I do not know indeed throughout the whole Compass of Nature, (as before it hath been frequently hinted) any Thing so subtile as the pestilential Poison, and what will penetrate the Body with so much Swiftness and Secrecy, insomuch that it is not perceived sometimes till long after its Entrance; what therefore is commonly said of its sensible Attack, and that the infected feel its first Insult as from a sudden Blow, is more the Effect of a deluded Imagination and Conjecture, than any solid Judgment; as the Populace are apt enough to frame strange Conceits out of their own Heads, and what hath long obtained amongst them is very difficult to erace.
WHEN therefore such a kind of People hath received the Notion, as was common in the late Sickness, concerning the forementioned Manner of Infection, it is no great Wonder that others likewise in general go into the Error, and take it for granted that this unmerciful Destroyer makes its Seizure in this violent Way, and therefrom wait for it as for a hidden Stroke.
ALTHOUGH I am not insensible, that some may have thus perceived its first Impression, upon taking in ungrateful and filthy Smells; for the pestilential Seminium, (as before observed) when it incorporates with other Bodies that are gross, fat, and viscid, may strike the Organs of Sensation very manifestly at its first Entrance.
AFTER the pestilential Miasmata have thus seized a Person, and the Spirits are overcome, the whole Mass of Blood, and other animal Juices, partake of the Disorder; from whence proceed Struggles not to be born, and a Train of Symptoms, of which quaking or shuddering is the chief, all of a sudden, without any manifest Cause.
THIS Symptome owes its Origin to the Conflict of Nature with the infused Malignity, whose Efforts of Resistance excite a Sense of Cold from the pestilential Seminium; after the same Manner as Nitre put upon the Tongue excites the same Sensation; it is also to be suspected that this Rigor may be owing to a Quality in the poysonous Effluvia of extinguishing the native
Heat: And the Spasmodick Affections of the Nerves proceed from salt, sharp, malignant, and heterogeneous Particles rushing into the sensible Fibres, and vellicating them into involuntary Motions and Twitchings.
THE greatest Part indeed of the Infected perceived this Horror, but some of them more vehemently than others; but of the immediate Impression upon the Spirit there is no Room to doubt, nor of a consequent Degeneration of the whole Mass of Blood; although I am sensible that the Subtilty of the pestilential Taint took Place sooner or later, according to the different Degrees of Strength and Texture in the Body to resist it.
IT is certain that the fine and exquisite Contexture of the nervous System, and the Agreement and Consent of one Part with another, as well as the extraordinary Perfection of the Animal Spirits, set as Guards over such sensible Parts, could not but be affected with the Apprehensions of Mischief, and shake and tremble, and use their Efforts to throw off the Danger; and indeed I take it further to be probable, that the pestilential Poison might be shook by such Means out of the Nerves into the
Muscles, and there cause Tention, Trembling, Vellication, Yawning, Stretching, and all those other Concomitants of putrid and malignant Fevers.
THE Duration also of this Shuddering was as uncertain as its Degree, for it went off sometimes sooner, and at others later; sometimes in half an Hour, and at others, not till four or five Hours; which Difference I conjecture owing to the Quantity and Intenseness of the Malignity, as to the greater or lesser Struggles of Nature to resist it.