BUT in the Prosecution hereof, as some heretofore have taken a great deal of Pains to no Purpose in finding an universal specifick against the Pestilence, and have imposed many palpable Falsities upon the World under such Pretences; so our modern Coal-Blowers have in like Manner cried up their pernicious Secrets, and wickedly imposed them upon the credulous Populace. Certainly these publick Cheats ought themselves to be deemed pestilential, as their Notions and Practice is abhorrent to all sound Reason: For if the Arguments on both Sides the Question be fairly stated, and one will be convinced, that there never as yet hath been discovered in Nature, the full and absolute Essence of a Pestilence, but that it still remains a Mystery to Mankind; wherefore in this Distemper a Person must proceed, as in all others, by a serious Attention to the manifest Symptoms, and a rational Conformity of the Means of Cure thereunto; and while we hold to this only Rule of Procedure, although the Severity of the Distemper may conquer several, yet many also may be saved.
IT now comes to us to declare what a Physician has to do in this Calamity; as therefore the Disease admits of no Delays, Help must be immediately procured, and the Physician ought to fly to the Patient’s Succour, least, by any Omission, the Case should be got beyond Recovery, and a Person be lost for Want of timely Assistance.
WHEN the Physician is come, he ought to address the Patient with Chearfulness, and blame those Fears and melancholy Apprehensions which give many over too much into the Power of the Distemper, by cutting off all Hopes of Recovery.
LASTLY, according to the general Directory of our College beforementioned, the most generous and efficacious Medicines must be contrived with the utmost Care and Deliberation.
IN the first Place then, whether Phlebotomy is to be practiced or not is justly to be questioned; and indeed I should pass it by here as fatal, but that I know many unskilful and rash Persons, who not only let Blood largely at one Time, but
order it likewise to be repeated until the Patient faints.
BUT if the Authority of the Ancients as well as the Experience of the Moderns hath any Weight, and indeed if our own Practice may be regarded, it is highly to be feared, from many Instances, that Bleeding in a genuine Pestilence is not only to be suspected, but charged as pernicious; for we have many times seen the Blood and Life drawn away together; which makes it astonishing to see the Practisers in such Mischief dare to justifie the fatal Error; what is it that indicates this Evacuation, is it intense Heat; or any Turgescency of the Vessels? Or is it to give Vent to the pestilential Poison to make its escape? Certainly nothing to me seems more absurd; for if the other Symptoms do not remit with the Fever, the Patient will be plunged into the utmost Hazard; for how can the Blood and other Juices be depurated, if the febrile Heat is extinguished? not to say any thing of a Suppression of salutary Breathings hereby, a Perversion of the natural Secretions, and Sinking the Spirits.
THEY also are under as great an Error, who fetch their Reasons for this Practice from the Turgescency of the Vessels; for while inordinate Hurries are excited in the Blood, from disagreeing and heterogeneous Particles striving to extricate themselves from one another, there is made thereby only a seeming Plenitude; what Madness then must it be, in order to remove an imaginary Fulness, to sink the necessary Strength by a rash Effusion of Blood?
AND lastly, the morbifick Poison is not of that kind, as to seek an Escape at the Orifice of a Vein, and run out with the flowing Blood; and which (as before proved) affecting chiefly the Spirits, and residing in other Vessels, makes this Method of Cure in a Pestilence impracticable. I will not however deny but that there may possibly be Circumstances in malignant and pestilential Fevers, which may justifie Phlebotomy, as when it is done for Revulsion sake, in too great a Flux of the Menses: But in a genuine Pestilence, it is not to be meddled with. There is but one, as I can remember, who survived it in the late Sickness; but it is needless to say any more
upon a Subject so plain, and therefore I shall pass to what is of more Consequence.