonous Quality peculiar to this nasty Disease, besides that Expence of Spirit in the procuring it, and besides a lost Force of the Constitution thereby, the greatest Aggravation to this Misfortune was, that the very Taint which was to defend against another, had it in its Nature to be more forcibly attracted by it; so that the rash Adventurer was soon brought to a bitter Repentance for his Experiment, by sinking immediately
under the pestilential Contagion at its first Stroke; and it was common to find, by a very easy Transition, the venereal Buboes changed into pestilential Carbuncles, except in a few Instances where Nature found out an uncommon Artifice against these united Powers, by endeavouring an Ejectment of their joint Malignities by Salivation, whereby sometimes the Patient was brought into some Chance for his Life, both the Poisons being in a great Measure cast off together that way.
BUT here it may not be improper to admonish the young Physicians not to be too forward Imitators of Nature in such a Circumstance; unless they will run the same Hazard with a certain Empirick, who crouded his Powders upon the Sick that raised an untimely spitting, and brought a great many into a dangerous Condition, which by a regular Practice might have been, tho’ with Difficulty, saved.