BUT to go on in the Enumeration of Symptoms, Sweat deserves mention, because sometimes it breaks out in such Profusion as if the whole Constitution was dissolved, and with a vast Loss of Spirits and Strength, to the imminent Danger of the Patient, by such a Dissipation of Spirits, such a Colliquation of the Balsam
of Life, and an Extinction of the natural Heat. And indeed I know nothing that more powerfully attenuates the Humours, and more suddenly puts all the animal Juices into Fusion, so as to run them through the Pores of the Skin, and the pestilential nitro-aereal Poyson; and by whose colliquative Quality even the fleshy Parts are dissolved and exhaled in vapour.
THESE Sweats also of the Infected are not only profuse, but also variously coloured; in some of a citron Hue, in others Purple, in some green or black, and in others like Blood; which I take to be from the various Dispositions of the morbifick Venom, to give different Tinctures to the Humours: And by this Means some experienced Nurses could prognosticate the Event of the Distemper from the Colour of the Cloaths or Linen tinged with the Sweat.
THE Sweat of some would be so fetid and intolerable, from a kind of Empyreumatick Disposition, possibly, of the Juices, that no one could endure his Nose within the Stench; sometimes it was sharp, and in a Manner caustick; and hence it
was easy to judge from what Origin the Pestilence derived its Qualities, viz. From a sharp and burning Ichor, that would even excoriate the Parts, and sometimes vesicate them, as if scalding Water had been poured upon them.
SOMETIMES cold Sweats would break out, while the Heat raged inwardly, and excited unquenchable Drought. Some continued in a Profusion of Sweat until Life it self exhaled with it, while others had short Intervals of Truce and Cessation; nay, some at the same time sweat on one Side, while the other was quite parched with Dryness.
BUT the Benefit of this Evacuation, when it was regular, either natural or by Art, was so manifest, that all the Infected that recovered were sensible of it, and greatly rejoyced at its good Effects; for those pestilential Particles, which eluded the Power of all other Means, immediately upon a Sweat, as at a common Signal, made their Escape with the transpiring Steam; but whensoever Diaphoreticks could not conquer the Coagulation, Viscidity, or Obstinacy of the pestilential Poyson,
it always went very bad, being commonly followed by a Symptomatical Sweat, and a fatal Separation of the animal Fluids.
YET the Energy of the pestilential Contagion not only freely discovered its self in these Profusions amongst the Living, who (as already observed) were dissolved as in an Helodes and a Typhodes, but commonly the very Carcases when dead, would weep out, as it were, the morbid Ferment, both through the cutaneous Pores, and the common lachrymal Ducts of the Eyes.
THERE is no Occasion to say much concerning Hemorrhages at Nose; this Symptom happening much more often from the Colliquative Nature of the Poison, and its Erosion of the Vessels, than from a Plethora; as is evident more from the ichorous Colour of the Blood than its continual Distillation from those Vessels.